Millions
of Americans are receiving Covid-19 vaccine doses every day, but one medical expert thinks the nation may not reach herd immunity this year if more people can't be persuaded to get a shot. "What I really worry about is that those people who are already on the fence don't get vaccinated (and) we don't reach herd immunity come the fall," CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen told CNN.
"And then with the winter ... we have a big resurgence, maybe we have variants coming in from other countries, and we could start this whole process all over again and have another huge pandemic come the winter."
Experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci have estimated between 70% to 85% of the US population needs to be immune to the virus -- through vaccination or previous infection -- to control its spread.
So far, 44.4% of the population has received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose and 31.8% are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the average daily rate of vaccinations has been declining for about two weeks. The CDC reported Monday that 246 million total doses of vaccine have been administered, about 79% of the 312.5 million doses delivered. That's roughly 1.2 million more doses reported administered since Sunday, for a seven-day average of about 2.3 million doses per day. The seven-day average was 3.1 million on April 19.
At least one vaccine may soon be available to children. The Food and Drug Administration is poised to authorize Pfizer/BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine for children and teens ages 12 to 15 by early next week, a federal government official tells CNN.
"It's going to take us that much longer to get back to life as normal, to stop having to wear masks for our protection, if people don't get vaccinated and we don't have equitable distribution of vaccines," infectious diseases specialist Dr. Celine Gounder told CNN on Sunday.
Some experts think driving down infections will be good enough, even if herd immunity isn't reached.
While it would be unfortunate for the United States to not reach herd immunity, most people will still be able to get back to their pre-pandemic lives if case numbers continue to fall, Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Health, told CNN on Monday.
