Vaccines become more accessible

Over the past few weeks, people who shouldn’t have been able to get vaccinated until late spring have gotten vaccinated. Vaccines are becoming significantly more accessible. 

The original plan with distributing vaccines was to go through phases based on age groups in order to ensure that there are enough vaccines to go around. So why is it that there are people from all different age groups getting vaccinated recently? According to Eyewitness News, New York and other states have started opening up more to general adults who are 16 years or older. 

“12.2 million out of over 15 million New Yorkers over the age of 16 were eligible for COVID-19 vaccination as of last week,” Eyewitness News said. 

One method that people have used to get an early vaccination is going to the vaccine site close to closing hours. At the end of the day, there are some leftovers of the vaccine. People have just simply walked in without an appointment and got their dosage from the leftovers. According to Caroline Reinwald from ABC news, this has been happening quite frequently at vaccination sites since they don’t want the leftovers to go to waste. 

“Westing said the Moderna vaccine expires 12 hours after being ‘mixed’ and each vial contains about 10 doses of the vaccine,” Reinwald said. “Once they’ve exhausted their avenues, if there are people outside or nearby waiting, employees will allow them to get a leftover shot.” 

Once a person gets their first dosage, they are almost always automatically given a follow-up appointment for their second dosage.The CDC has made it clear that if a second dosage isn’t given at the right time after the first dosage, the vaccine will not be effective. 

“You should get your second shot as close to the recommended 3-week or 4-week interval as possible,” the CDC said. 

Other people, however, have simply just made their appointments to get vaccinated even if they aren’t of age for this particular phase of the vaccination process. Some people have reasons for having access to the vaccine such as medical reasons, but nonetheless, the vaccination process seems to be moving a lot faster than expected as shown on the Washington Post’s instagram page. 

“As of Friday afternoon, at least 87.3 million people have received one or both doses of a coronavirus vaccine in the United States. This includes more than 44.7 million people who have been vaccinated. 173.5 million doses have been distributed,” the Washington Post said. 

The vaccine wasn’t even supposed to be accessible for young adults or teens until around summer time, but that’s changed. One reason that this vaccination is being distributed so quickly is because not everyone is getting it, according to an article written by Marina Pitofsky from The Hill.

“Nearly 1 in 3 people in the United States said that they definitely or probably will not get the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new survey,” Pitofsky said. 

This way, there is more to go around for the people who are planning on getting it, and that is why people are getting vaccinated earlier than anticipated. However, this is just a conspiracy and there is no real evidence to back up this claim. 

Vaccines are going around faster than expected, and at this rate we might be better prepared for reopenings this summer. Also, scheduling vaccines is clearly much easier to do now which is something for people to look into if they plan on getting vaccinated. President Biden also spoke out on his plans for the vaccine with the New York Times. 

“In a brief speech at the White House, Mr. Biden said his administration had provided support to Johnson & Johnson that would enable the company and its partners to make vaccines around the clock,” the New York Times said. 

“As a consequence of the stepped-up process that I’ve ordered and just outlined, this country will have enough vaccine supply — I’ll say it again — for every adult in America by the end of May,” Biden said.