By Mike Stobbe
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.
In the late summer, government health officials made the nation's COVID-19 vaccination campaign more like the annual flu campaign.
Officials approved updated shots that have a single target, an omicron descendant named XBB.1.5. They replaced vaccines that targeted the original coronavirus strain and a much earlier omicron version. Last month, the CDC recommended the new shots for everyone 6 months and older.
The government also transitioned to a commercialized system that relied on the health-care industry — not the government — to handle the distribution of the shots. Many people who immediately went for shots said pharmacies or doctors didn't have them.
Americans have been urged to get different iterations of the vaccines for more than 2/12 years. This year, COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations fell to lower levels than seen in the previous three years.
Cases remain low compared with the pandemic's early months. Even so, health officials say about 18,000 hospitalization and 1,200 deaths are still being reported each week.
One expert at the meeting, Dr. Camille Kotton of Harvard Medical School, called the numbers “abysmal” and said part of the problem may be patient confusion. She urged stepped-up public education efforts.
Dr. David Kimberlin, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, also expressed dismay.
“The recommendations are not being heard," he said.
Cheddar's Need2Know Podcast for Tues., June 16, 2020.
From milk to canned tuna to shampoo, soy is in a good majority of our day-to-day products. It’s added to around 60% of the nation’s processed foods. Soy has been known to provide some real health benefits, like high protein. But there are legitimate health and environmental consequences that raise the question: why do we use so much soy? And should we?
Researchers in England say they have the first evidence that a drug can improve survival from COVID-19. The drug is a cheap, widely available steroid called dexamethasone.
The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are unlikely to be effective in treating the coronavirus.
As the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in the U.S., Johnson & Johnson's chief scientific officer Dr. Paul Stoffels told Cheddar the company has an accelerated plan to create a vaccine.
Scientists are beginning a new study to tell if the blood plasma of COVID-19 survivors might help prevent infection in the first place.
Coronavirus cases are rising in nearly half the U.S. states. And while many are chalked up to increased testing or to small, local outbreaks, others are more alarming.
If you lived in a big city in the 90s, you're probably one of the unlucky people who was kept up at night on a regular basis by errant car alarms. But today, those in that same big city hear alarms far less often than you did. So where did car alarms go? How have they evolved, and did we ever need them to begin with?
The skyline of Washington D.C. is stunted. You've probably heard that D.C. can't build skyscrapers taller than the U.S. Capital Building or the Washington Monument. But those are both myths from a bygone era. Cheddar tells the real story.
A top World Health Organization expert has tried to clear up “misunderstandings” about comments she made that were widely understood to suggest that people without COVID-19 symptoms rarely transmit the coronavirus.
