Cdc Recommends Covid Booster Shots For Millions Of Americans
Recipients of the Moderna and the J.& J. vaccines may receive extra doses, although the shots continue to prevent illness and death.
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In a sweeping victory for the Biden administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday endorsed booster shots of the Moderna and the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines for tens of millions of Americans.
The decision follows an agency endorsement last month of booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and opens the door for many Americans to seek out a booster shot as early as Friday.
The coronavirus vaccines are all highly effective in reducing the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death, even in the midst of the widely circulating Delta variant, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the C.D.C., said in a statement.
Her approval brings the country closer to fulfilling President Bidens promise in August to offer boosters to all adults. The pandemic is now retreating in most parts of the country, but there are still about 75,000 new cases every day, and about 1,500 Covid deaths.
That pledge angered many experts, including some advising the Food and Drug Administration and the C.D.C., who said that scientists had not yet had a chance to determine whether boosters were actually necessary.
It might be too much to ask for a vaccine, either a primary series or the booster, to prevent all forms of infections, Dr. Chen said.
What to Know About Covid-19 Booster Shots
Chart: How Many Shots From Each Vaccine Manufacturer Have Been Administered
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses, and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only one for the recipient to be fully vaccinated. For the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, a second shot should be administered about three or four weeks after the first, depending on which of the vaccines was given.
Read more:Comparing the COVID-19 vaccines
Map: How Many People Have Been Vaccinated In Each State
States prioritized at-risk populations to be vaccinated first, including medical staff, people in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities, essential workers, the elderly and people with medical conditions that put them at greater risk of becoming seriously ill with COVID-19.
Any person age 12 and older in the U.S. is now eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
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Vaccination Rates By County Social Vulnerability
Counties are ranked according to the Social Vulnerability Index, a C.D.C. indicator used in public health crises that is based on socioeconomic status, housing, transportation, race, ethnicity and language. Each countys vaccination rate is its share of all residents that have been fully vaccinated, a figure that does not reflect those who have only received one dose of a two-shot vaccine.
Expert Explains How We’ll Know If Vaccines Work Against Omicron Variant
The United States has fully vaccinated more than 100 million people against Covid-19, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — a milestone that comes with optimism about the future.
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When All Adults Became Eligible For The Vaccine In Each State
Before April
Health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities have been eligible for vaccination in every state since the early part of 2021, and people 65 and older have been eligible for several months in every state.
The C.D.C. on May 12 expanded the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine to permit use in children 12 and older, allowing young adolescents to potentially start getting vaccinated before school starts in the fall of 2021. It is unclear when children 11 and younger will be eligible for a vaccine. Pfizer and Moderna have expanded the size of their clinical trials for children ages 5 to 11 a precautionary measure designed to detect rare side effects including heart inflammation problems that turned up in vaccinated people younger than 30.
South Koreans Protest Vaccine Passes As Cases Hit Record Levels
Students and parents in South Korea who have been hesitant about coronavirus vaccinations are protesting the governments plan to shut unvaccinated students out of cram schools, libraries and study rooms as officials seek to raise inoculation rates amid the latest virus surge.
With daily cases at a national record, surpassing 7,000 for the first time on Wednesday, officials this week began requiring vaccine passes, or digital proof of vaccination, for entry into facilities like restaurants, cafes, libraries and private cram schools, known as hagwon in Korean.
The vaccine pass rules took effect on Monday for people 18 and older starting in February they will apply to everyone age 12 and up. About 33 percent of people ages 12 to 17 have been fully vaccinated, the health officials said, far lower than the 92 percent among people ages 18 and over. South Korea began vaccinating all adults in August, and children 12 and up in October.
Several groups representing parents, teachers and students held protests this week criticizing the policy, saying that requiring vaccinations at facilities like hagwon and libraries was essentially forcing children to get vaccinated.
The vaccine passes are effectively a vaccine mandate for children, Park Jae-chan, the president of Seoul Parents Association, said at a news conference on Tuesday. The choice should be left to student and parents.
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What May Motivate The Unvaccinated To Get A Shot
Some people who have yet to get vaccinated say they have encountered obstacles to obtaining shots, are worried about hidden costs or are waiting until they can get a shot from someone they trust. But the share of unvaccinated Americans who are held up because of issues of convenience is shrinking, survey research shows.
Understand Vaccine and Mask Mandates in the U.S.
For some Latino immigrants, fear of immigration authorities has been a roadblock.
