Guard Against Complacency as Case Counts Fall—but Booster Acceptance is Falling Short

The ongoing story of the COVID-19 pandemic is a big bag of mixed messages these days. The Omicron variant is more transmissible, but less likely to lead to serious illness in most otherwise-healthy patients. The death rate is far lower than it was earlier in the pandemic, but hospitalizations are soaring again. What is not a mixed message is the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key message, as outlined by Director Rochelle Walensky, MD at a White House briefing this week: This is still a national healthcare crisis with that poses a real threat to our hospitals’ ability to function. Part of the rationale for that concern is the fact that people across the country are less inclined to get a booster dose of the vaccine than they were to become “fully vaccinated” (when that meant just getting the full complement of the one- or two-dose vaccine regimen). The results of a poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reveal that while 59% of Americans say vaccination is an important part of being out in public without feeling at risk for COVID infection, only 47% had the same perspective about booster shots. That’s almost mirrored in new vaccination data from the CDC; only 40% of all Americans have gotten a booster shot, and only 43.4% of Americans over 18 have gotten one. While uptake was low at the very beginning of widespread availability of vaccines, right now 74% have completed the one- or two-dose regimen. When talking to patients who are unsure about getting a booster, share that the latest CDC data show patients who have taken the booster shot have more protection against the Delta and Omicron variants than patients who have not.