By Jim Geraghty
Monday, May 17,
2021
Axios, April 9: “America may be
close to hitting a vaccine wall.”
I’m not fond of that metaphor, because
when you hit a wall, you stop. The daily average of administered
vaccines did peak at 3.37 million shots a few days later on April 13, but it’s
not like vaccinations suddenly dropped like a stone after that. The average
daily rate slowly and steadily declined, to just under 2 million per day.
We’ve enjoyed a nice little bump in the
past few days; the preliminary figure for Saturday, May 15, was 2.39 million,
and the preliminary figure for Sunday was 2.71 million.
The U.S. was always going to reach a point
when those most eager to get vaccinated got their shots, leaving a pool of
those who were less enthusiastic; it took us about four months. According to
to Bloomberg’s
COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker, Our
worst day in the past month appears to be May 4, with just 985,000 shots
administered, but there was such a surge in the subsequent days — more than 2.3
million from May 6 to 9 — that the severe one-day dip might just reflect a
delay in reporting data.
Would it be better if every American
dutifully and diligently scheduled an appointment or went into a walk-in
vaccination site on the first day they were eligible? Sure, but that was never
a realistic option. Some Americans will mosey and procrastinate. And some just
want to win a prize.
On May 12, Ohio governor Mike
DeWine announced that starting on May 26 and once a
week for five weeks, the state would award $1 million dollars to one person who
had gotten vaccinated. (The anti-vaxxers think creating this kind of incentive
is an evil plan, but I think it’s more
accurately described as a Dr. Evil plan.) Separately, Ohioans ages twelve to 17 who get vaccinated are eligible
to win “a four year,
full ride scholarship to any Ohio state college or university, including room
and board, tuition and books.”
The day before DeWine’s announcement,
12,757 Ohioans received their first shot. On the day after the announcement,
21,574 Ohioans did the same, and the day after that, another 20,311 walked
through the vaccination-site doors for the first time.
The national increase in the past few days
probably reflects the fact that teenagers from twelve to 15 are now eligible,
and we should expect the vaccination rate among younger Americans to continue
to improve. Quite a few
colleges and universities will make a COVID-19 vaccination a requirement to
enroll in the autumn. Public-school districts will probably
not require them for high schoolers on that timetable, as it would require
changing state laws, and the vaccine only now became
available for younger teens. But a vaccination requirement for the 2022–2023
school year might be in the cards.
Not only is the U.S.
national media coverage of the pandemic particularly pessimistic and negative, it also appears tailor-made to divide Americans, telling those who are
already vaccinated that they are personally endangered by the vaccine hesitant
and those who refuse to get vaccinated. Once you’re fully vaccinated, your body
is as prepared as it can get for an encounter with SARS-CoV-2. (Mind you, fully
vaccinated people can still end up in the hospital from COVID-19, but it is rare; adults 65 years and older were 94 percent less likely
to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than people of the same age who were not
vaccinated.) Yes, you might need a booster shot sometime in the future; it’s
hard to measure how long the vaccine is effective because it’s so new.
While the
details are complicated, the vaccines work against the variants — at least well enough to prevent severe reactions and death.
Could some future variant emerge here or overseas that the vaccines cannot
defeat? Anything is theoretically possible, but keep in mind, the world has had
roughly 163 million diagnosed cases. The virus has had plenty of opportunities
to mutate since the autumn of 2019 and has yet to change into a vaccine-proof
form.
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