Urgent Care Had to Fight for Its Seat at the Table, but Is Now an Essential Player in Fighting the Pandemic

The urgent care industry has done a great job of making the case that it has the expertise and accessibility to be essential to the fight against COVID-19—a far cry from the early days when resources were channeled elsewhere. This was confirmed when the Centers for Disease Control and prevention made a point of including urgent care centers on the same level as emergency rooms in a study of the effectiveness of boosters for both the Delta and Omicron variants of COVID-19. While the results of the study are enlightening—the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna wanes 180 days after the second dose—the very fact that urgent care was a data source validates the role urgent care can and should play in public health initiatives.