A recently published report warns the United States will likely reach a “tipping point” in the next 2 to 4 weeks when vaccine supply could outstrip demand.
The rapidly climbing number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 is good news, reported CNN. But tens of millions of Americans haven’t started their vaccinations yet.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Dr. Francis CollinsTrusted Source told CNN that a lot of people are still not sure they want to take part in “this amazing opportunity to put this virus behind us.”
“We have to really figure out how to get the messages out there,” he continued. “So that those who are still undecided get the information they need to see why this is really something they would want to do.”
Parts of the country have already begun to see that pattern, with younger Americans less likely than older residents to claim they’ve been or will get vaccinated, according to recent poll data from Quinnipiac University.
About 40 percent of the U.S. population has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, with roughly 26 percent fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Efforts at all governmental levels are ongoing to increase those numbers.
“I think our effort shifts, and it shifts to younger people who just don’t think about COVID quite as much,” Andy Slavitt, the White House senior advisor for COVID-19 response, told CNN.
Pregnant people vaccinated with mRNA vaccines not at high risk for side effects
A study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) found that pregnant people who received an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy did not appear to have worse outcomes than those who weren’t vaccinated.
This study included 35,691 participants between ages 16 to 54.
Researchers analyzed data from the “v-safe after vaccination health checker” surveillance system, the v-safe pregnancy registry, and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
They found that mRNA vaccination protects pregnant people against COVID-19 and its complications during pregnancy, and emphasize that emerging evidence shows SARS-CoV-2 antibodies could be transferred to the fetus after vaccination in the third trimester.
“Which suggests that maternal vaccination might provide some level of protection to the neonate,” the study authors wrote.
President Joe Biden said today that the United States would reach more than 200 million COVID-19 shots administered since the start of his administration.
Biden had doubled his original promise of 100 million shots in his first 100 days as vaccinations picked up.
Today, he said the administration had met its expanded goal a week before his 100 days were up.
