| Health experts in the U.S. are encouraging Americans to get vaccinated and get booster shots if eligible as a new COVID-19 variant that was first detected in South Africa is renewing restrictions in much of the world.
“If omicron is one more wake-up call, then let’s wake up," Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said Sunday. "And come on America, you can do this. These vaccines are safe, they’re effective — people have been using them for more than a year, 200 million people plus have gotten injected, these are something you want for yourself, your family, your community.”
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just over 59% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated. Approximately 19% of those individuals who are fully vaccinated have also received a booster shot.
The omicron variant has yet to be confirmed in the United States. However, cases have been detected in neighboring Canada. Experts say cases in the U.S. will likely begin to pop up soon.
“It also means we need to pay attention to those mitigation strategies that people are just really sick of, like wearing masks while indoors with other people who might not be vaccinated and keeping that social distance issue,” Francis said. “I know, America — you’re really tired of hearing those things. But the virus is not tired of us. And it’s shapeshifting itself.”
Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, all which have vaccines approved for use in the U.S., have said they are looking into the new variant's impact on their vaccine's efficacy, which they could know within a couple of weeks.
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