New C.D.C. data shows their effectiveness.
The C.D.C. has begun to publish data on Covid outcomes among people who have received booster shots, and the numbers are striking:
As you can see, vaccination without a booster provides a lot of protection. But a booster takes somebody to a different level.
This data underscores both the power of the Covid vaccines and their biggest weakness — namely, their gradual fading of effectiveness over time, as is also the case with many other vaccines. If you received two Moderna or Pfizer vaccine shots early last year, the official statistics still count you as “fully vaccinated.” In truth, you are only partially vaccinated.
Once you get a booster, your risk of getting severely ill from Covid is tiny. It is quite small even if you are older or have health problems.
The average weekly chance that a boosted person died of Covid was about one in a million during October and November (the most recent available C.D.C. data). Since then, the chances have no doubt been higher, because of the Omicron surge. But they will probably be even lower in coming weeks, because the surge is receding and Omicron is milder than earlier versions of the virus. For now, one in a million per week seems like a reasonable estimate.
That risk is not zero, but it is not far from it. The chance that an average American will die in a car crash this week is significantly higher — about 2.4 per million. So is the average weekly death rate from influenza and pneumonia — about three per million.
With a booster shot, Covid resembles other respiratory illnesses that have been around for years. It can still be nasty. For the elderly and immunocompromised, it can be debilitating, even fatal — much as the flu can be. The Omicron surge has been so terrible because it effectively subjected tens of millions of Americans to a flu all at once.
For the unvaccinated, of course, Covid remains many times worse than the flu.
‘Heartbreaking’
I’m highlighting these statistics because there is still a large amount of vaccine skepticism in the U.S. I have heard it frequently from readers in the past week, after our poll on Covid attitudes and partisanship, as well as the “Daily” episode about the poll.
This vaccine skepticism takes two main forms. The more damaging form is the one that’s common among Republicans. They’re so skeptical of vaccines — partly from misinformation coming from conservative media figures and Republican politicians — that many remain unvaccinated.
Look at this detail from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s latest portrait of vaccination: Incredibly, there are more unvaccinated Republican adults than boosted Republican adults.
This lack of vaccination is killing people. “It’s cost the lives of people I know, including just last week a friend of 35 years, a person I met on one of the first weekends of my freshman year of college,” David French, a conservative writer who lives in Tennessee, wrote in The Atlantic. “I can’t tell you how heartbreaking it is to see person after person fall to a virus when a safe and effective shot would have almost certainly not just saved their life but also likely saved them from even having a serious case of the disease.”
Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at the Baylor College of Medicine, estimates that in the second half of last year, 200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives because they refused Covid vaccines. “Three doses of either Pfizer or Moderna will save your life,” Hotez told me. “It’s the only way you can be reasonably assured that you will survive a Covid-19 infection.” (Young children, who are not yet eligible for the vaccines, are also highly unlikely to get very sick.)
The vaccines don’t prevent only death. Local data shows the risks of hospitalization are extremely low, too. Vaccination also reduces the risk of long Covid to very low levels.
Healthy and anxious
The second form of vaccine skepticism is among Democrats — although many would recoil at any suggestion that they are vaccine skeptics. Most Democrats are certainly not skeptical about getting a shot. But many are skeptical that the vaccines protect them.
About 41 percent of Democratic voters say they are worried about getting “seriously sick” with Covid, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released last week. That’s a very high level of anxiety for a tiny risk.
Here’s the proof that much of the fear is irrational: Young Democrats are more worried about getting sick than old Democrats, even though the science says the opposite should be true.
The most plausible explanation for this pattern is political ideology. Younger Democrats are significantly more liberal than older Democrats, according to the Pew Research Center (and other pollsters, too). Ideology tends to shape Covid views, for a complex mix of often irrational reasons. The more liberal you are, the more worried about Covid you tend to be; the more conservative you are, the less worried you tend to be.
I know that many liberals believe an exaggerated sense of personal Covid risk is actually a good thing, because it pushes the country toward taking more precautions. Those precautions, according to this view, will reduce Covid’s death toll, which truly is horrific right now. In a later newsletter this week, I will consider that argument.
For now, I’ll simply echo the many experts who have pleaded with Americans to get vaccinated and boosted.
Answers and convenience
What might help increase the country’s ranks of vaccinated? Vaccine mandates, for one thing — although many Republican politicians, as well as the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court, oppose broad mandates. Private companies can still impose mandates on their employees and customers.
