What Drives The Introduction Of Mandatory Vaccinations
Overall, we found that the occurrence of recent outbreaks is a major factor in the introduction of mandatory vaccination, particularly for high and upper-middle-income countries in Europe. Germany, for example, made measles vaccination mandatory for school and day-care attendance in 2020 following large outbreaks.52 Similarly, Serbia tightened mandatory vaccination laws following a measles outbreak in 2014 to 2015 by introducing harsher penalties.53 Trends of reported cases of measles can be explored in detail here.
Secondly, many low- and lower-middle-income countries have resorted to mandatory vaccination policies because of a lack of other policy options. Nonetheless, many have still missed their target vaccination rates due to problems with vaccine supply, delivery, and access. In Guyana for example, vaccination is mandatory, yet vaccination coverage is hindered by the management of the supply chain in keeping storage temperatures consistent and the distribution of freeze-sensitive vaccines.54 In Nigeria, vaccination is mandatory, and several states have enacted legislation criminalising vaccine refusal. Yet as Onyemelukwe argues, there are structural, logistical, political, systemic, religious and cultural obstacles to the effective distribution and uptake of vaccines, ranging from cold chain issues, to corruption and security issues.55 There is thus often variation between vaccination in policy compared to in practice.
Does Vaccine Skepticism Affect Immunization Coverage
The crucial question to ask when considering the importance of vaccine skepticism is: does it actually have an effect on behaviour? Does it really affect the share of children who are vaccinated?
In the chart we see the comparison of vaccination rates here as the share of children who were immunized against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus in 2015, the latest year available to the share of respondents in a given country who disagreed that vaccines are safe.
You can also see this relationship for measles vaccine coverage.
Overall we see that widespread public concern for vaccine safety does not appear to be strongly correlated with vaccination rates. While one-third of the French public disagrees with their safety, 97% of children in France are vaccinated.
There are numerous other reasons, however, why vaccination rates in some countries are low: in low-to-middle income countries the availability, affordability and access to vaccines can be poor. Having low coverage rates often doesnt reflect the populations view of them. As the chart shows, in many poor countries the situation is the opposite as in France: the vast majority of the population considers vaccine safe, but only about every second child receives the DTP vaccine.
One country which stands out is Ukraine: there we see that vaccination rates are uncharacteristically low for its income level less than 1-in-4 children receive the DTP vaccine. Skepticism of vaccine safety in Ukraine is high at 15%.
Vaccines Shouldn’t Be The Only Tool Against The Pandemic
Currently, around a quarter of the U.S. population, or more than 80 million people, are still unvaccinated, Vox reports, leaving them at higher risk of severe Covid-19 outcomes. According to CDC, unvaccinated individuals are 15 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than those who are vaccinated.
“We’re really leaving benefits on the table,” Gupta said.
However, according to experts, despite the promise of vaccinations, vaccinations alone will not be enough to end the pandemic. Vaccine immunity wanes over time, and the coronavirus may be evolving in ways that let it evade immunity more easily, such as with the omicron variant.
According to Vox, the United States has typically overlooked other, non-pharmaceutical interventions in favor of encouraging vaccination, much to its detriment now. For example, the federal government only just recently began distributing free rapid Covid-19 tests and medical-grade face masks for all Americans. Public gatherings have also largely resumed across the country, and many mask mandates have been lifted, even in areas of high viral transmission.
“It really was a problem of too much hubris, that vaccines would be the only thing we needed,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s not ‘either/or,’ it’s ‘both-and.'”
Don’t Miss: Does Cvs Offer Tdap Shot
Household Pulse Survey Shows Many Dont Trust Covid Vaccine Worry About Side Effects
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that as of December 14, roughly 85% of adults ages 18 and over in the United States had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine but 15% remained unvaccinated.
Who are the unvaccinated and why are they choosing not to get a COVID vaccine?
About 42% reported that they dont trust the COVID-19 vaccine.
According to the U.S. Census Bureaus newest phase of the experimental Household Pulse Survey , those who were unvaccinated against COVID in early December 2021, reported a variety of reasons why.
“Vaccinated” here refers to adults who have received at least one dose of any COVID vaccine, and “unvaccinated” refers to adults who have not received any.
Unvaccinated adults who responded to the survey could select more than one reason:
- About half reported that they were concerned about possible side effects of the vaccine.
- About 42% reported that they dont trust the COVID-19 vaccine.
- Less than 10% reported that they hadnt gotten the vaccine because their doctor had not recommended it.
- About 2% reported not getting the vaccine because of difficulty obtaining it.
What Vaccines Does Covax Use
Six vaccines have been given “emergency use authorisation” by the WHO, meaning they can be shared via Covax: AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Janssen, Moderna, Sinopharm and Sinovac.
However, only Pfizer and AstraZeneca doses have been delivered so far.
Moderna has agreed to supply 500 million doses at its “lowest-tiered price”, but most won’t be available until 2022.
Read Also: Tdap At Cvs
Get Cnn Health’s Weekly Newsletter
every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.
Getting more Americans boosted against Covid-19 could make a big difference as the country heads into the fall and winter, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said Monday.
