It was early springtime here in Australia when my son died. I took jasmine and dark-red sweet peas from my garden to his funeral and laid them carefully beside him, wondering how I could even keep breathing through the pain.His name was Adam. He was 38, and more than six feet tall, but he was still my baby. His birth, as my first child, brought me to the most joyous life turn I’ve ever gone through; his death, the most shattering.
After months of anticipation, Americans have a fully licensed COVID-19 vaccine. Today, the FDA announced the approval of Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot for people 16 and older—the first complete thumbs-up among the three vaccines available in the U.S.The pervasive mood has been: Finally. Pfizer’s shot was given its emergency use authorization—the vaccine’s training wheels—back in December, and the company submitted its application for full approval in May.
Public-health officials are enthusiastic about the new, single-shot COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, despite its having a somewhat lower efficacy at preventing symptomatic illness than other available options. Although clinical-trial data peg that rate at 72 percent in the United States, compared with 94 and 95 percent for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, many experts say we shouldn’t fixate on those numbers.