Dr. Fauci, the senior official for infectious diseases, states we could see a shift in infections by late 2021. “I would say 50% would have to get vaccinated before you start to see an impact. But I would say 75 to 85% would have to get vaccinated if you want to have that blanket of herd immunity.“
Vaccines should be available to the general public around the March benchmark of 2021. Of course, the first distributions are going to front-liners and first responders deservedly.
The fact that over 300,000 Americans have died due to this pandemic reiterates the need for such a vaccine and swift rollout of vaccinations. Fauci reminds us, “We still have a raging outbreak that we need to get under control, so at the same time as we’re administering the vaccine as quickly and as expeditiously as possible, we still have to implement the public health measures to prevent the surges we’re seeing throughout the country.“
He also states that he will “Put aside the concern that some people have about safety and about whether we went too fast, which we did not,” and that scientific advances from past work allowed it to be synthesized faster.
It would be an understatement to say that 2020 has been a shattering year but the good thing is there’s hope on the horizon.
