As of last week, more than 200 million Americans had been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, constituting around 60% of the population. It’s an important milestone, but so is the milestone of the nation’s 800,000th coronavirus death this week. With a new variant on the rise and a sizable minority of the country still holding out against the vaccines, infection rates continue to rise. What the U.S. is seeing now is what doctors are calling “an epidemic of the unvaccinated.” And it’s creating what psychologists call “pandemic fatigue” throughout society.
As the crisis drags on, it’s important to remember that it is almost entirely those holdouts who are driving infection and death rates today. It’s been said repeatedly, but it can’t be said enough: They are risking their lives and prolonging the pandemic.
According to The Washington Post, an average of more than 1.9 million vaccine doses per day were administered last week, an increase over the previous week by about 35%. That’s good news, but it doesn’t change the fact that coronavirus deaths are up as well. That doesn’t mean the vaccines aren’t working — they absolutely do work; there’s no ambiguity about that in the data. What it means is that, without the vaccines, the death rates would be soaring far higher.