For instance, grass-roots organizers recently hosted a vaccine clinic at a supermarket in Merced, a city in Californias fertile Central Valley that draws farmworkers from Mexico. But some residents say they were turned away by the health care workers administering the vaccines because they did not have government-issued IDs although officials have said that only proof of age should be required.
For the undocumented, their fears are not the vaccine but the record keeping that goes along with it, said Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and Democratic state senator in California who has gone into neighborhoods to knock on doors and urge people to get inoculated.
A substantial share of the wait-and-see group more than 40 percent in the Kaiser survey says it would be motivated by vaccine mandates.
But San Francisco became one of the first cities to impose a vaccine mandate for its nearly 35,000 city workers, and immediately encountered resistance from labor unions and other organizations.
Vaccination Progress Across The World
Public health officials have worried since the start of the pandemic that vaccinations would not be equitably distributed around the world. The data appears to be confirming those fears as developed nations are vaccinating their populations far faster than less developed countries. Hover over each location to view country-by-country data.
Vaccination rollouts among countries present an even starker contrast than those among U.S. states. Israel has far outpaced the rest of the worldâs nations, including the United States, by vaccinating a far larger percentage of its population much faster.
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Where Can I Get A Covid
All adults in the U.S. are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and children 12 years and older are able to receive the Pfizer vaccine. Visit Vaccines.gov to find out where vaccines are in stock near you and schedule an appointment.
You can also text your ZIP code to 438 829 to receive contact information for vaccine providers in your area.
Illustrated guide: What to expect before and after getting a COVID-19 vaccine
Populations used for U.S. state, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico calculations are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 state population estimates. Populations used for other territory and associated island state calculations are from the World Bank.
The share of distributed doses used in each state or territory is calculated by dividing the number of doses administered in that state or territory by the number of doses distributed to that state or territory. The percent of people vaccinated in each state, territory or county is calculated by dividing the number of residents of that state, territory or county who have been vaccinated by the population of that state, territory or county.
Because of reporting delays and other factors, the CDC data above may differ from that of states’ and territories’ own reports and dashboards. For more information, see the footnotes on the CDC’s website. To see the CDC’s log of changes and corrections to the data, check the historical updates.
Contributing: Mitchell Thorson, Mike Stucka and Shawn Sullivan
Heres What You Need To Know:
More than 200 million Americans over 60 percent of the population have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The United States crossed that milestone as the threat of the Omicron variant spurred a flurry of jabs in recent days, though the daily rate remains far below its peak in April. And the U.S. lags significantly behind several other countries, which have inoculated over 80 percent of their populations.
Providers are administering about 1.78 million doses per day on average, including first, second and additional doses, about a 47 percent decrease from the peak of 3.38 million reported on April 13, according to federal data.
The United States remains far behind not only developed countries like Singapore and Portugal, which will soon have vaccinated 90 percent of their populations, but developing nations like Cambodia , according to Our World in Data.
Even before the arrival of Omicron, cases and hospitalizations were on the rise in the U.S. as the weather grew colder in much of the country and the highly contagious Delta variant remained a threat. Daily cases are averaging over 120,000 and more than 55,000 patients are hospitalized nationwide, far fewer than in September but an increase of more than 15 percent over the last two weeks. Hospitals have been overstretched from upstate New York to New Mexico.
Many questions remain about Omicron.
Broad mandates by President Biden that had helped boost vaccination rateshave been put on hold by courts.
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How Two Groups Of The Unvaccinated Compare
The demographic profile of those who are waiting for more information about vaccines differs from those who say they will not consider them.
Note: The political party category includes independents who lean toward either party.
Ms. Drew and other people in the so-called wait-and-see group tend to be younger and harbor more concerns about the safety of the vaccines. They may be worried that the vaccines are too new, or about what friends have told them about side effects.
In one Kaiser survey, 44 percent said they would be more likely to get a vaccine once it is fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Currently, the three coronavirus vaccines being offered in the United States have only been granted an emergency use authorization, a step short of full approval.
Its gone from We arent getting it to OK, if I get more information Im going to get it.’ I would rather get it than to bury any one of my children or to have them bury me.
Lakeshia Drew, 41, who said she recently changed her mind about getting a vaccine.
Its kind of like the known versus the unknown for some of those people, said Mollyann Brodie, an executive vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, who runs the groups survey research. Fear is a hard thing to overcome, and there has been a lot of fearmongering with relation to the vaccine, and there is a lot of stuff that isnt known about it.
Who Says Service Disruptions During The Pandemic Led To More Malaria Cases And Deaths
From CNN Healths Jamie Gumbrecht
The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted malaria programs in many high-risk countries, leading to an increase in malaria cases and deaths in 2020, according to a new report from the World Health Organization.