Its really important that we try to get the half or a little bit more than a half of Americans who have only received two doses to get that third dose, he said. That may make a difference moving forward here, and it may particularly make a difference now that were coming into yet another wave of Covid-19.
CNNs Naomi Thomas, Jen Christensen and Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report
Percent Of Population At Least Partially Vaccinated By Country Income Level
Low- and middle-income countries have been largely relying on COVAX, the UN-backed program, to get vaccines. Richer nations can collectively purchase vaccines, fund vaccine development and manufacturing and ensure vaccination in poorer countries.
The fund plans to provide 2 billion doses by the end of the year, with the aim of covering at least 20% of the population of participating countries. However, the program has experienced delays. Many of the COVAX program vaccines are manufactured in India, a country that limited COVID-19 vaccine exports while dealing with a serious outbreak of the virus.
Infectious diseases don’t have any boundaries or barriers. COVID doesn’t discriminate based on socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity. So, it can affect anybody, said Kuppalli. Our world will not be safe unless everybody is protected. That is how we stop the pandemic.
Recommended Reading: How Much Does The Shingles Vaccine Cost At Cvs
Read More: How Are Politics Related To Vaccination Progress In The Us
As noted in the table below, the nations 10 least vaccinated states have seen small increases in the population of individuals who have received at least one dose. Notably, Louisiana increased its initial vaccination rate by 0.4%, the only one of these states to exceed the national increase of 0.3%.
When Will We All Be Vaccinated
In the U.S., people age 12 or older are now eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Just over half of the population has received at least one COVID-19 shot, although the pace of vaccination has slowed in recent months.
Track U.S. vaccinations:Daily updates by county and state
According to the analysis from the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, more than 12 billion doses could be produced this year, making it possible to vaccinate 70% of the world population. However, it may take longer for those doses to be administered.
A proposal to temporarily suspend certain intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines until herd immunity has been reached is now backed by around 100 countries.
It is also supported by a coalition of organizations called the Peoples Vaccine Alliance, which includes the United Nations HIV/AIDS agency UNAIDS and human rights group Amnesty International. Discussions at the World Trade Organization are underway.
Recommended Reading: Does Cvs Pharmacy Give Tdap Vaccine
Germany Is Already Ordering Covid
From CNN’s AJ Davis in Atlanta
Germany is already ordering coronavirus vaccines for 2022, said German Health Minister Jens Spahn on Saturday.
Well order vaccines as a precaution. If we dont need them, good, but if we do need them then they will be available, Spahn said, speaking at a town hall event.
At the event, Spahn acknowledged that Germany could be doing better in its distributing of the vaccine, but said the country is well on the way to immunizing the population.
Around 2.3 million people have been vaccinated, of which 450,000 have received their second dose. Almost 70% of care home residents, 60 to 70%, have been vaccinated,” Spahn said. Good news on a difficult start.
Spahn also said that under the current response plan, some of Germany’s lockdown restrictions could be lifted by summer, though it will depend on what experts say.
Measurements From The Us National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration Recorded The Growth Of This Greenhouse Gas Passing 1900 Parts A Billion Last Year Nearly Triple Pre
A new study shows that methane is four times more sensitive to global warming than previously thought, reported The Guardian.
The study justified the rapid growth in methane in recent years and revealed that methane-related global heating could potentially escalate in the future decades unchecked.
Measurements from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded the growth of this greenhouse gas passing 1,900 parts a billion last year, nearly triple pre-industrial levels and 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide over a 20-year time span.
Also read | MIT’s space bubble to tackle climate change
An earth scientist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Simon Redfern, claimed, “What has been particularly puzzling has been the fact that methane emissions have been increasing at even greater rates in the last two years, despite the global pandemic, when anthropogenic sources were assumed to be less significant.”
Natural sources such as wetlands contribute to nearly 40% of methane emissions, and on the other hand, anthropogenic sources such as cattle farming, fossil fuel extraction, and landfill sites contribute to 60% of the emissions.
Expanding exploration of oil and natural gas, rising emissions from agriculture and landfill, and rising natural emissions as tropical wetlands warm and Arctic tundra melts are a few among others to be blamed for the rising methane emissions.
Watch | Gravitas: Marmolada glacier: How climate change is killing people
Also Check: Cost Of Shingles Vaccine At Cvs
How We Conducted This Study
To evaluate the impact of the vaccination program in the United States, the researchers expanded their age-stratified, agent-based model of COVID-19 to include waning of naturally acquired or vaccine- elicited immunity, as well as booster vaccination.6,7 For the timelines of this study, the characteristics of three variants were included in the model, each with cumulative prevalence of at least 3 percent in the U.S., including B.1.526 , B.1.1.7 , and B.1.617.2 in addition to the original Wuhan-I SARS-CoV-2 strain.
The model parameters included the population demographics of the U.S., an empirically determined contact network accounting for pandemic mobility patterns, and age-specific risks of severe health outcomes due to COVID-19. The model incorporated data on daily vaccine doses administered in the U.S.8 The minimum age eligibility for vaccination was 16 years before May 13, 2021, after which children 12 to 15 became eligible for vaccination. Vaccination of children ages 5 to 11 with Pfizer-BioNTech started on November 2, 2021.
