More Americans have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine than tested positive for the virus, an early but hopeful milestone in the race to end the pandemic.
According to data collected by the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker, 26.5 million Americans had received one or both doses of the current vaccines as of Monday afternoon. Since the first American patient tested positive outside of Seattle a year ago, there are 26.2 million people in the country have tested positive for the disease, and 441,000 have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
According to data collected by Bloomberg, the US is delivering injections faster than any country in the world every day, at about 1.35 million doses per day. While the rollout stumbled at first, in the six weeks since the first shots were fired in the arms, nearly 7.8% of Americans have received one or more doses and 1.8% have been fully vaccinated.
“It’s worth noting that today, for the first time, the data shows that more people have been vaccinated than reported as newly diagnosed cases,” said Paula Cannon, professor of microbiology at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. ‘That’s worth celebrating. I am all for that victory. “
Only a few other countries have passed that milestone: Israel, the UK and the UAE beat the US days or weeks ago for tending to have more vaccinations than cases.
After a holiday spate in US cases, officials at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention are calling for the summit, though that’s likely due to behavioral changes and still no widespread impact from the vaccine. New Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and emergency room visits are beginning to decline, said Jay Butler, the deputy director of the Infectious Diseases Bureau.
“While these trends are encouraging, I would like to emphasize that the numbers are still high nationally, and they are as high as at any point during the pandemic. until this point, ”he said at a Friday briefing hosted by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “If this pandemic were a stock, we might want to sell.”
The virus can still roar, especially if variants emerging in South Africa and elsewhere emerge. Studies suggest that vaccines, especially the newer injections from Johnson & Johnson and Novavax Inc., are less potent against that species and at least one other.
The goal is to eventually achieve herd immunity, when so many Americans have protection from a vaccine or natural infection that struggles to spread the virus and eventually die. Public health officials, including Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease physician, estimate that 70% to 85% of the 330 million Americans must be exposed to the pathogen through a virus or vaccine to reach that level.
A health professional will administer a dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine in New York on Jan. 30. More Americans have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine than tested positive for the virus.
Photographer: Johnny Milano / Bloomberg
Race for immunity
While past infection can create immunity, it’s not clear how long it lasts. And it comes at a cost – not just deaths but hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations, and some reporting persistent illness and a mind-boggling array of symptoms, including fatigue, depression, and difficulty breathing.
“There is a price to pay in suffering and in costs to the health system,” said Alessandro Sette, a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. “It’s long-lasting and serious.”
Meanwhile, no deaths have been definitively associated with receiving a Covid-19 vaccine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s voluntary adverse event tracking system includes reports of approximately 290 deaths from the administration of a coronavirus vaccine on Jan. 22. Most were in the elderly with other health conditions and none were determined to be bound to the immunizations.
Questions persist. It’s still not clear exactly how many people have been vaccinated or infected, and it may never be. Many more people have had the virus than tested positive, especially those with mild or asymptomatic cases.
Reported vaccinations are also lower than the number actually given because people are more focused on injecting into weapons than putting the data into tracking systems, Cannon said. It takes two shots for full immunity, which only 5.82 million Americans received.
It’s still early days in the immunization effort, which has been plagued by a lack of coordination, confusion over who should have access and a shortage of supply, which has reduced the number of people able to receive the injection in the first weeks of the rollout.
It’s also important to make sure the right people are immunized to get the most benefit, said Bill Moss, executive director of Johns Hopkins University’s International Vaccine Access Center.
“There are many people who are vaccinated who don’t fall into the risk categories,” he said. “If so, it will take longer for the number of serious illnesses and deaths to decline. Everyone needs a vaccine at some point, but I’m concerned about the inequalities in the way the system has been rolled out. “
The emerging variants have created a new urgency to increase vaccination rates, said Daniela Weiskopf, a research assistant professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. Every time the virus replicates, there is a chance that a variant will develop.
“The sooner we interrupt this, the more likely we will not see more variants appear,” she said.