COVID-19 Vaccine Update
As of April 6th, 2021, everyone age 16 or older became eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine. As time has passed, more and more Americans and New Yorkers are being vaccinated. As of May 20th, 38% of the total US population has been fully vaccinated, including 48% of adults ages 18+ and 73% of seniors ages 65+. As for New York state, 44% of the total population has been fully vaccinated along with 55% of all adults and 73% of all seniors. All of these statistics can be found on NPR’s COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker, which is regularly updated.
In response to the increase of vaccinations and the increased number of fully vaccinated people, the CDC has released new guidance for daily activities for people who have been fully vaccinated (2 weeks after the second dose of Pfizer/Moderna or 2 weeks after the one dose Johnson & Johnson’s).
According to the CDC’s guidance for fully vaccinated people, if you are fully vaccinated, “You can resume activities without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet apart, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.” So, if you are fully vaccinated, your daily activities can start to return to normal without COVID precautions. The CDC also says “If you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19, you do not need to stay away from others or get tested unless you have symptoms... If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you should get tested and stay home and away from others.”
President Joe Biden proudly announced on May 17th that, “Today, for the first time since the pandemic began,...thanks a lot to the hard work of so many people, COVID cases are down in all 50 states.” However, he also preached the continuous importance of vaccinating more Americans, “...if the unvaccinated get vaccinated, they will protect themselves and other unvaccinated people around them. If they do not, states with low vaccination rates may see those rates go up — may see this progress reversed.”
On May 10th, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a news release stating that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was approved for use in adolescents aged 12-15. Now, everyone age 12 and up has the ability to get vaccinated. The FDA promises parents of these adolescents that the vaccine is safe for their children. Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D., commented, “The FDA’s expansion of the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to include adolescents 12 through 15 years of age is a significant step in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic...Today’s action allows for a younger population to be protected from COVID-19, bringing us closer to returning to a sense of normalcy and to ending the pandemic. Parents and guardians can rest assured that the agency undertook a rigorous and thorough review of all available data, as we have with all of our COVID-19 vaccine emergency use authorizations.”
As President Biden said, it is still crucial that more people get vaccinated in order to keep the number of cases as low as they are now. Fully vaccinated people are now able to reap many benefits and resume normal activities without COVID precautions like masks and social distancing. The number of vaccinated people each day definitely provides hope that we are finally seeing the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel and getting back to our pre-pandemic lives.