CLEVELAND — There was more good news on Tuesday on the COVID-19 and vaccination front. President Biden announced that he is moving up the deadline for states to open up vaccine eligibility for all Americans.
The new target date is now April 19, which is two weeks ahead of the original May 1 deadline. Keep in mind, most states have already set that goal.
Many of you still have a lot of questions about the vaccine, the virus, and much more. For instance, people want to know if the U.S. is at risk of a fourth surge in cases and when we will hit herd immunity in Ohio.
So let's open up the mailbag and get some answers:
We just went through the Easter holiday and record numbers of people are travelling. So many have COVID-19 fatigue, are we setting ourselves up for another huge surge of cases?
Depends who you ask. I think the potential is if we're not careful but there are a lot of variables. I spoke with University Hospitals Rainbow Pediatric Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Amy Edwards, who said the big issue is the variants.
The more contagious UK variant is running rampant in Michigan and putting 20 and 30 somethings in the hospital. It's really important high schoolers and college kids get vaccinated too because they're seeing youth sports and extracurricular activities being the source of cluster outbreaks.
If we don't keep up with our safety protocols, we could see a big surge of those cases here.
What's positive is the fact that nearly 60% of Ohioans now have some protection, be it antibodies from the virus, or the first or second dose of vaccine.
Dr. Edwards believes we're going to have to vaccinate our way out of this. We need to stop the virus from spreading and replicating. If we can do that, we can prevent it from mutating and causing these variants.
So it's important we look at the vaccination rates as progress and not victory yet. We still have a long way to go, but we're a lot closer to normal than we were six months ago.
Can vaccinated people still get COVID-19?
No vaccine is 100% and Pfizer's study data showed six months after vaccination, protection dropped to about 90%. So yes, there are some breakthrough cases, but Dr. Edwards says those folks will not get super sick.
Worldwide, no vaccinated person has died of COVID-19 as of yet. But again, the issue is the variants. We're not out of the woods yet, so those safety protocols still need to be followed.
Infectious disease folks agree, the more people vaccinated, the better our chances of getting back to normal.
What is this double mutant variant we're hearing about?
It was first seen in India and now they've found the strain in California. It's referred to a double mutant because it carries two mutations that help the virus attach to cells. This virus is mutating so easily because it's replicating so fast when cases spread. So if people get vaccinated and we slow replication, we can also hopefully get these mutant variants under control too.
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