It’s been one year since the biggest vaccination drive in American history began and offered some hope for what had been a gloomy and somber 2020.
There was genuine excitement for the vaccines back then. Clinical trials had proved successful, and the actual deployment of the vaccines filled many with the hope that the pandemic crisis would end. Those with historic knowledge of the polio vaccine envisioned thousands lining up to take the vaccine willingly.
That did happen at first. Yet, a year later, too many Americans remain unvaccinated. Variants of the virus continue to take a toll on the mostly unvaccinated. The death toll from COVID has escalated to more than 800,000, where a year ago it stood at 300,000 in the United States.
While tens of thousands of lives have been saved by COVID vaccinations, political partisanship, confusing messages from government and health officials and continuing misinformation about the vaccines have kept too many Americans from getting the shot.
And now, the omicron variant threatens to elevate the number of COVID cases exponentially over the next several weeks due to its various mutations and its apparent ability to be even more contagious than previous variants.
While reaction to the news of a new more contagious variant brings reactions of dread and fatigue, the fact remains that vaccinations are still the best weapon we have against losing more American lives to this virus.
THE GOOD NEWS is that vaccination rates, while not where they should be, are increasing as the news sinks in that another COVID surge is on the horizon. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation Vaccine Monitor, the share of fully vaccinated adults who report receiving a booster dose has more than doubled in the last month, with now one-fourth of fully vaccinated adults say they already received a booster dose. Nearly four in 10 fully vaccinated adults say they will “definitely” get the booster.
The unfortunate news is that too many individuals still have not even received their first vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy consistently shows a strong relationship between partisan identification and how individuals view and experience the COVID-19 pandemic and views on vaccinations, Kaiser reports.
As the omicron variant starts its way across the nation, it’s important for people to continue following prevention measures and to get vaccinated. Even if omicron does prove more transmissible, vaccines continue to be the best weapon against it by slowing down its spread and keeping people from getting extremely sick with the virus.
