Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, MPA encourages efforts to reach vaccination targets across the US, in order to prevent a surge in cases and new variants of COVID-19.

“Once you have an unvaccinated population, that’s a vulnerable population likely to see surges in cases,” said El-Sadr, a ICAP’s global director and professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. “Ongoing spread means the potential for new variants to emerge, with the possibility that one will be able to evade the protection offered by vaccines.”