The CDC reports that the vaccines are safe and effective with over 82 million doses administered in the U.S. through March 3. These vaccines are under the most intense safety monitoring in U.S. history using both established and new safety monitoring systems. This week the governor of Florida expanded vaccine eligibility to educators, sworn law enforcement officers and firefighters 50 years of age and older. The Department of Health has a website that lists vaccine locations throughout the state. President Joe Biden announced this week that the US has secured enough vaccine supply to vaccinate every US adult by the end of May, accelerating the previous timeline, which aimed to achieve that milestone by July. He also highlighted the ongoing efforts by FEMAto support vaccine distribution and collaborate with state governments to establish mass vaccination sites. Notably, President Biden urged all states to prioritize teachers, school staff, and childcare providers for vaccination as essential workers. He emphasized that existing CDC guidance can help schools mitigate COVID-19 risk and enable them to resume in-person classes even if teachers are not yet vaccinated, but he acknowledged that many educators have concerns. He challenged states to administer at least 1 dose of the vaccine to every educator, school employee, and childcare provider by the end of March, and the US government intends to utilize federal vaccine distributions to pharmacies to further this effort. It should be noted that all three vaccines currently available in the U.S. were very effective in their clinical trials. In the research trials, none of the people who received a vaccine died of COVID. And after the vaccines had taken full effect, none were hospitalized, either.
