Starting Monday, Texans 16 and up can get a vaccine against Covid-19. Dr. Peter Hotez with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston says it should help because "Texas is still in the lowest tier in terms of percentage of people vaccinated. With the B117 variant here and liberalizing restrictions, that's pretty dangerous. The best way we can combat this, unless we're going to reverse some of those things is to accelerate vaccination."
He says we should be at the top of the heap and not the bottom in terms of vaccinations.
He says the only way this pandemic is going to end is if we can vaccinate 80 to 85% of all Texans. He says the high number is due in part to the B117 variant, which originated in the southern UK. "It's more transmissible. The more transmissible an agent is, the higher percentage of people you need to vaccinate to stop transmission. The extreme example is Measles which has the highest reproductive number of any virus. You have to vaccinate 95% of the kids in order to stop transmission. The B117 variant is not quite as high, but you're going to have to get well over 80%."
Hotez says there are high rates of severe illness and death in those under 65 in Hispanic and African American communities. "A third of the deaths in those groups occur under the age of 65, so we're losing a lot of moms and dads in their 40's and 50's. I think it's really important that we get as many people vaccinated as possible."
He adds about 30 percent of younger who are infected become "long haulers." "They have some long term disabilities in terms of shortness of breath and heart palpitations and neurological impairment and even depression."