FDA would authorize Pfizer vaccine in 12-15 year olds 0:47
(CNN) -
Covid-19 cases are falling.
Deaths have decreased.
States are opening up.
Governors are getting creative in encouraging younger Americans to get vaccinated, with $ 100 checks or beer.
Some experts wonder if the US will ever achieve herd immunity, but they are all trying to figure out how to get life back to normal anyway.
The following is taken from various reports from the CNN Health team.
Dramatic drop in cases and deaths.
From the CNN report:
The weekly average of daily deaths from covid-19 is more than 660, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
In mid-January, that seven-day average was about 3,400 deaths a day.
And the country has averaged more than 49,400 new COVID-19 cases a day over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins. On January 8, the country averaged more than 251,000 cases per day, the highest seven-day average of the pandemic.
What would herd immunity be?
CNN's Jen Christensen writes:
“As with any disease, how many people need to be immune to protect the community depends on how infectious it is.
For covid-19, experts believe that the magic number could be between 70 and 90% of the population immune to the virus.
The world is nowhere near that level.
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Step one: vaccinations.
Vaccines have been the key to reducing the US case count, experts say, and changes are coming in how vaccines will be allocated and who will be eligible.
For seniors.
Most older Americans have been vaccinated: 83% of Americans 65 and older have received a dose and 70% are fully vaccinated.
For adults.
The White House announced Tuesday a new and more ambitious goal: to get 70% of American adults to receive at least one vaccine by July 4 and to have 160 million people - half the country - fully vaccinated by then.
Actual state.
56% of the adult population has a single dose and 40%, about 105 million people, are fully vaccinated.
But the vaccination rate is slowing down.
The federal government will divert more vaccines to local pharmacies, pop-up clinics, mobile clinics and push for immediate walk-in vaccinations.
I went to an indoor mall for the first time in a year and found an empty space occupied by a vaccination site.
They were grabbing people near the food court.
The Biden administration will also push for new vaccine assignments to rural health clinics and to reach rural Americans.
It will change its allocation process in another way, moving more supply to the states with the highest demand.
For teenagers.
The FDA is likely to issue an emergency approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for use in children ages 12-15 next week.
That starts a process to amend the emergency use authorization for these minors.
For children.
Pfizer said it plans to ask the FDA for an emergency use authorization to use its vaccine in children ages 2 to 11 in September.
An ongoing study on pregnant women could conclude in July or August, according to the CNN report.
Young people affected by new variants.
In Oregon, Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said younger people were showing up at hospitals in her state.
It issued new covid restrictions and told young people that it is their responsibility to get vaccinated.
Vaccines are helping to reduce COVID-19 numbers in the US, but the virus is now affecting a group of Americans more
Free beer.
New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy even announced that the state also plans to offer free beer to anyone 21 and over who shows their completed vaccination card at thirteen participating breweries across the state.
The campaign is called "One Shot and One Beer."
Free money.
Republican West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice wants to offer people ages 16 to 35 a $ 100 savings bond and said state officials will target young people on social media.
"If we have to go door to door, we will go door to door," Justice said in a statement.
The herd immunity approach will not work in the long term.
We do not know how long immunity from exposure or vaccination will last.
It may require periodic boosters or an annual vaccine such as the flu.
Myths about the covid-19 vaccine: these reasons for not getting the vaccine don't hold up
Note: A booster would not require a full reauthorization, FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said Monday.
There will be a regrowth.
Here's CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen on the danger of too few people getting vaccinated now, when cases have dropped, particularly as the virus is mutating and changing in places where it is spreading rampant:
"What really worries me is that people who are already undecided will not get vaccinated (and) we will not achieve herd immunity when fall comes," he said over the weekend.
"And then with winter ... we have a big regrowth, maybe we have variants coming from other countries, and we could start this whole process all over again and have another big pandemic in the winter."
Herd immunity is difficult to achieve.
Lauren Ancel Meyers leads the Covid-19 Modeling Consortium at the University of Texas and pointed out to CNN why the United States and the world may never get there.
Vaccinating so many people would be almost impossible;
This particular virus spreads too quickly;
more contagious variants threaten to make vaccines less effective;
entire countries and parts of the US have few fully vaccinated people;
there are problems of equity and access to vaccines;
children are not yet vaccinated;
and approximately a quarter of the population is hesitant or unwilling to be vaccinated.
The US may never achieve herd immunity. But!
Most people will still be able to return to their pre-pandemic lives if the number of cases continues to decline, Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Health, told CNN on Monday.
3 in 10 adults in the world said in 2020 that they would not receive a covid-19 vaccine, according to a Gallup poll
"We may not get to zero, we probably won't," Jha said.
“But if we can get infections at very low levels, most of us can go back to our normal lives.
I think we can probably live with that.
Israel has achieved extremely low case rates with a 50% vaccination rate.
The more vaccines, experts say, the closer we will be to normal, even if it is not technically controlled.
Just be free.
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed an executive order Monday to make it impossible for local governments in the state, where approximately 27.5% of the population has been vaccinated, to implement their own restrictions, arguing that the decline in cases and deaths means that the restrictions are no longer necessary.
His move drew criticism from officials in Miami and Orange County.
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