HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Health officials are concerned enough people aren’t getting the updated COVID-19 boosters.
“I do understand this fatigue, it’s a lot. People have been doing a lot of shots,” said Dr. Jill Roberts, Associate Professor for the USF College of Public Health.
Experts believe vaccine fatigue may be the reason for the low vaccination rates.
“I do know that a lot of people are saying ‘Oh I’m tired. I’m tired of vaccines, I’m tired of boosters, I’m tired of COVID,” said Dr. Jacquelyn Cawley, Vice President of Population Health for BayCare.
“I think it’s a huge concern,” said Dr. Jason Salemi, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at USF.
The new vaccine has been available for about two months now and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report only 28.7% of adults got the updated shot.
“We’re not making much progress. If you look nationally, depending on the age group, what you tend to see depending on the age group is just not much in terms of new boosting,” said Salemi.
These low numbers are a concern for health officials looking ahead to a looming winter surge.
“Unfortunately over time, your existing shot is going to stop working. So that protection you’re getting now against hospitalization and severe disease is going to go away. We want to keep the boost going,” said Roberts.
“In the United States we rank towards the bottom of other wealthy countries in terms of our boosting rate so we’ve already had a problem,” said Salemi.
Public health officials are now taking a closer look as to why people are becoming more lax on vaccinations.
One reason numbers are low could be due to timing.
“When you actually choose to go and do it depends on when you’ve either last been boosted or you’ve been previously infected. If that’s been within the past 2 to 3 months I would probably hold off until three months have passed so you can gain the maximum advantage from this new booster shot,” said Salemi.
Another reason for the hesitation could be confusion and mixed messages.
“You have some public health professionals urging, 'go out and get boosted this fall. Make sure you couple that with a flu vaccine shot,' and then you hear mixed messaging like, 'the pandemic is over,'” said Salemi.
Doctors stress the pandemic is not over. They told ABC Action News that transmission rates are still relatively high and will likely climb.
“We’ve almost been desensitized to these astonishingly high numbers,” said Salemi.
“It's still there, it’s still a threat. We’re still seeing deaths, we’re still seeing hospitalizations so there’s really nothing to lose by getting the shot,” said Roberts.
Experts said getting vaccinated for both COVID and the flu right now is crucial.
“The data would strongly suggest that if you are in a vaccine or a boost eligible age group, it is a wise idea at this point in the fall, go out and get that booster dose and again it’s a wise idea to also couple that with the flu vaccine shot,” said Salemi.
“We know what can happen when we don’t do much to mitigate the spread of this virus,” he added.
“Just being able to do our part caring for ourselves, caring for our families and caring for our community is really important,” said Cawley.