It looks like a majority of Americans who got the COVID-19 vaccine have decided to follow through and get their second doses, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Per USA Today, the CDC said about 92% of people who received either the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine or the Moderna vaccine came back for a second shot. This means about 1 in 10 did not come back for a second shot.
Experts told USA Today this is a major victory in the fight against COVID-19.
- “With the biggest mass vaccination program in history, 92% of people coming back for their second shot is a huge victory,” Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told USA Today.
What does one dose do?
So far, 142 million Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, whereas 98 million Americans are considered fully vaccinated — meaning they got either both shots of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC.
- One dose does provide some level of immunity, but not enough. Two new studies suggested that one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine or one dose of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine provides protection from COVID-19 for about 10 weeks before dropping down, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday that people need to get a second dose — people need to be ready to fight off the virus for a while, according to USA Today.
- “That’s the reason why we’ve got to continue to outreach to people to convince them of why it’s so important for themselves, for their family and for their community to complete the full component of the vaccines,” Fauci said.