Unvaccinated Americans urged to get jab against COVID-19 to avert risk

WASHINGTON, May 27 — U.S. health experts have warned that those who are not inoculated in the country should not rely on protection from those who are, as the country’s infection risk shows no sign of going down despite the declining number of cases.
“The work ahead of us is going to be really challenging because while the people who are fully vaccinated are well protected, we still have to keep on convincing individuals who are not yet vaccinated that they are not safe,” CNN on Wednesday quoted medical analyst Leana Wen as saying. “The pandemic is not over for them.”
The risk for unvaccinated people is in fact about the same as it was in the middle of the January surge, Wen added.
“Thanks to vaccines, tens of millions of Americans are able to get back to something closer to normal visiting friends and family,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday at a White House briefing.
The CDC guidance hasn’t changed for those who are unvaccinated, however, as they are still at risk for infection, she added. “We are on a good downward path, but we are not quite out of the woods yet.”
The U.S. COVID-19 vaccination program has gone from zero to 50 percent in less than six months. As of Tuesday afternoon, half of the country’s adults are now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The U.S. is pushing to add millions more people to the ranks of the vaccinated. President Joe Biden said his new goal is to administer at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to 70 percent of U.S. adults by July 4, which is Independence Day. (Xinhua)