Vaccine efficacies against infection and symptomatic and severe disease for different vaccine types for each variant and by time since vaccination were drawn from published estimates. The model was calibrated to reported national incidence data between October 1, 2020, and November 30, 2021, and validated with infection, hospitalization, and death trends during the same period.
NOTES
How Quickly Are States Vaccinating Their Populations
As of March 20, 76.8% of the U.S. population has received one or more shots of the COVID-19 vaccine. But since the omicron wave subsided, the number of people receiving shots has stagnated. Over the past two weeks only about 900,000 people initiated vaccination. Thats a national increase of only 0.3% and is 300,000 fewer new people getting vaccinated compared to the two-week period prior to this update.
APM Research Labs analysis also shows that between March 6 and March 20, the U.S. administered 3.4 million shots, the fewest shots ever administered in a two-week period and even lower than the 3.7 million shots administered between Dec. 13 and Dec. 31, 2020, when the vaccine was first rolled out.
During the past two weeks, the number of people considered fully vaccinated climbed by 900,000, an increase of only 0.3% of the population. This was markedly less than the 1.3 million who became fully vaccinated in the previous two-week period and a continued decline from the 2 million vaccinated early to mid-February.
Recommended Reading: Tdap Vaccine Cvs
The Risk Of Vaccine Inequity
One danger that unequal vaccination rates around the world may pose is the emergence of new variants. The longer the period of sustained community spread, the more likely the virus will mutate. The mutated variants from the unvaccinated population might be able to infect those in the vaccinated population.
Data available for some approved vaccines suggests that they still offer robust protection from severe illness and death from the most widespread existing COVID-19 variants. However, its important to limit the spread of the virus in order to prevent mutations that may reduce the efficacy of existing vaccines. As more people get vaccinated, the virus circulation is expected to decrease, which will then result in fewer mutations.
According to Kuppalli, the infectious diseases expert, vaccinated people could go to another part of the world, get exposed to a new strain of the virus not covered by the vaccine, become infected, and transmit it to other people.
It’s making sure that we protect everybody. It’s not just about life or death but it’s also thinking about the quality of life that people have after they’ve been infected with COVID, she added.
Us Throws Out Millions Of Doses Of Covid Vaccine As World Goes Wanting
Figures surged over summer as doses expired and vaccinations flagged amid widespread hesitancy
The United States is wasting millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses even as shortages plague many parts of the world.
At least 15m doses were scrapped in the US between March and September, according to one analysis of CDC data. A separate investigation found 1m doses were discarded in 10 states between December and July.
States continue tossing unused shots. Louisiana has thrown out 224,000 unused doses of the Covid vaccines a rate that has almost tripled since the end of July, even as a deadly fourth wave of the virus gripped the state. Some of the lost doses came from opening and not finishing vials, but more than 20,000 shots simply expired.
Thousands of doses are reportedly wasted each day in Wisconsin. In Alabama, more than 65,000 doses have been tossed in Tennessee, its almost 200,000.
The wasted doses represent a small fraction of the number of shots administered in these states in Louisiana, for instance, 4.4m doses have been given out successfully.
But the news comes as millions of people around the world wait for their first doses. Only 1% of the populations of low-income countries had received first shots as of July, compared with more than half of those living in a handful of high-income countries.
Officials are also working with vaccine manufacturers to reduce the number of doses in each vial.
You May Like: Cvs Tdap Booster
Us Share Of The Population Vaccinated
CDC data shows 49.9% of the U.S. population has received one shot or more, with 40% having completed a full vaccination program.
Among those aged 18 and older, 62% are at least partially vaccinated.
Data in a Kaiser Family Foundation survey published Friday suggests that adult vaccination rates could reach 70% in the next few months. President Joe Biden is aiming to hit that target by July 4.
In addition to 62% of survey respondents reporting they have received one dose or more, 4% said they want the vaccine as soon as possible. Another 4% of adults who said they want to “wait and see” before getting a shot reported that they have already scheduled an appointment or plan to get the vaccine in the next three months.
The share of respondents saying they will “definitely not” get vaccinated or only do so if required has remained steady at around 20% in the past few monthly Kaiser Foundation surveys.
How Many People Are Vaccinated
More than 204 million people in the US are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. That’s about 61% of the population, with a further 12% partially vaccinated.
On top of this, about 62 million people have been given a booster jab.
However, in some US states, such as the north-western states of Wyoming and Idaho, fewer than 50% of the population are fully vaccinated.
In the southern states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, upwards of half of their populations are also not fully vaccinated.
Polling suggests resistance to vaccinations is divided down political lines, and the least vaccinated states have consistently voted Republican in recent presidential elections.
The unvaccinated population is now disproportionately made up of those who identify as Republican – 60% compared with 17% who identify as Democrats, according to data collected by the Kaiser Family Foundation , a US-based health research group.
Read Also: Cost Of Tdap At Cvs