Covid Booster Rollout, State officials say that more than 600,000 doses of the bivalent booster have been administered so far.

Covid Booster Rollout Begins in California With Little Fanfare

Gone are the days when Gov. Gavin Newsom crisscrossed the state urging Californians to roll up their sleeves for their Covid shots. Routine checks of vaccination cards to enter restaurants are a thing of the past. In downtown San Francisco, the Moscone Center, once the site of a mass vaccination clinic, has long since reverted to a convention center. Newly formulated Covid booster shots are now available to those 12 and older, tailored to protect against both the original version of the virus and the Omicron variant. But the distribution of the new shots in California, as in much of the rest of the country, has come with little fanfare. This quiet rollout may be an acknowledgment of how many people have moved on from the pandemic as Covid cases wane and are unlikely to be receptive to another stentorian campaign, even in the vaccine-friendly Golden State, said Bob Wachter, the chair of medicine at the University of California, Covid Booster Rollout, San Francisco. “I think that there’s a little bit less oomph being put into this particular campaign than there was,” Wachter told me. Still, plenty of people have gotten the new booster shot already. California’s public health department said it had received 2.8 million doses of the new vaccine so far, and had administered about 618,000 since Sept. 6, when it first became available.

The new shots target the Omicron subvariant BA.5, the dominant version of the virus, and are viewed by scientists as a way to guard against a surge of cases expected this winter. Experts say the boosters will offer improved protection against breakthrough infections. In San Francisco, one of the most vaccinated parts of California, hundreds of people eagerly lined up outside doctor’s offices and clinics last week. “I’m very pro-vaccine,” Deborah James said as she left a Kaiser clinic after getting her shot. “I think people should be protected, if they can be.” This early in the rollout, residents seemed to be split into two camps: Those who closely follow the news, knew about the booster and were excited for the protection it offered; and those who no longer think about the pandemic and didn’t know there was a new vaccine. Covid Booster Rollout, In the Mission District of San Francisco, Jacqueline Guerra, 24, said she had no plans to get the bivalent booster. She got the initial Johnson and Johnson vaccine and has had Covid, but did not get the booster offered last year. She said she was concerned about what was in the vaccine and whether it could harm her 1-year-old baby, Jericoh, who is still breastfeeding.Guerra, who works at Foot Locker, said there was only one reason she might get boosted. “If my job says that it’s mandatory, then yes, I will get it,” she said. Wachter said he had witnessed plenty of vaccine fatigue over the last two years. The constantly shifting vaccine mandates, mask guidelines and evolving virus may have caused many people to throw up their hands.

Source: This news is originally published by nytimes

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