As Omicron Surges, U.S. Struggles With Booster Rate
On Jan. 10, the U.S. reported 1.35 million new coronavirus cases as the highly contagious Omicron variant swept across the nation, breaking the previous daily record of 1.03 million. While a COVID-19 vaccine booster could increase immune response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data show that only 36.7% of fully vaccinated people have received a booster dose nationwide, as of Jan. 11, 2022. Doubling the pace of booster vaccinations per day could prevent more than 41,000 deaths and 400,000 hospitalizations by the end of April, according to a recent analysis by The Commonwealth Fund.
NOTES: CDC’s COVID Data Tracker counts people as being “fully vaccinated” if they received two doses on different days (regardless of time interval) of the two-dose mRNA series or received one dose of a single-dose vaccine. The count of people who received a booster dose includes anyone who is fully vaccinated and has received another dose of COVID-19 vaccine since Aug. 13, 2021. This includes people who received booster doses and people who received additional doses.
SOURCES: CDC’s COVID Data Tracker, as of Jan. 11, 2022. “COVID-19 Preventable Mortality and Leading Cause of Death Ranking,” Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. “Responding to Omicron: Aggressively Increasing Booster Vaccinations Now Could Prevent Many Hospitalizations and Deaths,” The Commonwealth Fund.
This infographic was reprinted from AIS Health’s biweekly publication RADAR on Drug Benefits.
