Only half of eligible people in US are boosted against COVID-19

ByRose Weldon

Fact checked byCarol L. DiBerardino, MLA, ELS

As of Aug. 5, approximately half of all eligible Americans aged 5 years or older had received their first COVID-19 booster vaccine, according to data published Thursday in MMWR.

According to the study, 214.4 million people in the United States were eligible for a booster by that date, having completed a primary vaccine series. Among them, only 106.3 million (49.6%) had received their first booster. This amount represents about one-third (34%) of the country’s population aged 5 years or older.

Source: Adobe Stock. — Only half of all eligible people in the U.S. have received a COVID-19 booste. Source: Adobe Stock

Also reported in the study was that only one-third of all eligible people aged 50 years or older have received a second COVID-19 booster. There also were disparities in first and second booster coverage by age group, sex, race and ethnicity; urban-rural classification; and primary series vaccine product.

Black people had the lowest booster coverage among people aged 5 to 39 years (range = 9.8%–27.9%). Among people aged 40 years or older, Hispanic/Latino and people of multiple races had the lowest booster coverage.

Another report in MMWR that showed that before COVID-19 vaccines were authorized for children aged younger than 5 years, parents reported reduced confidence in vaccine safety and effectiveness and a decline in their intent to vaccinate their children aged younger than 5 years over the 3-month period the study covered.

From July 2021 through May 2022, researchers examined perceptions toward COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination in parents of children aged younger than 5 years enrolled in the Pediatric Research Observing Trends and Exposures in COVID-19 Timelines cohort. Among parents who participated in a baseline survey, approximately 64% were reported as likely, 19% as unsure and 10% as unlikely to have their child aged younger than 5 years receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

The odds of parents intending to vaccinate their child was lower 3 months following the baseline survey, and during the same period, parents also were less likely to perceive that COVID-19 vaccines were effective compared with baseline.

A third report published in MMWR examined 8,541 children aged 6 months to 4 years who had received the Pfizer vaccine, and 14,725 children aged 6 months to 5 years who had received the Moderna vaccine for local, systemic and serious adverse effects.

Although common reports included injection site pain, crying, and irritability, no events of myocarditis were reported, and among the 1,017 reports of adverse events for the study group, 98% or more were non-serious.

“The findings in this report are consistent with those from safety data from preauthorization clinical trials for young children,” the authors wrote. “Trial participants aged 6 months-4 years who received [the] Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 6 months–5 years who received [the] Moderna vaccine most frequently reported mild or moderate local and systemic reactions; no serious adverse events judged to be related to vaccination were reported in the trial data.”