A month after federal officials recommended new versions of COVID-19 vaccines, 7% of U.S. adults and 2% of children have gotten a shot.
One expert called the rates “abysmal.”
The numbers, presented Thursday at a meeting held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, come from a national survey of thousands of Americans, conducted two weeks ago.
The data also indicated that nearly 40% of adults said they probably or definitely will not get the shot. A similar percentage of parents said they did not plan to vaccinate their children.
And here in Finland no one can’t even buy the new shots, they are only for people over 65 or at-risk-groups.
In the US its similar. Right now im working with a young man with disabilities and even getting him the shot is tough, no ones publicly saying where its avaliabe and who its avaliabe to, and if I wasn’t digging as part of a job I wouldn’t know jack about them. It’s no surprise few have gotten these shots, few know about them, I’d wager most Americans don’t know they’re out.
I literally walked into a rite aid and got it in 20 mins.
Same for CVS.
Walgreens was a no-go.
Got mine in Walgreens, same day appointment. Both flu and Covid booster.
Based on these comments, it’s a bit of a clusterfuck out there.
Damn! I am immunocompromised due to congentheart failure. Finding a shot here has been phone calls after phone calls. I finally got on a waiting list for when the pharmacy has it restocked. So weird how much it varies by area!
Wild, lucky you. I pass two pharmacies on the way home, haven’t seen so much as a sign about the new vaccines, the flu shot marquee message is still up. This article is the first I’ve seen about these shots even being avliable from anywhere outside of me calling pharmacies at work.
I work in a US pharmacy… it’s definitely been available for everyone for weeks now. This one didn’t even go through a 65+ phase or anything. You should be able to call and major pharmacy or go to their website to make an appointment.
Every pharmacy near me has been sold out. I managed to get my booster because I was quick about it. A few days later, my husband could not.
I was told the end of October was when my client could get it by the pharmacist who takes point on working with his doctors to help with his prior authorizations to make sure the right stuff is in stock because his medicaid wont cover certain things (and sometimes they even stop covering something he took for years then we have to find a new drug and get a prior auth for that one). I have the appointment now, this is just the first time outside of work I’ve seen anything about these being out from infomercials to parking lot signs, hadn’t seen anything until this.
From what I heard Novavax is available at many Costco stores.
Walgreens and CVS have Pfizer and Moderna. I got the Moderna Spikevax at Walgreens in late September.
I walked into Walgreens and got my flu and COVID shots together. I’m 30. They have big signs saying they have the updated vaccines walk in ready.
Same here, plus pneumonia. I’d have gotten the RSV too but they were out. I’m 55.
They gave me the pneumonia shot at the same time too, even tho I’m not old enough, they said since I used to smoke, I should get it since it’s covered.
Cool and congratulations on the quitting! It’ll be nine years since my last in May. You’re way ahead. Keep it up.
Meanwhile Walgreens can’t even staff their pharmacies around me reliably because the pharmacists are sick of Walgreens cost cutting and vaccinations.
Where is the USA are you? The supply is plentiful near me.
Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Wegmans. Plenty of places in my area to get them that’s not even counting doctors offices.
That’s the official line in the UK - free covid jabs are only available to those who’d be eligible for the flu jab anyway. But when I went to have mine done the other day they did my partner’s flu + covid on the spot too, no fuss. The pharmacist said that turn out has been so low they’ve been told to give it to anyone who asks.
I don’t think there’s been a lot of interest. Nobody seems to be talking about it. I had no idea there was a new vaccine or that anyone was still given a covid vaccine
Can you get one from private side if you really want one?
Doesn’t make sense to give everyone shots, same as with the flu. That money is better spent on general healthcare or other interventions.
Vaccinations are one of the most cost effective public health interventions.
The golden rule of public healthcare is to only have large-scale interventions where it is most cost effective. Since at-risk groups already take other shots regularly, the cost of giving more shots to them is far, far lower than the rest of the population - and gives a lot more benefit. A lot of large scale health interventions fall into that category.
You bet that there was some economist who ran the numbers and figured out just where the line went on who it was beneficial to give fhese shots.
In an ideal world, there would be infinite resources and resource management would not be an issue in healthcare, but they aren’t, and it is. As such, in many countries, these vaccinations come from the same pool of money as the costs to run hospitals, elder care homes and clinics, and considering how the price of literally everything is rising, there is a fair amount of cost-cutting going on right now.
To summarize, when 75% of the benefit of these vaccinations can be had by targeting the 20% who are most at risk, that’s what they’re going to do. And yes, from those who got severely ill, and even more so those who passed away, the vast majority were part of at-risk groups.
In the US, the covid vaccine has a sticker price of about $120; which is already a meaningless and overinglated number, but puts an upper bound on the cost of the treatment.
Suppose you are a healthy young adult, working a job earning $15/hour. You do not get vaccinated and end up catching covid. Nothing major, you just call in sick for a day and sleep it off. 8 hours of lost labor at $15/hour gives a lower bound of $120 in economic damages. Of course, your work produces more value then your wage: there is profit, per-employee overhead, non-wage benefits, cost of unplanned disruptions.
Maybe you need 2 days to recover. Now the damages are large enough to have covered at least 2 vaccinations. Maybe you infected someone else, who proceeded to infect someone else. Maybe you value not getting sick at a rate above $0. And this is all just the cost associated with 1 sick day. Some young healthy adults will get even sicker, and there is no way to know ahead of time who they will be.
Except that the covid vaccines haven’t been good enough to prevent infection, nor spread (at least the early ones, I’m not familiar with the recent developments). I’ve had three shots, and been confirmed sick with covid at least (tested positive) twice, and had to take sick days off. Additionally I had to take a day off work after I got vaccinated because I got a high fever. The same applied for almost all of my coworkers at the time (I was working in healthcare back then).
I definitely would be more positive to it if (a) that wasn’t the case and (b) the vaccine was properly tested. As it stands, my personal opinion is that people in at-risk groups (basically everybody 50+, with a BMI over 25 or with respiratory issues) should get a shot, as well as folks working “people” jobs. For the rest, you’ll have more benefit from pursuing a proper personal hygiene, social distancing and avoiding crowds.
For covid particularly?