Experts say U.S. booster effort still far behind
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Nine months ago, the lines stretched out the doors at Dr. Rusty Oshita’s three urgent care clinics, teeming with patients frantic to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Walk-ins jammed the parking lots and mini-mall sidewalks, some crowding too close, some bluffing to make the cut, hoping to pass as older than 65 or essential workers.
Now with the omicron variant driving a new surge, Oshita has awaited a new rush, for booster shots this time. So far, he has been waiting in vain.
“It’s scary,” the physician said this week as patients drifted in and out of his storefront in a Whole Foods shopping center in suburban Sacramento. “We’re not seeing the rise we were hoping for.”
As the pandemic has surged toward its third year, shape-shifting into the contagious new omicron variant and spiking dangerously in the Northeast, around the Great Lakes and in other parts of the country, health officials are urging Americans to get vaccinated and boosted. But the going has been slow.
Of American adults who are fully vaccinated and eligible for a booster shot, only about 30 percent have received one, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And among all Americans, only about 1 in 6 has received a booster.
On Friday, as New York City was racing to confront a precipitous surge in infections, city officials said only about 1.5 million New Yorkers out of more than 8 million had received booster shots. Some states may be undercounting, but the lag is alarming because omicron infections appear to evade regular one- or two-dose vaccinations. Vaccines still provide robust protection against death and severe illness, but when it comes to preventing the virus from getting a foothold in the first place, scientists increasingly believe that three shots are the new two shots.
Just more than half of Americans 65 and older — the population most vulnerable to a severe outcome from the virus — have received a booster. And public health experts are concerned that socioeconomic disparities in vaccination rates will be exacerbated as booster shots roll out.
Difficulty in taking time off work and disconnection from health care systems have contributed to a persistent gap in vaccination rates between the most and least socioeconomically vulnerable counties.
Among the states, booster rates are mostly correlated with vaccination rates, with the lowest rates in the South. West Virginia has among the lowest booster rates, with 26.6 percent of people 65 and older, while Minnesota is the highest with 71.2 percent of that age group, according to an analysis of the CDC data by Jen Kates, senior vice president of Kaiser Health Foundation.
Widespread, lasting immunization is critical to controlling the virus, according to health officials. Every poorly protected lung is a safe harbor for COVID19 to spread and mutate.
And every surge further exhausts the nation’s already depleted health care system, consuming finite hospital staff, resources and attention that then cannot be used to treat people with other serious illnesses.
Normal life in this country, scientists say, depends on the willingness of Americans to act both in their individual and in the broader community interest.
The vaccine rollout, 1 year old this week, has averted about 1 million COVID-19 deaths and 10 million hospitalizations, according to a recent report by the Commonwealth Fund. But it has been plagued by polarization, misinformation and lately by muddled communication from the federal government — first over who was eligible and most recently over whether a booster shot would make a difference.
As recently as last month, many public health experts opposed the Biden administration’s plan to offer booster shots to all American adults. Many researchers said there was little scientific evidence to support the extra doses. Instead, they argued, the shots should be used to protect the billions of people who remain unvaccinated.