ANALYSIS: Key points America now needs to strengthen its Covid-19 vaccination efforts

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Sun, 2021-05-02 14:46 — mike kraft

There are two key things America now needs to tackle in its Covid-19 vaccination efforts The US needs to vaccinate tens of millions more Americans to have a chance at suppressing the spread of coronavirus -- but in parts of the country, vaccinations are slowing and demand has dropped. Christina Maxouris, CNN CNN

(CNN) The US needs to vaccinate tens of millions more Americans to have a chance at suppressing the spread of coronavirus -- but in parts of the country, vaccinations are slowing and demand has dropped.

Experts say they saw that coming.

"In the first few months, we were capturing the part of the population that really wanted these vaccines," Infectious diseases expert Dr. Mati Hlatshwayo Davis told CNN on Saturday. "But now we've reached the 'wait and see' crowd and the outright 'I don't want it' crowd."

And while efforts to get more shots into arms -- from the federal, state and local levels -- have been ongoing for the past months, Davis said officials now need to double down on their efforts to tackle two key challenges.

"Vaccine confidence needs to be addressed, while access needs to be addressed too," Davis said. "We need to be ... innovative around both culturally competent education and be thoughtful about where the holes are and where we can get shots in people's arms."

Experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci estimate between 70% to 85% of the country needs to be immune from the virus -- through vaccination or previous infection -- to control its spread. So far, roughly 44% of the US population has gotten at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 31% of the population is fully vaccinated, that data shows.

There are three groups of people who haven't gotten a vaccine yet, emergency physician Dr. Leana Wen told CNN on Saturday. One is generally anti-vaccine and anti-science, Wen said, and not the group the US should target first.

"The group we should be targeting first are those who actually really want the vaccine but just haven't had it because they have other things in their lives to worry about," like jugging multiple jobs or taking care of elderly parents or children, she said.

"We need to make it really easy for them to get the vaccine. I think we should be closing mass vaccination sites, redistributing vaccines to doctors' offices, pharmacies, getting public clinics and churches and schools and workplaces," Wen added.

And there's a group of people who have specific concerns about the vaccines, like for example, what the side effects might be, Wen said.

"We need to address these concerns, ideally by people in their community who changed their minds, who initially thought, 'I'm worried about the vaccines too, but here's what changed my mind.'" ...

Even as Covid-19 numbers get better, it will be important to keep vaccinating Americans to prevent a resurgence of the virus in the fall and winter, Wen said. ...

If people who are now on the fence don't get vaccinated, the US may not reach widespread levels of protection against the virus, Wen said.

"And then, with the winter... we have a big resurgence, maybe we have variants coming in from other countries, and we could start this whole process all over again," she said.

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