The U.S. has reached a 64% vaccination rate for the entire population. However, only 42% of those eligible for a booster have gotten the extra shot, which has left experts pondering how to get more Americans boosted.
One thing that may lead more people to consider the extra shot is new data that shows its effectiveness.
Fully vaccinated Americans are 14 times less likely to die of COVID-19 than those who haven’t gotten the shots. Boosted Americans are 97 times less likely.
Booster shots also increase protection against hospitalization from 69% to 88% and from 82% to 97%, according to multiple studies. Meanwhile, unvaccinated adults were 23 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID during the Omicron wave than adults who were vaccinated and boosted, according to data from LA County. Although Omicron has created a record high number of ICU admissions, the length of their hospital stay was lower during Omicron than previous peaks due to the 210 million Americans that are fully vaccinated.
Those figures were presented Wednesday by Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on reports from 25 jurisdictions in the week ending Dec. 4. For every 100,000 people, 9.7 of those who were unvaccinated were killed by the coronavirus, compared to 0.7 of those fully vaccinated and 0.1 of the boosted.
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Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at the Baylor College of Medicine, estimates that in the second half of last year, 200,000 Americans lost their lives because they refused COVID vaccines. “Three doses of either Pfizer or Moderna will save your life,” Hotez shares. “It’s the only way you can be reasonably assured that you will survive a COVID-19 infection.”
This data shows that although vaccination without a booster provides a lot of protection, boosters take that protection to a different level.
Dr. Walensky says more recent information during the Omicron wave further underscores the value of getting boosted.
Why getting boosted is so important
“The data are really stunningly obvious why a booster is really very important,” Dr. Anthony Fauci says.
Vaccines are great, but they have a weakness: their gradual fading of effectiveness over time. Although you are considered “fully vaccinated”