126M COVID vaccine doses, but we’ve still got work to do, says doctor

WASHINGTON – More than 126 million COVID vaccine doses have been administered in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We’re getting there, we’re way ahead of where I imagined we would be a year ago,” said Dr. Tara Kirk Sell of Johns Hopkins University to The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat. “The rates of vaccination have gone way up over the past few months but I think we’ve still got work to do.”

The CDC updated its guidance for schools, now recommending a distance of at least 3 feet in classrooms, down from a previous 6 feet social distancing.

“The six-foot distancing requirement has probably been the single costliest mitigation tactic that we’ve employed,” said former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb. “It really wasn’t based on clear science.”

Dr. Sell says the debate between 6 feet versus 3 feet is more about a “continuum of risk.”

“There’s no magical cut-off on a certain distance where you’re safe on one side and you’re definitely going to get COVID on the other,” said Dr. Sell. “I think more distance is helpful in driving down risk but those costs of keeping that distance are really considerable, as a parent of school-aged children.”

As some students return to schools and school sports look at resuming, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is requiring all kids and teens to get tested for COVID before all games and practices. Dr. Sell says she hasn’t seen any specific increase in COVID cases linked to youth sports.

“It’s good to be thoughtful about the potential spread of disease when you’re doing these different activities,” said Dr. Sell. “The thing I worry about with sports is not the actual competition … but the social activities that come around games and practices, so going out to eat, carpooling, parties, that sort of thing.”