Most eligible Americans have not received an up-to-date Covid vaccine, flu shot or RSV vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the country heads into a busy holiday season with surges on trips and meetings, but now experts say it’s a time when other people deserve to get vaccinated.
The CDC has urged Americans to get all recommended vaccines as soon as possible to provide some sort of coverage as the holiday season approaches and as the fitness company seeks to avoid a surge in the so-called tripledemic, a term for Covid. flu, and respiratory cases of syncytial virus are all higher at the same time.
When other people gather for holidays like Thanksgiving, “that’s when viruses spread,” CDC Director Mandy Cohen told Health. com. Therefore, it is preferable to get vaccinated in advance to “develop those antibodies”.
However, most Americans have not gotten their shots: Only 14. 8% of adults 18 and older have gotten an updated Covid monoclonal vaccine, 36. 3% have gotten the flu shot, and only 14. 3% of eligible adults 60 and older have gotten the RSV vaccine. vaccine, according to recent knowledge from the CDC.
Compared to last year around this time, 38.4% of adults received their flu vaccine and 23.2% of adults had the most up-to-date Covid vaccine, while the RSV vaccines were first approved earlier this year.
These figures are even lower among young people: 4. 9% of young people aged 17 and under have received the most recent Covid vaccine, up from 10. 7% at the same time last year, and 35. 1% of young people have received the latest flu shot, up from 39. 1% last year. year. year.
Almost 50% of adults say they don’t plan on getting the new Covid vaccine—which first became available in September—and around 75% say they’re “not too worried,” or “not at all worried” about getting Covid over the holidays, according to a survey from health policy research organization KFF.
That’s the number of Covid-related hospitalizations that were reported in the week ending Nov. 11, according to the CDC. This number is 8. 6% more than in recent weeks. There were 7,279 cases of RSV, an increase of 1,400 from last week, and positive cases of influenza increased by as much as 4%.
More than 50% of adults who were previously vaccinated and did not receive the new Covid vaccine cite lack of fear of Covid as the reason they did not receive the updated vaccine, according to KFF data. More than 35% say they have been too busy and 32% say they are waiting to get vaccinated until later. Since the Covid state of physical emergency was lifted in May, safety measures have become lenient. Only 12% of the population wears masks and this Thanksgiving travel season is expected to be the busiest in 18 years. People “are no longer afraid of this virus,” Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told Vox. This year’s flu vaccination rates are in line with last year’s flu season, slightly behind, to the CDC’s knowledge. The flu vaccine has been around since the early 20th century, so other people are probably used to getting it every year. On the other hand, Covid vaccines were first available in 2020 (and had doubts) and newer vaccines were approved earlier this year. Although the first RSV vaccines and antibody injections were approved this year for the elderly, pregnant people and babies, they have several drawbacks. Because of the way they are covered through Medicare, Americans would likely have to pay more than $300 out of pocket for the shots. There are also shortages of some childhood antibody shots, leading doctors to prioritize high-risk babies at the request of the CDC. However, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday announced plans to accelerate delivery of 77,000 vaccine doses.
There has been an uptick in childhood vaccine exemptions for measles, polio, tetanus and other diseases that some experts believe is connected to skepticism of the new Covid vaccines. Forty states saw a rise in exemptions granted to school aged children, and 3% of kids entering kindergarten had one for the 2022-2023, which is the highest rate ever reported in the U.S. Idaho was the state with the highest reported exemption rate, where 12.1% of kindergarten students had been granted an exemption, followed by Oregon with 8.2% and Utah at 8.1%. The CDC say 90% of all exemptions were for nonmedical reasons, including religious and philosophical ones, though they didn’t specify further. Almost 30% of people surveyed think parents should be able to decide whether or not to vaccinate their school-age children, up from 16% who shared that view in 2019, according to a 2022 study by KFF. Public perception of the importance of childhood vaccines declined in 52 out of 55 countries studied during the Covid pandemic, UNICEF reports.
Childhood Vaccine Exemptions Reach Highest Level Ever Recorded: Growing Risk of Polio, Measles, and More (Forbes)
RSV vaccines are covered through Medicare for vulnerable teams (Forbes)
Shortage of anti-RSV antibodies in infants: Here are the opportunities through the CDC (Forbes)
Thanksgiving Trip: Holiday Weekend Will Be Busiest for Flights in 18 Years, AAA Predicts (Forbes)
Covid is no longer a public health emergency: here’s how it can affect you (Forbes)