Few Americans have gotten new COVID-19 shots
Few Americans have received the latest vaccines against the coronavirus: Just more than 7% of adults and 2% of children had received a COVID-19 vaccine as of Oct. 14, according to a survey presented Thursday to scientific advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The uptake is weak even among those most at risk of severe illness. Only 1 in 5 people ages 75 or older has been vaccinated, along with about 15% of those ages 6574, according to the survey of nearly 15,000 people.
More than 1,200 people are dying of COVID-19 each week, according to CDC data.
“That's a travesty,” said Dr. David Kimberlin, a pediatrician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who represented the American Academy of Pediatrics at the meeting. “It's like an entire neighborhood being wiped out every single week.”
About 16,000 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the week ending Oct. 14, compared with nearly 23,000 at the same time last year and more than 44,000 in 2021.
COVID-19 hospitalizations among adults ages 75 and older are two to three times as high as among those ages 65-74. Rates of hospitalization are highest among Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Black Americans.
Less than 1% of Native Americans and Alaska Natives and 7.6% of Black Americans had received the vaccine as of Oct. 14.
“I'm really disappointed in the low rates of vaccination because I think it's a major missed opportunity to improve our overall level of health,” said Dr. Camille Kotton, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an adviser to the CDC.
Most people should be able to get the vaccines at no cost through private health insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. Government programs also make the vaccines available for free to children and adults who are underinsured or uninsured, at least through Dec. 31, 2024.
So far, more than 380,000 doses have been administered to uninsured people at more than 24,000 pharmacies.
Still, many people have reported having trouble finding the vaccine at pharmacies, being charged fees or even mistakenly being turned away. At some pharmacies, demand has outstripped supply, leading to canceled appointments.
Kotton said her clinic and others had received doses of the vaccine only in the past couple of weeks and she was cautiously optimistic that the immunization rates would pick up.
According to the Health and Human Services Department, 12 million Americans had been vaccinated by Oct. 14. That number grew to 14.8 million in the week after.
About 36% of adults age 75 and older in the survey said they would definitely get the shot, while 26% said they would probably do so or were still undecided.
Some experts have argued that immunity from previous infections and vaccinations is enough to protect most young people from severe illness and death from COVID-19.