More Americans have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine than has been positive for the virus, an early but optimistic milestone in the race to end the pandemic.
On Monday afternoon, 26.5 million Americans had received one or both doses of the conventional vaccines, according to data collected by the Bloomberg Vaccine Detector. Since the first U.S. patient tested positive outside of Seattle a year ago, there are 26.2 million people in the country has tested positive for the disease, and 441,000 have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. has been administering shots at a daily rate faster than any country in the world, delivering around 1.35 million doses per day, according to data collected by Bloomberg. While depleted in the early days, in the six weeks since the first shots went into arms nearly 7.8% of Americans have received one or more doses, and 1.8% are fully vaccinated .
“It is worth noting that today, for the first time, the data said that more people have been vaccinated than have been reported as newly diagnosed cases,” said Paula Cannon, professor of microbiology. at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. “It simply came to our notice then. I all want to win that. ”
Only a few other countries have crossed that milestone: Israel, the UK and the UAE defeated the U.S. to the vaccine line more than days or weeks ago.
Following a holiday rise in American affairs, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are calling for the summit, though that is likely due to behavioral changes, and still no widespread impact from the vaccine. New Covid-19 cases, hospitals and emergency department visits are starting to decline, said Jay Butler, the group’s deputy director for infectious diseases.
“While these trends are encouraging, I want to emphasize that the numbers nationally remain high, and are as high as ever in the pandemic. up to this point, ”he said at a preparatory meeting Friday held with the American Infectious Diseases Association. “If this pandemic was in stock, we might want to sell it.”
It is still possible for the virus to revert, especially if changes occurring in South Africa and elsewhere can catch on. Studies suggest that vaccines, especially the latest images from Johnson & Johnson and Novavax Inc., are not as strong against that snoring as at least one other.
The goal is to eventually achieve herd immunity, when so many Americans are protected thanks to a vaccine or a natural infection that the virus struggles to spread and eventually dies. Public health officials, including Anthony Fauci, the country ‘s chief infectious disease doctor, estimate that 70% to 85% of the 330 million Americans need to be exposed to the pathogen through a virus or vaccine to to reach that level.
Race for Immunity
While past infections may have created immunity, it is unclear how long it lasts. And it comes at a cost – not just deaths but hundreds of thousands of hospitals, and some reporting chronic illness and a wide range of symptoms, including muscle weakness, depression and respiratory issues.
“There is a price to be paid in suffering and in cost for the health system,” said Alessandro Sette, a professor at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology. “It’s long and heavy.”
At the same time, no deaths were closely linked to receiving the Covid-19 vaccine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s voluntary system for monitoring adverse events includes reports of approximately 290 deaths following a vaccine given against a coronavirus since Jan. 22. The majority were elderly with other health issues and none were vaccine-related.
There are still questions. It is not yet clear how many people have been vaccinated or that the disease is, and may not be. Many more people have contracted the virus than have been positively tested, especially those with mild or asymptomatic cases.
Reported vaccines are also lower than the number given because more targeted people are taken into arms than recording the data to tracking systems, Cannon said. Two images are required for full immunity, which received only 5.82 million Americans.
It is still early in the vaccination effort, fueled by a lack of coordination, about who should be able to access and a lack of supply to reduce the number of people who were able to get the bullet. in the first weeks of release.
It’s also important to make sure the right people are getting the vaccine to get the most benefit, said Bill Moss, executive director of the Johns Hopkins University International Vaccination Center.
“Many people receiving the vaccine are not in high-risk areas,” he said. “If that happens, it will take longer to see a reduction in serious illness and death. Everyone needs a vaccine at some point, but I worry about the inequalities in how the system is distributed. ”
The emerging variables have created a new crisis to increase the speed of vaccinations, said Daniela Weiskopf, assistant research professor at La Jolla Institute of Immunology. Each time the virus reproduces, there is a chance that a variable may appear.
“The sooner we stop this, the more likely we are to see more change,” she said.