Students had hoped for the better when they began this school year, thinking that they could go back to their normal lives before the new year. Those hopes are long gone, COVID cases are through the roof, and it is only getting worse. There were 77,431 COVID deaths in the month of December, the most in any month so far. As of January 11th, there have been roughly 28,400 COVID deaths in 2020. January is on track to be the worst month for COVID so far. Our only hope appears to be the vaccine. Almost 9 million vaccines have been administered, and 16 million waiting to be used. The question now is are the vaccines being distributed fast enough, and are the vaccines making a difference? The answer to the latter is yes, the vaccines are working. An estimated +90% are confirmed immune to the virus after receiving the vaccine. However, this vaccine is not being distributing quickly. While 9 million people sounds like a lot, it is necessary that an estimated 60-70% of the population is confirmed immune before the country can begin to re-open and go back to normal. That means 197-230 million Americans must be vaccinated, which is an immense number compared to the 8 million that are currently vaccinated. Only 39 million people are currently cleared to get the vaccine, and on top of that it would take approximately 3 years to vaccinate all of America at the current rate. However, president Joe Biden has promised to get 100 million vaccines distributed in the first 100 days of his presidency. The government is currently distributing about 330,000 vaccines a day, meaning Biden's administration would need to triple vaccination to 1 million a day, which would result in nation-wide vaccination by December of 2021. However, as Biden has recently been struggling with his COVID team, many are questioning the legitimacy of this goal. The COVID task force under the Trump administration has seemingly mishandled the seriousness of the pandemic, as the transition between administrations could not have possibly had worse timing relative to the virus agendas. Experts are expecting an under delivery from the Biden administration regarding the 1 million a day goal, but are optimistic there will be drastic improvements compared to the original distribution policy of the vaccine.
Sources
Aleccia, JoNel, and Kaiser Health News. “Is Your Covid Vaccine Site Prepared for Rare, Life- Threatening Reactions?” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 11 Jan. 2021, www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/your-covid-vaccine-site-prepared-rare-life- threatening-reactions-n1253583.
Cancryn, Adam, and Tyler Pager. “Biden Dresses down His Covid Team over Plans to Speed Vaccinations.” POLITICO, POLITICO, 13 Jan. 2021, www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/biden-coronavirus-vaccine-goal-problems- 457245.
“COVID-19 Vaccines.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/index.html.
Gallagher, James. “Covid Vaccine Update: When Will Others Be Ready?” BBC News, BBC, 11 Jan. 2021, www.bbc.com/news/health-51665497.
Vera, Amir, et al. “US Reports over 200K New Covid-19 Cases Every Single Day for a Week Straight.” CNN, Cable News Network, 12 Jan. 2021, www.cnn.com/2021/01/11/health/us-coronavirus-monday/index.html.
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