Millions of eligible U.S. adults have not yet had a COVID booster vaccine, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows, as the U.S. heads into the winter.
That's despite the fact that unvaccinated U.S. adults aged 50 or older were 14 times more at risk of dying from COVID than those who had two or more booster shots as of June, according to another new CDC dataset.
That report also shows that adults aged 50 or older who had one booster shot had a 3 times higher risk of dying from COVID compared to those who had had two or more.
The CDC recommended a COVID booster vaccine—an extra shot to boost immunity in people who had already been fully vaccinated against COVID—in some populations in September 2021. Access was further expanded to other populations before a recommendation for a second booster dose in March this year.
However, despite the rise of Omicron over the winter and the spread of the BA.5 variant, uptake of booster shots in the U.S. has been lackluster.
While 77.2 percent of the U.S. population aged 18 or over have completed their initial COVID vaccine courses—two shots of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine—just 51.5 percent got their first booster dose, according to CDC data.
Uptake of the second booster dose, which is currently only recommended to adults aged 50 or over and some people aged 12 and older who are immunocompromised, is even lower, with 33.2 percent of people aged 50 and older getting their second dose as of August 17.
This month's booster data also shows that infection rates were also significantly higher in unvaccinated people than in those who had been vaccinated.
As of mid-July the incidence of infection per 100,000 people was 776 in unvaccinated people, compared to 219 in people who had had two booster shots.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said on August 2 this year that people may be in for a harsh COVID winter if vaccine or booster uptake isn't increased soon.
Speaking to Los Angeles radio station KNX News 97.1, Fauci called the U.S. vaccine and booster rates "quite discouraging" and added that people must get protected from COVID "so you don't give this virus such ample opportunity to circulate."
This still applies to people who aren't concerned for their personal risk, Fauci said, because the longer the virus is allowed to spread, the more chance it gets to mutate into new variants that could be worse than the last.
The low booster uptake comes as the U.S. government is planning to stop paying for COVID vaccines and treatments, meaning the bill would be shifted to the private healthcare industry and possibly onto the consumer as a result.
"My hope is that in 2023, you're going to see the commercialization of almost all of these products. Some of that is actually going to begin this fall, in the days and weeks ahead. You're going to see commercialization of some of these things," White House COVID response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said at an event on Tuesday last week.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
