Name: Thanks to Republican Anti-Vaxxers, the U.S. May Never Reach Herd Immunity
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Thanks to Republican Anti-Vaxxers, the U.S. May Never Reach Herd Immunity

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As Joe Biden prepared to take office, he announced an ambitious target to vaccinate 100 million Americans within his first 100 days. When it became clear he was going to that goal well ahead of schedule, he upped it to 200 million, a figure his administration is this week. As part of that effort, on Wednesday, the president will on businesses to give workers paid time off to get their COVID-19 shots. On Monday, everyone in the country over 16 became eligible for the vaccination, and as of Wednesday, 40% of the U.S. population had received at least one dose of a vaccine and more than 50% of adults had gotten at least one shot, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Which is obviously fantastic news! A lot less fantastic: the fact that a significant number of Republicans are refusing to get the vaccines available to them, threatening to prevent the U.S. from reaching herd immunity and a return to prepandemic life.Axios that the United States is expected to run out of adults who want to get vaccinated within the next two to four weeks, citing a recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. According to the authors of the , “It appears we are quite close to the tipping point where demand for rather than supply of vaccines is our primary challenge.… Federal, state, and local officials, and the private sector, will face the challenge of having to figure out how to increase willingness to get vaccinated among those still on the fence, and ideally among the one-fifth of adults who have consistently said they would not get vaccinated or would do so only if required.“ The authors added: “Once this happens, efforts to encourage vaccination will become much harder, presenting a challenge to reaching the levels of herd immunity that are expected to be needed.”Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Donald Trump’s refusal to get his own shot in public, and to do the absolute when it comes to convincing his base of the importance of getting vaccinated, “vaccine hesitancy“ among Republicans is raging. According to a Monmouth University poll&nbsp;&nbsp;between April 8 and April 12, 43% of GOP respondents said they’ll never get the coronavirus vaccine (versus just 5% of Democrats). In a Quinnipiac University poll, 45% of Republicans&nbsp;&nbsp;they “don’t plan” on getting the shot. Overall, states that voted for Trump in 2020 are behind those that went for Biden&nbsp;when it comes to vaccinations.Yet more worrisome: the fact that there appears to be little that can be done to change the minds of people refusing to take one of the most important steps toward ending the pandemic. Per :Many vaccine-hesitant Americans are increasingly entrenched in their decisions to resist the shots, said Frank Luntz, a longtime GOP communications expert who convened [a] focus group over Zoom. “The further we go into the vaccination process, the more passionate the hesitancy is,” Luntz said after the session. “If you’ve refused to take the vaccine this long, it’s going to be hard to switch you.” That was the case in the weekend’s focus group, the latest in a series Luntz has convened. It included 17 participants who heard pro-vaccine pitches from four doctors, including three Republican politicians and Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Obama administration. Unlike a&nbsp;similar focus group&nbsp;five weeks ago, when most participants told Luntz and Frieden that the session persuaded them to get shots, attendees Sunday said they were swayed only moderately by doctors’ urging—or not moved at all.“I was zero [on] the vaccine. I’m still a zero,” said a woman identified as Tammy from Virginia about an hour into Sunday’s focus group. Her comments came after Frieden repeatedly tried to calm attendees’ fears, which included questions about the vaccines’ unknown long-term effects and about baseless claims suggesting the shots would change recipients’ DNA even though that does not happen.Disturbingly, the focus group revealed that many people refusing to get vaccinated would use a fake vaccination card claiming they had received their shots. “One-thousand percent,” one woman said. “If I have a fake vaccine card, yeah, I can go anywhere,” said one man. Other participants said they‘d use a fake vaccination card to go on trips and attend concerts. Federal officials have warned that they will prosecute Americans who make, sell, or use falsified cards, and noted that the use of such documents could prolong the pandemic by letting unvaccinated people continue to spread the highly contagious virus.Luntz said Trump bears responsibility for the tens of millions of hesitant GOP voters, having used his presidential podium to make political attacks while missing opportunities to promote vaccines to his political base. “He wants to get the credit for developing the vaccine. Then he also gets the blame for so few of his voters taking it,” Luntz said in an interview. The longtime GOP pollster added that President Biden could be doing more to cross the aisle, such as making a joint appearance with Trump to tout the vaccines before promptly deferring to medical experts.Meanwhile, the refusal of a huge percentage of the population to get a vaccine that could not only save their lives but the lives of other Americans is coming at a treacherous moment. Per :Most PopularIndia is in the throes of a&nbsp;devastating surge in COVID-19 cases. The wave of infections, propelled by a new variant of the coronavirus, could spill into the United States. Indeed, the Indian variant—“lineage” is the scientific term—is already here. With most states reopening and governors and&nbsp;mayors relaxing mask mandates&nbsp;as pandemic fatigue sets in, realistically just one thing can spare Americans from another spike in cases, experts say. The country must double down on its successful vaccination campaign. Getting tens of millions more jabs in arms in the coming weeks could block the new lineage’s transmission pathways—and stop it cold.A sharp decline in uptake could leave tens of millions of people unprotected for months or longer. That might give the new lineage space and time to grab on. “If the Indian variant were to establish in a landscape of lowered social measures and moderate level of population immunity, then it will spread,” Edwin Michael, an epidemiologist at the Center for Global Health Infectious Disease Research at the University of South Florida, told The Daily Beast.“We are in a perilous moment with the rise of variants and pandemic fatigue,” warned Georgetown University global health expert Lawrence Gostin. “What protects us from another surge is immunity,” Jeffrey Klausner, a clinical professor of preventive medicine at USC, told The Daily Beast.More Great Stories From Vanity Fair&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;— of an OnlyFans Model and Her Über-Wealthy Boyfriend— Wyoming Tells Donald Trump Jr. to — A Is Upending the Hamptons Social Order— How a Group of Rich Memphians During Capitol Attack— Prosecutors Are in Trump Investigations— Republicans Brave Plan to Stop Mass Shootings: — of Female Journalists Puts News Outlets to the Test— Six Photographers Share Images From — From the Archive: , the Ballad of Richard Jewell— Serena Williams, Michael B. Jordan, Gal Gadot, and more are coming to your favorite screen April 13–15. Get your tickets to here. is a politics correspondent at Vanity Fair. An essential voice of our current tragicomedy, she is an incisive, hilarious daily narrator of the horrors that never seem to stop. If you need catharsis in these terrifying times—or even if you don’t!—she is a must-read. You can follow her... The freshest-and most essential-updates from Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley.

As Joe Biden prepared to take office, he announced an ambitious target to vaccinate 100 million Americans within his first 100 days. When it became clear he was going to that goal well ahead of schedule, he upped it to 200 million, a figure his administration is this week. As part of that effort, on Wednesday, the president will on businesses to give workers paid time off to get their COVID-19 shots. On Monday, everyone in the country over 16 became eligible for the vaccination, and as of Wednesday, 40% of the U.S. population had received at least one dose of a vaccine and more than 50% of...

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Vanity Fair is a monthly magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.  The first version of Vanity Fair was published from 1913 to 1936. The imprint was revived in 1983 and currently includes five international editions of the magazine. As of 2018, the Editor-in-Chief is Radhika Jones.

Thanks to Republican Anti-Vaxxers, the U.S. May Never Reach Herd Immunity

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