With a newly licensed COVID-19 vaccine beginning to ship out to suppliers, the highway to getting the unfold of the coronavirus beneath management stays an extended one, and social distancing and correct use of masks stay key.
In McLennan County, 47 entities have registered to be vaccine suppliers when the time comes, together with the Waco-McLennan County Public Well being District, Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest, Ascension Windfall and native pharmacies. To method efficient herd immunity to the coronavirus, that means sufficient individuals are resistant to considerably interrupt its unfold, McLennan County officers hope a minimum of 70% of residents, or about 180,000 individuals, will obtain a vaccine, although that’s not at all a magic quantity, mentioned Dr. Farley Verner, the native public well being authority for the well being district.
“We might go from a state of affairs the place we now have uncontrolled unfold to scattered occasional circumstances,” Verner mentioned. “We’re not going to eradicate the virus with a vaccine program, however the concept is you could get sufficient people who find themselves immune, and the prospect the virus is unfold from one particular person to a different is decreased dramatically.”
Within the meantime, there are quicker methods of lowering the unfold than merely ready on the arrival and use of vaccines, he mentioned.
“If we had wider acceptance of masks, we’d be nearer than we at the moment are to get it beneath management,” Verner mentioned. “If we had extra fast testing … we’d be nearer to getting it beneath management. All of these collectively, together with a vaccine program, is what’s going to get us to the place the epidemic is managed.”
