INDIANAPOLIS — Former president Donald Trump was asked by Fox News host Maria Bartiromo whether he believes his supporters should get the COVID-19 vaccine.
"I would recommend the vaccine," said Trump, who received the inoculation in January before leaving office. "And I would recommend it to a lot of people who don’t want to get it, and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly."
Last week, a Monmouth University poll found that 56 percent of Republicans either wanted to wait and see further before getting a vaccine or said they will likely never get one, compared to just 23 percent of Democrats. A NPR/PBS/Marist found 47 percent of Trump voters and 41 percent of Republicans said they will not get the vaccine.
Trump joins President Biden and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Barack Obama in getting vaccinated. Those three former presidents along with former Vice President Mike Pence, Gov. Eric Holcomb, Senate President Rod Bray, Senate Minority Leader Greg Taylor and State Rep. Robin Shackleford, who heads the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus, have joined the ranks of leaders who are publicly demonstrating that the three available vaccines are safe and effective.
There is a sense of urgency on this vaccination front. The more people who get it, the closer that Indiana and U.S. get to "herd immunity" and the chance to put this terrible pandemic behind us once and for all.
"We are really in a race here," Dr. Richard Besser, the former acting CDC director, told CNN on Wednesday. "We're in a race to get the population vaccinated. At the same time, we're fighting people's exhaustion with the restrictions that public health has put in place and we're fighting the move by so many governors to remove the restrictions that are keeping us all safe. These factors are really concerning."
At this writing, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Indiana has administered at least one dose to 1,345,400 people, covering 74.3 percent of the prioritized population and 20.0% of the state's population. Around 12.7 percent of the population (843,588 people) have been fully vaccinated. Out of the state's 6.73 million people, 5.34 million are eligible. The state's vaccine is available at no cost.
The Indiana Department of Health had prioritized older Hoosiers beginning with those over age 70, who were the most vulnerable to the lethal aspects of COVID-19, which has claimed 12,482 lives while infecting 674,430 people. The eligibility has since descended to those age 45 and up.
Herd immunity kicks in when around 75 percent of the population is inoculated.
Just when we can see the so-called light at the end of the tunnel, we are watching at least 14 states experiencing infection rates spike, as well as in the European Union, which are now facing another round of lockdowns. According to the Associated Press, the pandemic's diverging paths on the two continents can be linked in part to the much more successful vaccine rollout in the U.S. and the spread of more contagious variants in Europe. Health experts in the U.S., though, say what's happening in Europe should serve as a warning against ignoring social distancing or dropping other safeguards too early.
"Each of these countries has had nadirs like we are having now, and each took an upward trend after they disregarded known mitigation strategies," said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC. "They simply took their eye off the ball."
Next Tuesday, Gov. Holcomb will make a statewide address, prepared to talk about the year since he ordered Hoosiers to "hunker down" to prevent the state’s medical system from being swamped. He will talk about what lies just over the horizon after the state will receive close to $6 billion in federal relief funds passed by Congress and signed by President Biden last week.
He refused to lift the state's facemask mandate and public emergency, saying, "I think it's unanimous, we don't support that."
Since April 2020, CDC officials have determined that the wearing of face masks has been the most effective method of limited transmission of the virus which is spread via aerosol particles so tiny that a trillion of them can fit in a drop of water. According to the University of Washington's Health Metrics & Evaluation site, about 72 percent of Hoosiers regularly wear masks. It forecasts 13,958 COVID deaths in Indiana by July 1.
This makes this pandemic of 2020/2021 the most deadly event in state history, eclipsing the estimated 10,000 Hoosiers who died during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-19.
"I'll have many more details on just how optimistic I am," Holcomb said. "We have the ability to emerge from this pandemic because of the strong position we went in and this assistance, but it will be a team effort."
That "team effort" must include as many Hoosiers are possible dialing 211 or visiting the state's highly effective website https://ourshot.in.gov to schedule a vaccine appointment. Our collective return to normal times depends on as many of us taking steps to protect ourselves ... and each other.
The columnist is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at www.howeypolitics.com. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.
