Omicron Propels U.S. Booster Drive Where It’s Needed Least

(Bloomberg) -- The anemic effort to persuade vaccinated people to get boosters is intensifying as U.S. residents protect themselves from rising Covid-19 cases and the threat of the omicron variant.

Even with Thanksgiving travel disruptions, at least 5.6 million boosters were given from Nov. 27 — the day after the World Health Organization named omicron a variant of concern —  to Dec. 3. The tally continues to climb, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Indeed, the pace is on par with the end of October, when the booster push was at its peak. 

The expectation for booster shots was never as high as those for the original vaccines a year ago, as concern over waning immunity wasn’t universally shared. In many places, resistance to the Biden administration’s vaccine program meant that extra inoculations were beside the point. 

But experts surveyed by Bloomberg last week overwhelmingly recommended people get their boosters and not wait months for a special omicron shot. Even some who had previously been skeptical of boosters now support them. 

“I expect more people will be woken up,” said Jonathan Quick, an adjunct professor at the Duke Global Health Institute. “We had a false sense of security in June, and we haven’t come to grips with that yet.”

The CDC said Nov. 19 that all adults fully vaccinated with a messenger RNA vaccine were allowed to get a booster six months after completing their initial immunization. Ten days later, the agency strengthened that guidance to a recommendation as omicron appeared, with its potency still unknown.

In the U.S., just 41% of fully vaccinated people 65 and older had gotten a booster as of Nov. 24, two full months after they became eligible, according to CDC data. That number had risen to 48% Monday. Similar increases were seen in other age groups, with 25% of those 18 and older receiving boosters and 36% of those 50 and older.

In places where vaccine uptake was already high, it can be tougher to wangle another shot, but where vaccines were shunned in the first place, it’s far easier. This means well-protected parts of the country are building defenses higher, while many of those already exposed are falling further behind.

“We have real disparities in our rates of vaccination and then with that, rates of being triple vaccinated or boosted,” said Shira Doron, an infectious-disease physician and epidemiologist at the Tufts Medical Center in Boston. 

About 76% of the population in Massachusetts ages 5 and older are fully vaccinated, ranking the state among the top five for Covid-19 shots, according to CDC data. A line of shot-seekers forms outside the hospital each morning and snakes through the plaza, where it persists until the doors close in the evening.

“Everyone is going to get infected by this virus at some point, and you are way better off meeting this virus with vaccine under your belt than taking your chances with it,” Doron said.

In stark contrast, Nathan Buerkle, a pharmacist at The Drug Store on the town square of Haskell, Texas, said anyone can walk in and get a booster in minutes. About 37% of the eligible population in 5,700-resident Haskell County, north of Abilene, is fully vaccinated, according to state vaccination data.

“We are one of the only providers in the county offering vaccines,” Buerkle said. He has fielded questions about omicron, though he’s not sure if the conversations will translate into shots in arms.

In California, the divide is playing out between more affluent Los Angeles County communities and those that are less well off, according to Barbara Ferrer, director of the county’s Department of Public Health. About 11% of residents 12 and older in high-need communities have received a booster compared with 18% in wealthier ones, she said. She said she’s heard many questions about the necessity of boosters and confusion over whether all adults are eligible.

Vermont has led the drive in the U.S. with 42% of its fully vaccinated population 18 and older having had a booster shot. States like Montana, Colorado and Michigan, which have recently endured Covid-19 surges, are getting boosted at decent rates as well.

In West Virginia, however, only 27% of the fully vaccinated population has received a booster, according to Clay Marsh, the state’s Covid-19 czar. The number is still higher than the 8% that the CDC records, Marsh said, because the federal Vaccine Administration Management System was incorrectly recording about three-quarters of boosters as first doses. Still, even if the state is in the middle of the pack, Marsh is concerned.

“For a lot of people, there’s this feeling they’re kind of done with Covid,” Marsh said.  

Marsh said the state, which has low vaccine uptake overall, may be rushing into another surge, and hospitals haven’t had time to recover from the one that peaked at the end of September. That crisis filled intensive care units and required the hospitals to delay elective procedures.

In Los Angeles County, Ferrer is trying to raise interest in boosters, and she’s encouraged that she has seen more people coming into county-run clinics in the past several days.

“You can be exhausted by the pandemic at this point and want it to go away,” she said Friday. “Today, I reported almost 2,000 new cases — the same thing I reported yesterday. We have a lot of transmission still. We obviously need a lot more people to come in now with a sense of urgency.”

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