Dr. Kenneth Hughes has been monitoring the patient outcomes from coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic. The buzz around the virus has reduced markedly, yet the total number claimed by COVID moves to more than a half a million. The total number of infected patients is over 30 million in the United States. The number of patients who have recovered from the COVID is over 20 million people.
The 2 primary vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna have ramped up hopes of achieving a handle of infections and, ultimately, the virus itself. The issue is administration of the vaccines as well dosing and handling of the vaccines. In addition, both vaccines require two doses spaced weeks apart to achieve near 95% efficacy. Thus, far only health care workers and patients over the ages of 75 and, in some cases, 65 have been vaccinated. The actual percentage of front line workers is something else entirely. In Los Angeles County and in other areas, the scheduling of appointments as well as determining where to go has been problematic since inception. Many reports exist of patients who do not meet the qualifications for vaccination jumping the line and getting their doses ahead of time. How are these things transpiring?
In addition, some consumers wait around in areas where vaccines are administered hoping to receive leftover vaccine doses that would otherwise expire. Many of the patients have been successful in this regard.
Finally, there is always a certain level of distrust regarding the published efficacy rates of the vaccines as well as the side effects of vaccine administration. This is playing a role as well in preventing a larger number of patients obtaining protection against the COVID virus.
The Biden administration has made a promise to get 100 million people vaccinated in the first 100 days in office. We shall see if this promise comes to pass.