March 12, 2021
Dear Members of the Baylor College of Medicine Community,
In the world of COVID-19, we are seeing some hopeful signs that we could reach herd immunity by July.
In this week’s video, I go through the global, national, state and local numbers on COVID. The U.S. still leads the world in the number of deaths and we seem to have hit a plateau in the number of cases. How fast or if those numbers fall will depend on the variants and how quickly we can get people vaccinated. It also depends on how we practice public health measures. As much as we track our progress in the local community and the U.S., we will not be free of this virus until we conquer it globally.
Interesting news this week includes Israel’s success in vaccination rates. Israel is providing an in-the-field look at the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine, which proves to be about 93 percent. The J&J vaccine will be a game changer as it can be dispensed at pharmacies and in difficult-to-reach rural areas. And, it will not surprise you that places that require masks show better numbers on both cases and deaths from COVID-19.
So even though the mask order has been lifted in Texas, continue to wear your mask and practice physical distancing until we reach herd immunity.
Thank you to the hundreds of you are using the 'Stick to Science, Mask Up' frame for your Facebook profile picture. Please share that message.
Stay safe.
Paul Klotman, M.D.
President & CEO
Executive Dean
