Monday’s full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should convince vaccine skeptics to hop off the fence and onto a stool to receive the shot.

It should, but it may be another, more persuasive factor that makes the difference: vaccine requirements.

And those should be more likely to sprout now that the FDA has removed what can be a legal barrier for many employers to require a shot for their workers, in this ongoing time of pandemic. Full authorization of the shot manufactured by Moderna has been anticipated to follow fairly soon; the timeline for FDA granting that status to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is less clear.

As it should, news of this approval has been greeted with great relief. The population clearly needs propelling to get immunization where it needs to be, if life is to return to some semblance of normalcy.

The first vaccines were rolled out in December under an emergency use authorization, after a limited series of trials yielded evidence that they were effective against the virus. Any risk from the shot was deemed far less than the danger from a disease that already has killed 628,000 Americans.

It was rightly seen as urgent that an immunization solution be found, without delay. Sadly, the lack of that sense of urgency in a segment of the population has led to a flood of cases in hospitals now, one that threatens to collapse the state’s health-care system.

The federal government and health officials in each state were met with two public reactions to emergency authorization. Many people could not wait to receive the shot, while production rushed to catch up with demand.

Others were not so eager, because they didn’t trust what they saw as an abbreviated FDA process, especially for drugs developed through the new mRNA technology used for the Pfizer and Moderna shots. They worried about the safety of such vaccines. They didn’t believe they needed it. Often, multiple reasons are cited.

But now, a rational evaluation of safety ought to lead more people to accept the vaccine. Full approval entailed the collection of at least six months of data on trial participants and their health outcomes; there is more stringent oversight and inspections and more detailed review of data on the vaccines’ effectiveness and manufacturing process.

Hospitalization statistics from Hawaii’s surge in the virus’ delta variant hugely underscore just how protective the vaccines are against severe disease. About 95% of the COVID-19 patients currently in Hawaii hospitals are unvaccinated.

Gov. David Ige, all four county mayors and state Health Director Libby Char have been imploring residents to sharpen their focus on social distancing, masking, self-isolating when sick and following good hygiene. They also have urged more people to get vaccinated; currently 62% of the entire population is fully vaccinated.

Although the public pressure — and the over-capacity hospitals — may have helped drive a recent increase in vaccinations, infection counts continue to rise. Unfortunately, people seem unmoved to do the right thing voluntarily. It’s time to press them harder.

Employers and public venues where people are in close quarters should now worry less about lawsuits over mandating shots, given that approved immunizations have a firm legal basis.

At the pandemic’s start, masking was really our only defense against COVID-19.

Now there is a more powerful, fully approved weapon against the disease — if only more would use it.