Why COVID boosters are hard to find in CT
COVID vaccine booster shots are difficult to come by in Connecticut, with the Thanksgiving holiday looming and capacity sapped by pediatric clinics.
“This week is tough because of the holiday,” said Eric Arlia, pharmacy director at Hartford HealthCare. “That takes out a couple of days of appointments for us.”
Federal regulators Friday approved both Pfizer and Moderna booster shots for all adults, giving providers less than a week to schedule booster appointments before Thanksgiving.
A total of 516,020 additional shots — including third doses and boosters — have been administered in Connecticut as of Sunday, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since Friday, when the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration approved booster doses for all adults, 47,169 additional doses have been administered, with the number expected to increase with broader eligibility.
Federal regulators said Friday that adults who are six months past their second Moderna or Pfizer vaccination, or two months after receiving the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, are eligible to get booster shots.
In Connecticut, that’s at least 1.7 million people, according to state data.
Arlia said there are appointments available next week, but that it would be difficult to find one before the holiday.
“We’re running out of days here,” he said.
Ohm Deshpande, associate chief clinical officer at Yale New Haven Health, said his health system has focused on COVID vaccine appointments for children ages 5 to 11, who became eligible earlier this month.
That has left scant availability for adults who want boosters. Deshpande said Yale New Haven Health has “a bit of booster capacity” at some Northeast Medical Group sites, “and will transition our other sites to a limited amount of booster capacity after we finish this initial focus on pediatrics.
“We dedicated 98 percent of our vaccine capacity to pediatric vaccination,” Deshpande said.
Deshpande said Yale recognized very early that capacity for pediatric vaccines was “limited.”
“It’s a lot easier to get an adult vaccine,” he said. “There are a lot of people giving vaccines.”
Deshpande, like Arlia, said booster availability will increase as time goes on.
“We expect to have weekend pediatric vaccination and adult booster capacity after the middle of December,” he said.
CVS has started offering appointments 24 hours a day, spokesperson Tara Burke confirmed, though she declined to specify which locations were offering that access “as we want patients to utilize the online digital scheduler.”
“We’re continuing to book appointments and administer vaccine,” she said.
When asked why federal regulators approved boosters for adults less than a week before Thanksgiving, Deshpande said it is “just the chaotic nature of operating in the pandemic.”
The CDC and FDA “made the decision because they’re concerned about the Thanksgiving holiday,” Deshpande said, but from a public health perspective, boosters may not be the priority.
“The focus needs to be on vaccinating kids and vaccinating adults who are not vaccinated,” he said.