The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Monday that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has now been fully approved for those 16 and older, though it is still approved for use under the emergency use authorization for 12-15 year olds.

This comes as Washington County has had a 7-day average positive test rate at or above 5% since July 30th, after seeing the rate decrease since April. While the state coronavirus dashboard shows the southeast region of Iowa having 100 COVID-19 hospitalizations and 31 patients in the Intensive Care Unit, Interim Washington County Public Health Administrator Chris Estle anticipates positive cases and hospitalizations to continue to increase with school back in session, “I know that people as the general public are kind of over this pandemic so to speak we’re tired of having this conversation. They want to move on with their life. However, as with any communicable disease, until it goes through the entire population, until you have natural antibodies or antibodies through vaccine it’s going to be around. Communicable diseases just don’t “disappear” so we need to pause a little bit, try to get through this difficult time.”

Estle urges unvaccinated residents to consider the health of those under 12 years old who can’t currently get vaccinated and seek out a free one that is available to them through local pharmacies or their healthcare provider. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have also recently been approved for a third dose for immunocompromised individuals, and you can find more information by visiting here.