NACCHO and leading partners recognize December 14, 2022 as the two-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 vaccine being administered outside of a clinical trial.
The COVID-19 vaccination campaign began in the United States on December 14, 2020, after the first COVID-19 vaccination was administered to a nurse in New York. Since then, more than 656 million vaccines have been administered across the country, with almost 200 million doses being administered in the past year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC).
Since then, public health clinicians, pharmacists, community groups, and other partners in communities across the country collaborated to administer over 655 million doses of vaccine. As of December 2022, over 80 percent of the population has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. Never in American history have so many life-saving vaccines been delivered so quickly.
This is an especially notable achievement that was made possible by the modification made in the response to COVID-19.
On March 29, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized a second booster dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for older people and certain immunocompromised individuals.
Prior to this the FDA authorized single booster doses for certain immunocompromised individuals following completion of a three-dose primary vaccination series. This action now makes a second booster dose of these vaccines available to other populations at higher risk for severe disease, hospitalization, and death. Evidence suggests that a second booster dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine improves protection against severe COVID-19 and is not associated with new safety concerns.
Additionally this year in June, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) issued interim recommendations for the use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 6 months–5 years and for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 6 months–4 years in the United States for prevention of COVID-19. ACIP determined that the benefits of vaccination outweigh risks for this population.
NACCHO recognizes this public-health accomplishment as evidence of all the hard work health practitioners have done to navigate this unique time in our country, and the world.
It is estimated that the COVID-19 vaccines have saved over 3.2 million lives, prevented 18.5 million hospitalizations, and avoided close to $1.15 trillion in health care costs, according to Commonwealth Fund. These savings were generated by approximately $40 billion in federal investments and should be considered one of the most effective bi-partisan successes ever.[KW1]
NACCHO and its members are proud of the work that has been done in the last two years to combat the spread of COVID-19. In addition to this, NACCHO would like to recognize the continued work and role local health departments play in increasing uptake of COVID-19 vaccines, alongside other services like providing routine vaccines and responding to the mpox outbreak.
NACCHO’s Initiative to Learning from COVID-19, to Advance Vaccinations more Broadly
Noting the many successes of the COVID-19 response, NACCHO hosted and facilitated their first virtual collaborative roundtable. The roundtable convened public health leaders and key stakeholders to capture insight, concerns, and recommendations to determine if strategies from COVID-19 response were applicable to addressing issues surrounding influenza vaccination rate of older adults. The final report for the 2021 meeting can be accessed here.
In July 2022, NACCHO conducted a follow up roundtable. Prior to the convening, participants were tasked to review and update recommendations from the previous year’s meeting. Check out the newest report, Collaboration to Address Influenza Vaccination Among Older Adults, published December 5, 2022.
The accomplishments associated with COVID-19 this year are extremely noteworthy, especially amid an ever-shifting landscape. This anniversary prompts us at NACCHO to reflect, recognize, and thank all those involved in the coordination, distribution, delivery, administration, education, outreach, and promotion of COVID-19 vaccines over the past year. NACCHO is committed our ongoing partnerships and to increasing the public’s access to health services in an effort to keep members of the community safe. For more information about NACCHO, please visit www.naccho.org.
