This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated December 3, 2021
With the help of science and some sacrifice, we have come a long way in being able to return to a new normal, while living in a post-COVID world. We cannot quarantine forever, but we do still need to take some reasonable precautions to help stem the tide of community spread and get us over the hump once and for all.
The most important thing we can all do is get vaccinated and the overwhelming majority of us have. Nearly 80 percent of New York’s entire population has received at least one dose and almost 70 percent are fully vaccinated. Zip codes for Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach, and Bensonhurst have vaccination rates within a percent or two of those state levels, with most being higher.
We may hear some people relaying false information claiming the vaccines do not work, they have not been tested sufficiently or that they have some nefarious purpose, but with over 90 percent of New York adults having received a shot, very few people believe these baseless statements.
The next thing that vaccinated adults need to do is get their booster. Nearly all of us who has attended school in the past several decades received all or most of the vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, and chickenpox, most of which required a booster. The fact that the COVID vaccines’ high levels of protection wane a bit after several months is not unlike most of the vaccines that nearly all Americans have been receiving for many years.
New York State’s breakthrough data shows that six months ago, at a time when most people had recently received their vaccinations, new cases occurred at a rate ten times higher among the unvaccinated. Today, they are about five times as likely. The effectiveness of vaccines preventing infection six months ago was 91 percent. Today, it is 78 percent, which is lower, but still very high by vaccine standards. Both of those numbers are much higher than the zero percent effectiveness of not being vaccinated.
“…New York City has done a few things extremely well. It has a very high vaccination rate and it has restricted indoor dining and activities to those who are vaccinated.”
With respect to hospitalizations, however, the figures have not changed. Looking back six months ago, the unvaccinated were ten times as likely to become hospitalized with COVID, compared to the unvaccinated, with the effectiveness of vaccines preventing hospitalization at 94 percent. Today, those figures are almost identical. Vaccines still greatly reduce the chances you will contract COVID and they exponentially reduce the odds that if you do have a breakthrough case, you will be hospitalized or die.
If you have not yet been vaccinated, get your shots. If you are fully vaccinated, get your booster once you are six months out from your second Pfizer or Moderna shot, or two months after receiving the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
Everyone wants to be done with masks, but with case numbers rising, government officials are now strongly encouraging masks be worn inside when in public. To mask up when you run into the store and wait in line for a few minutes is a minor inconvenience that happens to be a major disruption to the spread of COVID if many people do it.
On November 24, New York state recorded over 8,000 new cases, a level we had not seen in over seven months. New York City has been doing an exceptional job at slowing the spread. Of the state’s ten regions, four now have positivity rates between three and ten percent. Five have positivity rates above ten percent. New York City’s is 2.2%. The cases per 100,000 residents ranges from 32 to 66 in the other nine regions. New York City’s figure is 16.
It is difficult to pinpoint why our city’s levels are so much lower, especially given it is the largest urban area in the county and the opposite was true during most of the pandemic, but New York City has done a few things extremely well. It has a very high vaccination rate and it has restricted indoor dining and activities to those who are vaccinated.
Be safe, be smart, and be a good neighbor by doing the few small things that help protect us all. Get your shots and get back to life.