Without mandates, the best hope for increased vaccination is probably community outreach. While many unvaccinated Americans are firmly opposed to getting a shot, others — including some Democrats and independents — remain agnostic. If getting a vaccination is convenient and a nurse or doctor is available to answer questions, they will consider it.
“I cannot count how many people I’ve spoken to about the Covid vaccine who have been like, ‘No, I don’t think so. No,’” Dr. Kimberly Manning of Emory University told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Then I run into them two weeks later and they tell me they got vaccinated.”
Related: “You have to scratch your head and say, ‘How the heck did this happen?’” Dr. Anthony Fauci told Michael Barbaro on today’s episode of “The Daily,” about the partisan gap in Covid attitudes. Fauci also predicted that people who were anxious about Covid would become less so as caseloads fell.
In Times Opinion, James Martin, a Jesuit priest, argues that schadenfreude over vaccine skeptics’ suffering warps the soul.
THE LATEST NEWS
The Virus
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A mutated version of Omicron could slow the decline in cases, but probably won’t create a surge.
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For those with medical conditions, the latest wave has still posed a threat.
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Spotify said it would add an “advisory” to virus-related content, and the podcaster Joe Rogan said he would try to include more experts.
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To-go drinks were a rare pandemic crowd-pleaser in New York. But liquor stores would like them to end.
Politics
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Donald Trump said he might pardon those charged in the Capitol attack if he were re-elected.
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More than 20 Republicans who dispute President Biden’s election victory are running for state posts overseeing elections.
Sports
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The Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams will meet in the Super Bowl.
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Rafael Nadal won the Australian Open men’s final. It’s his 21st Grand Slam title, a record in men’s singles.
Other Big Stories
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Parents, lawmakers and school officials in the U.S. are trying to ban books.
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Hard-liners who want Russia restored to Soviet glory have President Vladimir Putin’s ear on whether to invade Ukraine.
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North Korea launched its boldest missile test in years (and its seventh this month).
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Ketanji Brown Jackson is a contender for the Supreme Court. Her family helped shape her understanding of the justice system.
Opinions
Supreme Court nominations always involved identity politics, but only white men used to benefit, Charles Blow writes.
We should be proud of good cops even as we root out bad ones, says Maureen Dowd.
Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss gerrymandering.
MORNING READS
Gold: Helen Harris turns teeth into art.
Condo crisis: The clock is ticking for Miami’s aging towers.
Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 8.2. How did you do?
Advice from Wirecutter: How to organize your closet.
Lives Lived: Howard Hesseman was most famous for playing a fallen radio star in the sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati.” He died at 81.
ARTS AND IDEAS
Sundance, at home
The Sundance Film Festival — virtual for a second year — wrapped this past weekend. “At a time when many of us are worried about the health of movies,” the film critic A.O. Scott writes, “it offers proof of life.”
Among the notable films: Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut, “When You Finish Saving the World,” about an Indiana teenager struggling with romance; “Navalny,” a suspenseful documentary about the Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny; “Nanny,” which subjects its protagonist, a Senegalese immigrant living in New York, to supernatural and psychological scares; and Mariama Diallo’s “Master,” about a Black student and a Black professor on a hostile campus.
One of Scott’s favorite films was Sara Dosa’s “Fire of Love,” which tells the story of a French couple who studied volcanoes. The film’s scenes of violent eruptions and serene lava flows were captured by the couple’s cameras before their deaths in 1991. Here are the festival’s award winners. — Sanam Yar, a Morning writer
PLAY, WATCH, EAT
What to Cook
This Moroccan-inspired vegetarian chili is not so much spicy as spiced.
What to Read
New books to look forward to in February include epics from Olga Tokarczuk and Marlon James.
What to Watch
“The Afterparty” on Apple TV+ is a murder mystery that toys with Hollywood clichés.
Late Night
“Saturday Night Live” spoofed Russian disinformation about Ukraine.
Now Time to Play
The pangram from Friday’s Spelling Bee was outback. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.
Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Burn lightly (five letters).
If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David
P.S. A hidden Times haiku: “If your masks come in / a package that’s not secured / shut, be suspicious.”
Here’s today’s front page.
“The Daily” is a conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci. On the Book Review podcast, Imani Perry and Oliver Roeder discuss their new books.
Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.
