In just two months, the United States could swim in COVID-19 vaccine. Literally swimming. The 500 million doses of 0.5 or 0.3 milliliters that are expected to be shipped then are enough to fill a 55,000 liter pool.
As difficult as it is now to imagine you as people frantically calling, clicking and standing in line to be vaccinated, the country is close to shifting from a scarcity to an abundance.
“It’s not a switch that turns, but it’s a sliding scale that happens collectively through the community,” said Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to the COVID response team. ‘This is not something that will start on a magical day in the future. It started today, and it’s something we need to make sure we address. ‘
With a large amount of vaccine, there is more urgency to convince the reluctant to accept it, experts say. Otherwise, the abundance of vaccine will become a stagnant surplus that could undermine the country’s ability to move beyond the pandemic.
“If we are going to get more vaccine available, we will be really bad because what we are going to see are a lot of people who do not want to be vaccinated,” said Bernadette Boden-Albala, dean. of the Public Health Program at the University of California, Irvine.
To date, about 18% of all Americans have been vaccinated against COVID-19. Boden-Albala believes that in some areas there will be surpluses as early as April.
Then the challenges will begin.
“If we have whole states in this country that do not want to mask and do not want social distance, then I am very worried that we will have people there who also do not want to be vaccinated,” she said.
Spreading the message: Free vaccine
Messages will matter, experts say.
The easiest group to reach are those who have simply postponed it due to the hassle of making an appointment.
For them, the message should be that vaccination is quick, easy and free, said Christopher Morse, a health communications expert at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island.
“You want to tell them it’s free and how easy it is to make an appointment,” he said. ‘Something like:’ In the time you need to order a cup of coffee, you could be vaccinated against COVID-19. ”
The message should not be “we have a lot of vaccine”, because then people will be convinced that they can delay it longer, he said.
Some people who have not been vaccinated yet simply did not have the time or were in a hurry to do so. Messages about why it is worthwhile are needed, experts say.
“You can say, ‘Get vaccinated, spend Easter with your family,’ or a church can encourage people to be fully vaccinated so they can sing along,” he said. Kelly Moore, deputy director of the nonprofit Coalition for Immunization.
Younger people who are not necessarily at risk may be persuaded to be vaccinated to help others. But they can be more seduced so that they can go to the movies again, have dinner with friends or hang out in pubs.
“They’re going to focus more on the social impact versus the health impact,” Morse said.
Mobile clinics, pop-up vaccination sites and public service announcements from local leaders will be important to reach people in low-income color communities where vaccine uptake has been delayed due to access and hesitation.
The value of community health centers: For the most vulnerable Americans, these clinics are trusted, accessible and essential for vaccine deployment.
Such efforts have begun in some places, but should increase significantly as a larger percentage of the population is vaccinated and the degree of reluctance to vaccines becomes clear, experts say.
In California, Orange County sends eight people for vaccination in homeless camps, prisons and other hard-to-reach populations.
“They come in a van, no appointments are needed,” and they grab who is available, said Margaret Bredehoft, director of public health services.
Dr. Rebecca Weintraub, director of the Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard University, says such last-minute delivery channels must now be prepared to reach vulnerable communities.
“We are going to look at the availability of vaccination, for example at food banks,” she said.
Moore says very precisely to institute these smaller vaccination events.
“You want to make sure you have enough people together when you open one of the vaccination vials,” she said. “For the Pfizer vaccine, you have six hours to give five doses. For Johnson & Johnson it is five doses and for Moderna it is 10. You do not want doses to go to waste if only two people show up.”
The politics of vaccine hesitation
Public health officials have made a clear shift: vaccine vaccination among black Americans, which started high, appears to be declining. In December, only 42% said they were planning to be vaccinated. According to a poll by the Pew Research Center released on Friday, it is now 61%.
Vaccination of vaccines is generally declining. In September, 49% of Americans told the Pew research group that they were unlikely to take the vaccine. By last month, the number had dropped to 30%.
But it still leaves 75 million people who may not be taking the doses the US government has already bought for use. Experts say that at least 65% of the people, and probably closer to 85%, need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.
And there are big biased differences in terms of who wants vaccine. Pew found 83% of Democrats said they were vaccinated or planned to be vaccinated, compared to only 56% of Republicans.
“We are going to see a point where there is a real polarization where people are vaccinated and people are not,” said Dr. Corey Casper, CEO of the Institute of Infectious Diseases in Seattle, and a professor of global health at the University of Washington said. Washington.
Although areas with a high vaccination rate have few infections, communities with a lower percentage can still see cases. “They are going to see a huge use of resources in those areas. It is going to hurt their economies,” he said.
He expected COVID-19 to be the common enemy of the country, but it has not yet played out that way. The extreme distrust towards the right of anything from the government surprised him. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.
“We are making progress with other groups, but we have not yet seen the knob move much among white Republicans. This is worrying,” said Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington. DC, think tank.
Will employers need vaccination?
It seems unlikely that Americans will be forced to get a chance. Vaccination mandates for employers will be difficult, said Michelle Mello, a professor of law and jurisprudence at Stanford University.
From a purely regulatory point of view, it would be difficult to enforce, because so far all three vaccines used in the United States have emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, not a license, Mello said.
Covid-19 vaccine: Should employers give workers paid time off or other incentives to be vaccinated?
There is also no good data yet to show that vaccination makes it less likely that someone can transmit COVID-19.
“Once it exists, it will allow employers to say it is an intervention that harms others,” Mello said. But for now, she thinks most employers will accept incentives rather than mandates.
“Everyone sees the benefit of volunteering,” she said, though employers may be thinking of sweetening the pot. “If a percentage of your workers are going to feel like their doses, you might give them the next day.”
What would US do with extra vaccine?
If the US is left with vaccine, what will it do with it?
The Bollyky of the Foreign Relations Council said there is an appetite to help the rest of the world.
“You may see a willingness to donate any vaccine this summer, though not necessarily,” he said.
There are two reasons for this: one based on health and one on politics.
Diseases do not respect boundaries. If COVID-19 continues to rage elsewhere, the US will be in danger. Almost all high-income countries – 94% – have vaccinated residents. According to the Council, only four of the 29 countries with the lowest incomes have it.
While the US withheld its vaccine from its people, Russia and China stepped in and made doses available to other countries.
“There are reports that the Biden government is donating more vaccines to Asia to counter the potential impact that China could gain through donations,” Bollyky said.
If other countries are helped, they will not only gain political points, it will also help protect Americans from a cunning enemy we are still realizing, says Moore of the Immunization Action Coalition.
“The virus will reap the benefits if we make uncertain or allow many around the world to protect without the vaccination,” she said.
Contact Elizabeth Weise at [email protected]
This article originally appeared in the US TODAY: COVID-19 vaccine, now scarce, could be US surplus by April