“Get vaccinated! Take delta seriously!” US experts plead as business skyrockets

As COVID-19 cases continue to climb across the country – with some states recording vertical increases – public health experts once again urge Americans to obtain the highly effective and safe COVID-19 vaccines that are readily available. available.

Despite an oversupply of vaccine doses, only about 49 percent of the country is fully immunized overall and many states and regions still have lower immunization coverage. Meanwhile, the hypertransmissible variant of the delta coronavirus continues to flare up in unvaccinated communities. It now represents 83% of cases sequenced nationally.

While cases are increasing overall, they are increasing fastest in places with low vaccination rates. Louisiana, for example, has only about 36% of its population fully vaccinated, and it is experiencing one of the largest increases. The daily number of new cases now rivals those seen in the winter outbreak. But about one in five new cases in the country are in Florida. The main hotspot in the state is the area around Jacksonville, which has the highest infection rates in the state. This area includes Baker County, which has vaccinated only 20% of its population. Arkansas, Missouri, Nevada and Mississippi are also seeing large increases, all with relatively low immunization coverage.

“We are yet at another pivotal moment in this pandemic, with a further increase in cases and some hospitals reaching capacity,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday during a press briefing at the White House. “We must come together as one nation, united in our determination to protect our health, the health of our children, our community, our country and our future, with the tools at our disposal.”

Efficiency and advances

At the press conference, Walensky and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, reiterated all the reasons everyone should get vaccinated and also tried to allay concerns about infections. say “revolutionaries”.

“These vaccines are among the most effective we have in modern medicine,” said Walensky, referring to the high effectiveness rates of the three vaccines available in the United States. The two mRNA vaccines (Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines) had efficacy rates greater than 90% in clinical trials. The effectiveness of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was a little lower – 72% in the United States – but still quite high.

Note that these numbers are very high, but not at 100%, Fauci warned. “Post-vaccination infections are expected,” he said, adding that “no vaccine is 100% effective.”

The main purpose of vaccines is to protect against serious illness and death, which all three vaccines do very well, even against the delta variant, Fauci said. In a real-world study of people who had been vaccinated with the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, for example, the two full doses were 96 percent effective in preventing hospitalizations due to delta variant infections. Likewise, the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is very similar in design to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, was 92 percent effective against delta hospitalizations. In addition, preliminary laboratory studies have shown that all three vaccines can cause neutralizing antibodies and long-lasting cell defenses that can thwart the delta variant and other variants of concern. Currently, 97% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 are not vaccinated, as are 99.5% of those who die from COVID-19.

However, some vaccinated people will become infected after reaching a fully vaccinated state, that is, two weeks after receiving either the second dose of an mRNA vaccine or the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Typically, these pierced infections have no symptoms or have relatively mild symptoms. It should be noted, as an article published in Slate yesterday did, that relatively mild infections are not necessarily harmless; they can be quite rude. But lying at home for a few days, feeling miserable with fever and chills, is definitely better than staying in the hospital and needing oxygen, or worse – landing in the care unit. intensive, ventilated or even die.

“Even though we see infections after vaccination… the efficacy against serious illness is still substantial,” Fauci said, “which is yet another argument we all keep saying: get vaccinated.”

Reminder confusion

In an exchange with reporters, Fauci also allayed unwarranted concern that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was not effective against the delta variant. The concern was largely prompted by an article this week in the New York Times that focused on unpublished data focusing only on antibody levels. The study (which was not peer reviewed) claimed that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine induced lower levels of neutralizing antibodies against the delta variant, compared to levels of neutralizing antibodies against other versions of the virus. The New York Times said the data suggests that the millions of people who received the single injection of Johnson & Johnson now need a booster shot.

But the experts were quick to push back. They noted that vaccines don’t just cause antibodies – they also trigger other cellular immune defenses essential to protect against infection and disease. In addition, there is no clear level of neutralizing antibodies from which a person is considered unprotected. Recently, other information suggested that immune responses after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are robust and sustained. In short, the study did not examine the effectiveness of the vaccine and the data does not suggest the need for boosters.

At Thursday’s press conference, Fauci called the Johnson & Johnson vaccine a “very effective vaccine.”

“There is no reason to believe at this time that people who have taken the J&J vaccine need a booster dose of any kind,” he said. “There is no data to indicate that this is the case.”

The Times has since changed the original story and title significantly, although the newspaper has not noted any of these changes. The title no longer calls the vaccine “ineffective”; instead, the headline says it “may be less effective”. The start of the story has also been edited to note that unpublished data may not reflect the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Extensive vaccination

In an effort to boost vaccination in the United States, Fauci and Walensky reiterated Thursday that the totality of the data to date suggests that the available vaccines are safe and highly effective against the pandemic coronavirus, even the delta variant. In terms of safety, vaccines often produce mild and short-lived side effects, such as pain around the injection site and maybe a day or two of feeling like bad weather. But serious side effects are extremely rare. Although some unvaccinated people have expressed concern about unidentified long-term side effects, historical immunization data indicates that if side effects do occur, they tend to do so within six weeks of vaccination. It is therefore unlikely that new side effects will appear suddenly.

Although breakthrough cases are always a concern with any vaccine, people who have been vaccinated can continue to follow certain health measures such as wearing a mask and avoiding crowds if they want to be careful. Taking extra precautions may be worth considering for people living in areas with low vaccination rates and high transmission amid the spread of the delta variant, Walensky added.

“If you are not vaccinated, please take the delta variant seriously,” argued Walensky. “This virus has no incentive to stop, and it remains to find the next vulnerable person to infect. Please consider getting vaccinated and take precautions until you do.”

For those who have recovered from COVID-19, Walensky noted that the CDC “strongly recommends” that they too get vaccinated. “It gives you more durable and robust protection with the breadth and depth of coverage needed to conquer the variants currently circulating in this country,” she said.

And Walensky urged those who are still hesitant to get vaccinated to take a close look at what lies behind their hesitation. “If you still have questions about vaccines, we welcome them,” she said. “My request is as follows: ask your questions. Talk to your health care provider. Talk to your pharmacist. Talk to your friends and neighbors who have been vaccinated and get your questions answered so you feel comfortable and informed in making this crucial decision. . “

This point ties in with another article recently published in a heartbreaking article from Alabama, in which a doctor working at a Birmingham hospital described caring for his unvaccinated COVID-19 patients on their death beds. The coin was moving for several reasons, including a heart-wrenching description of how misinformation has plagued this pandemic. The article quoted a doctor saying:

I try not to be judgmental when I get a new COVID patient who is not vaccinated, but I really started asking them, ‘Why didn’t you get the vaccine? And I’m just going to put it point blank, in the least critical way possible. And most of them, they’re very honest, they give me answers. “I spoke to this person, I saw this thing on Facebook, I got this email, I saw this on the news”, you know, those are all the reasons I didn’t not vaccinated.

And the only question I always ask them is, have you made an appointment with your attending physician and asked for his or her opinion on whether or not to receive the vaccine? And so far no one has answered yes to this question.

A recent American Medical Association survey found that more than 96% of practicing physicians have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. And of those who remain, 45% said they plan to be vaccinated.