Just a day after President Biden issued broad mandates aimed at encouraging American workers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, federal health officials released new data showing that unvaccinated Americans are 11 times as likely as vaccinated people to die of Covid-19.
Three large studies, published on [September 10] by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also highlighted the effectiveness of the shots at preventing infection and hospitalizations with the virus.
The research underscored a deep conviction among scientists that vaccine hesitancy and refusal have prolonged the pandemic.
The cumulative data have made it clear that the nation cannot hope to end the pandemic with some 37 percent of Americans not having received a single dose of Covid vaccine, researchers said. Cases and hospitalizations are only expected to rise as Americans move indoors into homes, schools and offices in the fall.
That is why scientists generally welcomed the Biden administration’s vigorous vaccination push. Mandatory vaccinations will be crucial for keeping the virus in check as it becomes endemic in the United States, said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at Emory University in Atlanta: “It’s part of the shift from short-term reactions to long-term solutions.”
