Can Vaccination and Infection Rates Equal COVID Herd Immunity?
By Carmen Heredia Rodriguez, Kaiser Health News
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 (Kaiser News) It’s been a long, dark winter of covid concerns, stoked by high post-holiday case counts and the American death tally exceeding 530,000 lives lost. But with three vaccines Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson now authorized for emergency use in the United States, there seems to be hope that the pandemic’s end may be in sight.
A recent analysis by the Wall Street research firm Fundstrat Global Advisors fueled this idea, suggesting as many as nine states were already reaching the coveted “herd immunity” status as of March 7, signaling that a return to normal was close at hand.
WASHINGTON — Decisions by two Republican governors to remove all coronavirus restrictions in their states have reignited the political debate on the pandemic response, elevating it as a campaign issue
Published March 08. 2021 2:28AM
Mark Niquette and Jonathan Levin, Bloomberg
WASHINGTON Decisions by two Republican governors to remove all coronavirus restrictions in their states have reignited the political debate on the pandemic response, elevating it as a campaign issue this year and in 2022.
Republicans Greg Abbott of Texas and Tate Reeves of Mississippi announced last week they’re eliminating state mask mandates and allowing businesses to reopen at full capacity, setting expectations for other GOP-led states to follow suit.
The moves drew dire warnings from health officials and Democrats that they risk igniting another spike in cases and deaths and stood in stark contrast to Joe Biden’s cautious approach to getting the U.S. back to normalcy. The president issued a rebuke, calling the moves “Neanderthal thinking” and “a big mistake.”