Few get new shot for covid thus far

4% of eligible in U.S. inoculated

Federal officials rushed out the first new coronavirus shots -- reformulated to target the still-dominant omicron variants -- to give people time to get inoculated before a likely cold weather surge, when respiratory infections increase as people head indoors, and recommended that all Americans 12 and older receive a third and fourth dose of vaccine. But the campaigns have lagged badly. Early data shows that just over 11 million Americans -- or about 4% of those eligible -- have received the new bivalent booster shots.

For public health leaders, the low booster rate is startling in a nation that financed the shots' development, offers them free and touts them as the best way to protect against a virus that has already claimed more than 1 million lives in this country.

The lagging booster rate is also blamed as a major contributor to the high covid mortality rate last winter and the continuing deaths of more than 400 Americans on average per day linked to the virus, according to The Washington Post's coronavirus tracker. An analysis by the Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group, forecasts that more than 75,000 lives might be needlessly lost if the fall booster campaign comes up short.

Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research Institute in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, blamed federal agencies for being too cautious and sending mixed messages.

"Obviously, there's been a lot of missteps [in the government's response]," he said. "But to me, this is the most important one: When you have people who were willing to get two shots, and then you lose them to not get a third, or a fourth or fifth, it's a travesty. These are people who are willing to get vaccinated."

Federal officials privately acknowledge mistakes in last year's initial booster shot rollout. After Biden announced in August 2021 that every American should get a booster shot in the fall, some advisers and experts at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised concerns that the decision appeared to have been made before they had fully reviewed the data.

Some public health experts outside the government, meanwhile, argued that two doses of vaccine were sufficient to protect most people.

The competing sound bites confused and alienated many Americans, and intimidated officials, according to Topol. "CDC was afraid to boost the booster message, thinking that that would diminish confidence in [the] primary series vaccines and give the anti-vax groups fodder," he said.

"I blame the federal health bureaucracy," agreed Jon Favreau, a host of "Pod Save America," a progressive podcast, and a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama. "This was not the White House's fault. This is not the top scientists in the administration's fault. This was the agencies dragging their feet and a small, very vocal group of experts who happen to be on Twitter a lot."

"Suggesting that federal agencies' review of the boosters had some significant impact on their uptake is bizarre and wrong," said the CDC's Kevin Griffis. "We know the reasons why people don't get boosted ... It's not because experts spent a few weeks reviewing the data" but because many vaccinated Americans believe two shots are sufficient.

Ashish Jha, the White House's covid-19 response coordinator, acknowledged missteps last year, blaming "a group of public health people who I think unduly expressed skepticism."

"And what we saw was a lot of Americans get very sick and die in the omicron wave because they were unboosted," he said. " ... There's more and more data out [now] that shows that when people get their boosters, they're far less likely to end up in the hospital, far less likely to die."

Jha said the administration will lean on that data while readying a campaign intended to pump up interest in the boosters starting this month. The federal health department is running digital ads that encourage people to get coronavirus vaccines and boosters along with their flu shots, and the administration is planning events, such as vaccine clinics at colleges and workplaces, to tout the new bivalent shots. The department will also run television ads about the updated shots beginning Oct. 17, and target Hispanic and Black communities in an ad blitz the following week, officials said.

The White House has also tweaked its messaging. Officials are describing the shots as an "updated covid vaccine," hoping that avoiding the word "booster" shores up confidence. They're also urging Americans to get "annual" covid shots, believing it will better prepare people to fight a virus that is expected to be around for years.

But there is scant evidence that such a campaign will win over holdouts, with many Americans fatigued by covid messages, doubtful about the threat and having reached their own conclusions about how best to navigate a persistent pandemic. Forty-six percent of respondents to an Axios-Ipsos poll last month said they had returned to their pre-pandemic activities, the highest percentage since the poll began in January 2021.

Other Americans say they want to take necessary precautions but have tuned out the latest recommendations; still more have fallen prey to misinformation, or confess to sheer exhaustion with covid messages, roughly 1,000 days after federal officials first warned of a mysterious pneumonia in central China.

"A lot of people have wanted to move on from the pandemic," said Mollyann Brodie, who oversees KFF polling, listing reasons for the diminished attention. "Partly because the surge has abated, partly because of pandemic fatigue -- and partly because the risk to an average healthy person is different than it was earlier."

A MIXED RESPONSE

Experts like Brodie say that while some Americans have tuned out the booster and vaccination campaigns -- with roughly one-third of adults not having gotten their primary shots against the coronavirus -- there are likely tens of millions of highly motivated people planning to seek out the latest boosters.

"[I'm] beating down the door," said Alyssa Thacker, 33, at a Walgreens in Fox Point, Wis., last week, pushing a stroller with daughters, Ari, 4, and Aoife, 2. "I'm third-trimester pregnant and I want to protect my fetus. I want to protect my children. I want to be able to travel and not catch it and not inadvertently infect anyone else."

Thacker said she plans to give her two daughters the new booster as soon as it is available to children.

Others say they intend to get the shots, but are putting them off because of recent infections or boosters.

"I'm in that waiting period," said Brodie, who said she received her last booster in August and wants to wait to get the new shot until November. Federal officials recommend that people wait three months since their most recent covid infection or at least two months from their last booster.

Some organizations, such as colleges and universities, are moving to require the boosters -- as they did with earlier vaccines -- amid evidence that such mandates compel uptake.

But this time around, there is little appetite to try to persuade employers to mandate booster shots, said Ezekiel Emanuel, who coordinated efforts to persuade many health care organizations and universities to compel them last year. Emanuel said that while he believes such organizations should require the new shots, he has no plans for another campaign, citing legal challenges and other complications.

"A lot of people who were vaccinated later got omicron -- I think that's not getting enough attention when we talk about the appetite for boosters," Emanuel added. "People have become a bit cynical about the vaccines' benefit. I know people who have gotten four shots and still got infected."

Information for this article was contributed by Kayla Ruble and Jimmy Magahern of The Washington Post.

Upcoming Events