WHOs new report estimates there were 241 million malaria cases in 2020 an increase of 14 million from 2019. It also estimates there were 627,000 malaria deaths globally in 2020 69,000 more than in 2019. The report links 47,000 of the deaths to disruptions in malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment during the pandemic.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 95% of all malaria cases and 96% of deaths in 2020, WHO said. About 80% of deaths in the region were among children younger than 5.
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Employers Should Incentivize Employees And Customers To Get Vaccinated
Businesses and other employers are increasingly creating incentives for employee vaccination. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that of those who said in March that they wanted to wait and see before getting vaccinated, 38 percent would get the vaccine if offered a $200 payment.27 President Biden28 and Gov. Ned Lamont 29 are among the leaders who have called for businesses to do more to promote vaccination through incentives. Some states are offering their own incentives. Gov. Jim Justice announced that West Virginia will give young people ages 16 to 35 who get vaccinated a $100 savings bond, and Gov. Larry Hogan offered $100 to state employees who become fully vaccinated.30 Gov. Andy Beshear is considering vaccination incentives for Kentucky residents.31
Figure 2
Some prominent big businesses are offering their employees incentives for vaccination.32 Darden Restaurants, which operates Olive Garden and other restaurant brands, provides workers up to four hours pay 33 pet product retailer Petco provides $75 34 and grocery chain Kroeger gives a $100 bonus.35 Target, meanwhile, is offering employees four hours of pay as well as Lyft rides to vaccine sites.36
States Ranked By Percentage Of Population Fully Vaccinated: Sept 17
Vermont has the highest percentage of its population fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration data tracker.
The CDC’s data tracker compiles data from healthcare facilities and public health authorities. It updates daily to report the total number of people in each state who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The numbers reported by the CDC may vary from the numbers published on individual states’ public health websites, as there may be reporting lags between the states and the CDC.
As of 6 a.m. EDT Sept. 16, a total of 180,086,143 Americans had been fully vaccinated, or 54.2 percent of the country’s population, according to the CDC’s data.
Below are the states and Washington, D.C., ranked by the percentage of their population that has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the CDC.
1. VermontNumber of people fully vaccinated: 429,145Percentage of population fully vaccinated: 68.77
2. ConnecticutNumber of people fully vaccinated: 2,405,018Percentage of population fully vaccinated: 67.46
3. MaineNumber of people fully vaccinated: 903,390Percentage of population fully vaccinated: 67.21
4. MassachusettsNumber of people fully vaccinated: 4,620,288Percentage of population fully vaccinated: 67.03
5. Rhode IslandNumber of people fully vaccinated: 704,928Percentage of population fully vaccinated: 66.54
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Most Nurses Are Vaccinated So Why Do People Think Health Workers Are Vaccine Hesitant
Many registered nurses see vaccination as their moral responsibility and want everyone else to get theirs too
Charlaine was skeptical of the vaccines at first. She wondered how they were created so quickly, and she was wary of the long history of medical experimentation and disregard for Black people like her in the United States.
But then Charlaine, a nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit, thought about the disparate health outcomes for people of color in the pandemic and knew that she might not receive the same level of care as others if she got sick.
She did her research and determined that the mRNA vaccines, which became available to health workers late last year, are safe and effective. Charlaine, who asked to use only her first name to protect her job, got her vaccine in January. Here we have this virus that is killing, maiming, debilitating people, and I knew that if I was in a position of being sick, I would be treated differently and probably not survive. So that was one layer of protection that I wanted to give myself, she said.
A year and a half into the pandemic, healthcare workers are exhausted, burned out and worried that the worst is far from over. Amid that stress, much attention has been focused on nurses who havent received the vaccine, even though the majority of these essential workers have been inoculated. That has left many nurses feeling betrayed, both by their unvaccinated patients and by public perception.
You’re Vaccinated Congrats Now What Can You Do Safely
After a slow kickoff in December, vaccine administration improved in scale and efficiency. The country surpassed President Biden’s initial goals of getting 100 million vaccines into arms in his first 100 days, reaching 200 million vaccines by day 92.
Administration rates peaked in early April with the United States giving out more than 3 million COVID-19 shots per day but have declined dramatically since, once people who were most eager to get vaccinated received their shots.
Vaccine eligibility opened across the country to everyone 16 and up in the U.S. in mid-April, and expanded to kids as young as 12 in mid-May. By July, the country had made significant progress, but still fell several million people short of President Biden’s goal of getting at least one shot to 70% of adults in the U.S. by Independence Day.
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