Businesses and universities want fast, easy ways to see if students and customers are vaccinated, but conservative politicians have turned “vaccine passports” into a cultural flash point.
79% vaccine efficacy at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 100% efficacy against severe or critical disease and hospitalization Comparable efficacy result across ethnicity and age, with 80% efficacy in participants aged 65 years and over Favorable reactogenicity and overall safety profile
JAMA Live Highlights features comments from livestream interviews by JAMA Network Editor in Chief Howard Bauchner, MD. His discussions with experts in clinical care, public health, and health policy focus on critical issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Comments have been edited for clarity.
On December 11, 2020, the US reached an extraordinary milestone in the efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic: the Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of the first COVID-19 vaccine, manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech. Since then, 2 additional COVID-19 vaccines, Moderna and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), have received Emergency Use Authorization in the US and, as of March 8, 2021, more than 31 million people, or 9.4% of the total population, have completed a vaccination series.
The efforts of the Biden administration to accelerate rollout of COVID-19 vaccines are enabling more adults in the US to be vaccinated each week. As of February 28, 2021, an estimated more than 48 million people have received at least 1 vaccine dose.
IMPORTANCE Severeacuterespiratorysyndromecoronavirus2(SARS-CoV-2),theetiologyof coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is readily transmitted person to person. Optimal control of COVID-19 depends on directing resources and health messaging to mitigation efforts that are most likely to prevent transmission, but the relative importance of such measures has been disputed.