HOUSTON — The first vaccine that was given emergency use authorization by the FDA was from Pfizer/BioNTech, but Moderna and Johnson & Johnson soon followed with vaccines of their own.
One of the first Americans to roll up her sleeve was New York City ICU nurse Sandra Lindsay. After getting the jab she said, “I hope this marks the beginning to the end of a very painful time in our history.”
Since then, millions of Americans have followed suit.
Here’s where the U.S. currently stands on vaccinations, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
At least 202 million Americans are fully vaccinated. That’s about 61%.
It’s the same in Texas, where about 61% are fully vaccinated.
In Greater Houston, the most vaccinated counties include Fort Bend with 67%, Harris with 59% and Brazoria with 55%.
Now, with omicron, the newest variant of concern, rapidly spreading, there’s a new push to get the unvaccinated vaccinated and the vaccinated boosted.
“We need everybody who can be vaccinated to be vaccinated,” said Dr. Catherine Troisi, an epidemiologist with UT Health, “to protect both themselves and the community.”
Troisi believes that in the future, being considered fully vaccinated will mean having the booster shot, too. Although early studies show the vaccines don’t seem as effective against catching this variant, Troisi said they’re still necessary.
“They seem to do a pretty good job about protecting you from being hospitalized or dying. So, that’s a good thing. We didn’t have that a year and a day ago,” Troisi said.
In less than two years, the CDC reports that more than 800,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. Currently, across the United States, case numbers are on the rise as mask-wearing and social distancing are falling.
“We want life to be back to the way we knew it two years ago, in 2019. Unfortunately, the virus doesn’t really care,” Troisi said.
Advice from health officials is the same as it was 365 days ago: get vaccinated.
“We are in a better place than we were a year ago, we are just not where we want to be,” Troisi said.