Fewer people in Florida are getting COVID shots this year despite updated vaccines, aggressive ads and reminders from drugstores and drug companies. At the same time, public health authorities are closely watching the spread of a more contagious COVID variant spreading across the country.
The low vaccination rates for COVID in Florida could have a fallout at a time of travel and gathering for the holidays. Already, hospitalizations for respiratory illnesses are on the rise.
But even as pharmacies and pharmaceutical firms hard-press the new COVID shots with frequent TV ads and frantic phone texts, there’s vaccine weariness and wariness in Florida. Many people are worried about possible side effects or aren’t worried about a COVID threat.
And they’re not getting the shot.
“In 2019 and 2020 people were dying and everyone was scared — you didn’t have a choice,” said Miami-area yoga teacher Natasha Salmon, who got the initial vaccine along with boosters, but decided not to get a new shot.
The vaccine rate in Florida is low — 5% of the population has taken the COVID shot since the September rollout, according to Miami Herald calculations of vaccine data from the Florida Department of Health. The CDC estimates about 11% of adults and about 7% of kids in Florida are vaccinated with the new shot.
Since the first doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were administered, demand for shots has gone down. Fewer and fewer Florida residents turned out to receive each new booster as they rolled out, according to Herald calculations of CDC data.
By the third month of the original doses launch, for example, about 33% of eligible Floridians were immunized. But only about 9% got a Bivalent shot, the booster formulated last year to fight the Omicron variant, during the first three months of its release. About 70% of adults in Florida have completed the primary COVID vaccine series, as of May 2023, CDC data shows.
“People have just gotten so used to living with COVID that many people are not taking advantage of the vaccine. We have the same problem with the flu vaccine; it’s also underutilized,” said Mary Jo Trepka, an epidemiologist at Florida International University. “It’s particularly concerning when it’s underutilized by the older individuals because they’re most at risk of getting severe illness and being hospitalized.”
Why are people aren’t getting the new COVID shot --->READ MORE HERE
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| Ernst Peters/The Ledger |
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo took the extraordinary step Wednesday of "calling for a halt to the use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines," a move that contradicts federal health authorities and again makes Florida an outlier.
Ladapo said in a statement released by the Florida Department of Health that he raised questions about the safety of the vaccines with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and they did not provide an adequate response. As a result, he said, he is now recommending against their use.
A favorite of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Ladapo has been a controversial figure who has repeatedly criticized COVID-19 vaccines and issued increasingly stringent recommendations urging various populations not to get them, despite assurances by federal authorities they are safe.
In 2022, Ladapo made Florida the first state in the nation to recommend against healthy children receiving the COVID-19 vaccines. Then last year he recommended against anyone under the age of 65 getting new COVID vaccine boosters.
Ladapo's latest recommendation is his most drastic yet, targeting some of the most popular vaccines such as those made by Pfizer and Moderna. Ladapo's concerns center on the messenger RNA in the vaccines and "the integrity of the human genome.” --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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