Irving Levine is a Holocaust survivor. Today, at 93 years of age, Levine is receiving his first COVID vaccine at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck. (Video by Andre Malok | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
The Claims Conference in partnership with United Hatzalah has launched a national project with the goal of making sure that all 11,000 homebound Holocaust survivors living in Israel receive their Covid-19 vaccine. The Claims Conference will be investing 5,000,000 NIS in the project to pay for the transport of all of the survivors to and from the vaccination centers.
Holocaust survivors Rise and Frieda got their second shot of the COVID-19 vaccine in New York city.
The United States is once again seeing a rise in COVID19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. COVID-19 cases are on the rise in nearly 90% of U.S. jurisdictions, and we are seeing outbreaks in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage. These worrisome trends are due, in part, to the rapid spread of the highly transmissible B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant.
The B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant is now the predominant variant in the United States, making up an estimated 83.2% of recent U.S. cases. The best way to slow the emergence of new variants is to reduce the spread of infection by taking measures to protect yourself, including getting a vaccine when it’s available to you.
Studies published since the last update that demonstrate currently authorized mRNA vaccines provide protection against variants, including the Delta strain that is now predominant in the United States. Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization and death is high for all current SARS-CoV-2 variants; emerging data suggest lower effectiveness against confirmed infection and symptomatic disease caused by the Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants compared with the ancestral strain and the Alpha variant.
A growing body of evidence indicates that people fully vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna) are less likely than unvaccinated persons to acquire SARS-CoV-2 or to transmit it to others. However, the risk for SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection in fully vaccinated people cannot be completely eliminated as long as there is continued community transmission of the virus.
What We Know
So far, research on mRNA COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in real-world conditions is reassuring.
Please note, this website was created for informational purposes only. The information provided here has been supplied to us by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Nothing in this website is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding the COVID-19 vaccine.