The US has a booster problem. Less than half of all American adults — 42 percent — say they have received an additional dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to the most recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey. Among vaccinated people, that share is 70 percent. Better but a long way from ideal.
That is in spite of evidence that an additional dose provided more protection against the omicron variant. Even among all Americans over 65 years old, the group most likely to see a drop in effectiveness from the initial two doses, the percentage that’s received booster shot is 66 percent. The US vaccination campaign is now trailing far behind our peers in the United Kingdom, where more than 85 percent of people over 65 have gotten their booster.
As Sarah Zhang wrote in the Atlantic earlier this month, the most obvious pandemic strategy for the US going forward is to vaccinate and boost more people, especially the elderly who are most at risk. Eric Topol, the director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said the lagging booster rate “has been one of the most serious disappointments” in the US response.
But why has it been such a struggle? Digging into the KFF polling data, it appears the United States has two distinct challenges in boosting more people.
Read more at Vox.