U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy made sense on several of Sunday’s weekly news shows when he said the time is nearly right for booster shots to be offered to, and recommended for, many already vaccinated Americans.
Responding to critics who say America shouldn’t horde the vaccine by offering the public third doses while hundreds of millions across the globe still have not received a single dose, Murthy said we can do both. “We have to protect American lives, and we have to help vaccinate the world because that is the only way this pandemic ends,” Murthy said on ABC’s This Week.
Of course, the coronavirus crosses borders, so eventually, people in the United States will suffer, too, as the virus spreads and possibly mutates among the unvaccinated abroad. That’s why the U.S. government has vowed to provide 500 million vaccine doses worldwide, and already has delivered 120 million.
Still, the first responsibility of the U.S. government is to its own citizens. The simple facts are that the virus is spreading rapidly here as well, that growing evidence suggests the vaccines lose at least some efficacy the more time has elapsed since a person was last inoculated, that the delta variant is infecting far more children than earlier variants, and that the seven-day average for COVID-19 daily deaths just crossed 1,000 for the first time since late March.
A growing number of American cases — although, thankfully, few hospitalizations and fewer still deaths — involve fully vaccinated people. And there’s a larger-than-expected incidence of cases that are rather severe, only slightly below the need for hospitalization. Also, while children remain far less likely to contract the coronavirus in a life-threatening way, cases among children now make up a full 18% of all national COVID-19 infections.
All the evidence suggests that the available vaccines at least lessen the severity of the coronavirus but that the delta variant’s contagiousness is immense. Just as with ordinary influenza inoculations, which are recommended to be repeated annually, a booster shot can significantly help slow the spread and lessen its effects.
“We want to extend that protection and stay ahead of delta,” said Murthy on Fox News Sunday. “That’s why the boosters are important.”
We are a free people and have every right to avoid the third vaccine dose if we, as individuals, feel confident enough in the protections from the first two shots. The American government, though, is right to give us the choice as soon as safety and efficacy have been confirmed to a high level of confidence. That same government has a duty to put the health of America first.
