A speech by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki went viral on social media after she gave a didactic response to a Fox News reporter explaining the difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated against Covid-19.
It was a routine press conference, granted by Psaki this Monday (10) to journalists from various vehicles. Reporter Peter Doocy, who covers presidential affairs as a correspondent for the conservatively biased broadcaster, had asked Psaki a series of questions about, for example, US testing capacity and mandatory vaccination decrees, and amended another question.
“I understand that science says that vaccines prevent death [por coronavÃrus]. But I took three doses and I still got Covid. You took three doses and still got Covid. Why is the president still referring to this as a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’?”
Doocy was questioning the language used by Joe Biden when referring to the health crisis, but Psaki took the cue to explain what science says about the effect of vaccines.
“I received three doses of the vaccine. I had milder symptoms. You are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized if you are not vaccinated, and 20 times more likely to die,” the spokeswoman said, citing data from the Center for Control and Prevention. of Diseases (CDC).
“These are significant and serious statistics,” Psaki continued. “So, yes, the impact for unvaccinated people is much more dire than for the vaccinated.”
The Fox News reporter then pressed the question of Biden’s expression. “Is the president going to update his language at some point to more reflect the fact that people with three doses of the vaccine are catching and spreading Covid?”
In response, Psaki reinforced his argument that there is a significant difference between being vaccinated and having mild symptoms and not being vaccinated and being hospitalized or dying from the disease.
His speech echoes what Anthony Fauci has said. The top US infectious disease specialist and White House adviser in the fight against Covid-19 argues that the country should focus less on the number of infections and more on hospitalizations and deaths.
In fact, the country is experiencing an explosion of cases, which is attributed to the potential for greater transmissibility of the omicron variant, responsible for 95.4% of new infections, according to the latest CDC report.
In one month, the moving average of daily cases in the US grew 527% – from 120,200 on December 11 to 754,200 on Monday. The moving average of deaths rose from 1,286 to 1,646 in the same period. Despite the 28% increase, the current figure is about half the number of deaths recorded daily a year ago, when vaccination in the US was still in its infancy.
Currently, according to data from the Our World in Data portal, 74.41% of Americans received at least one dose of the immunizer against the coronavirus, 62.10% are on a complete regimen and 22.8% received the booster dose.
While the country is facing vaccine hesitation, mainly motivated by misinformation and the anti-vaccination movement, the number of hospitalizations has soared and is about to surpass the record recorded in January last year, according to a survey by the Washington Post.
As of Monday, 141,385 patients were hospitalized with Covid-19 in American hospitals. The peak, recorded on January 14, 2021, was 142,273.
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