Pfizer Vaccine Gets the Green Light, But Will Enough Americans Take It?

When it comes to extracting ourselves from this horrid coronavirus crisis, the consensus among experts and economists seems to be that only a vaccine will truly provide the relief we are seeking.

We’ve been social-distancing, wearing masks, and contact tracing one another for nearly ten months now.  It’s been a lonely grind of a time, and, despite these heavy adjustments to our daily lives we are still experiencing the worst daily death rates of the entire pandemic here in December.

Luckily, several vaccine candidates have emerged, including a number of inoculations that have proven to be wildly successful in clinical trials.  The only hurdle left for the US this week was to find approval from the FDA to begin deploying the jab.

Good news...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will grant emergency use authorization to a COVID-19 vaccine developed by drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech, a top government health official says.

The agency “informed Pfizer that they do intend to proceed toward an authorization” in the next few days, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday. “We could be seeing people getting vaccinated Monday, Tuesday of next week.”

The only issue remaining is how to convince enough Americans to actually receive the vaccine.

Health experts warn that at least 70% of the population will need to be inoculated or otherwise immune to the disease before the nation can expect “herd immunity”.  Recent polls have shown that the number of Americans who are openly willing to be vaccinated is hovering around 58%.