{"id":1176,"date":"2021-12-05T19:57:15","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T00:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2021-12-13T20:08:12","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T01:08:12","slug":"the-washington-post-ratzan-quoted-in-coronavirus-vaccine-demand-grows-in-u-s-amid-omicron-variant-concerns-booster-eligibility-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/the-washington-post-ratzan-quoted-in-coronavirus-vaccine-demand-grows-in-u-s-amid-omicron-variant-concerns-booster-eligibility-expansion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Washington Post: Ratzan Quoted in “Coronavirus vaccine demand grows in U.S. amid omicron variant concerns, booster eligibility expansion”"},"content":{"rendered":"
BP2C Executive Director Dr. Scott Ratzan was quoted in The Washington Post on December 5 in an article titled<\/a>, “Coronavirus vaccine demand grows in U.S. amid omicron variant concerns, booster eligibility expansion.” “Omicron may be the \u2018boost\u2019 to help the unvaccinated and the newly eligible to get motivated and vaccinated quickly,\u201d said Ratzan, in an email to The Washington Post. Read the full article below.<\/span><\/h5>\n
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Demand for\u00a0coronavirus<\/a>\u00a0vaccines has spiked in the United States in recent weeks, as more Americans are eligible for booster shots and concerns grow over the omicron variant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Health-care providers administered 2.18 million doses of coronavirus vaccines on Thursday, according to the\u00a0Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the \u201chighest single-day total since May,\u201d\u00a0the White House said<\/a>.\u00a0<\/b>According to the\u00a0latest CDC report<\/a>, over the week ending on Thursday, the average number of daily administered vaccine doses reported to the agency was 22 percent higher than the previous week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Since omicron was first confirmed in southern Africa on Nov. 25, and soon after listed as a \u201cvariant of concern\u201d by the World Health Organization, the Biden administration\u00a0has been urging as many Americans as possible<\/a>\u00a0to get booster shots as the best means to protect themselves against it. All U.S. adults became\u00a0eligible for boosters<\/a>\u00a0on Nov. 19.<\/p>\n

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For most of October, fewer than or slightly over 1 million doses of coronavirus vaccines were reported to the CDC as being administered every day in the United States. By mid-November, those numbers hovered around 1.5 million on average. In the past three reporting days, they neared or exceeded 2 million.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Much is still unknown about omicron, against\u00a0which some scientists and vaccine makers predict existing vaccines may not be as effective<\/a>, but the new variant and \u201cthe idea that we have a virus that may evade two shots but that three shots are likely to be pretty protective, I think, has also gotten a lot of people much more focused on getting a booster,\u201d says Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The increased demand for coronavirus vaccines is largely driven by demand for booster doses,\u00a0<\/b>CDC data shows. White House covid-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar, calling out the booster numbers, cited the spread of omicron in a tweet, saying the country needs \u201cto keep this up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The timeline for increased vaccine uptake precedes omicron and the adult booster expansion: Millions of children between the ages of 5 and 11 became eligible for a pediatric dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Nov. 2.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But omicron \u201cmay be the \u2018boost\u2019 to help the unvaccinated and the newly eligible to get motivated and vaccinated quickly,\u201d said Scott Ratzan, a health communication expert at CUNY School of Public Health, in an email to The Washington Post.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Increased interest in vaccines can be attributed in part to clearer, concerted messaging around boosters coming from public health agencies, Jha said. There now exists \u201ca broad consensus\u201d among experts, he added, that boosters are needed, and \u201cthat\u2019s helping a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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While the uptake in booster doses is encouraging, \u201cI am not seeing a ton of progress among [unvaccinated] adults who have been eligible for a long time,\u201d Jha said. \u201cA lot of people in America are relying on infection-induced immunity to get them through the rest of this pandemic, and I think omicron is going to test that in a way that nothing else has. I\u2019m worried we\u2019re going to see a lot of those people who\u2019ve previously been infected and recovered get reinfected and potentially very sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The first U.S. case of omicron was identified in California on Dec. 1, and cases have since been reported in at least 15 U.S. states,\u00a0CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week\u201d\u00a0<\/a>on Sunday. The delta variant, not omicron, accounts for the large majority of U.S. coronavirus cases at this stage, she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The CDC notes that its reported\u00a0<\/b>numbers are estimates that are subject to change and may contain duplicates, \u201cover-estimates of first doses and under-estimates of subsequent doses.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The White House has also urged Americans to get vaccinated ahead of the holiday season, when families usually gather indoors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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After the omicron variant was first identified in the United States, the CDC said its emergence highlighted the importance of vaccination and other public health measures. \u201cEveryone 5 and older should get vaccinated and boosters are recommended for everyone 18 years and older,\u201d\u00a0the agency said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Members of the White House coronavirus response team expressed confidence at a news briefing Friday that existing coronavirus vaccines would confer a measure of protection against the newly identified variant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAlthough we haven\u2019t proven it yet, there\u2019s every reason to believe that if you get vaccinated and boosted that you would have at least some degree of cross-protection, very likely against severe disease, even against the omicron variant,\u201d National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director\u00a0Anthony S. Fauci said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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According to the CDC, more than\u00a070 percent\u00a0<\/b>of the U.S. population<\/a>\u00a0has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, with near-universal coverage among those ages 65 and older. Nearly\u00a0<\/b>60 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Still, on\u00a0Thursday, President Biden<\/a>\u00a0said more than 100 million Americans who are eligible for booster doses haven\u2019t gotten theirs yet.<\/p>\n

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Some pharmacies<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 which the White House said are\u00a0distributing roughly two-thirds<\/a>\u00a0of coronavirus vaccines in the United States \u2014 have reported that they are struggling to meet the increased demand amid staff shortages in the health-care sector.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In one recent example,\u00a0Walgreens failed to notify parents<\/a>\u00a0that their child\u2019s vaccination appointment at a Cheverly, Md., location had been canceled because there were no pharmacists to administer the shots. Similar incidents have prompted the company to say it is working to better account for local cuts in pharmacy services.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Biden on Thursday urged pharmacies \u201cto offer more appointments, more walk-in hours \u2014 including on weeknights and weekends,\u201d and said that his administration would ramp up its booster program and make it easier for families to get vaccinated together.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BP2C Executive Director Dr. Scott Ratzan was quoted in The Washington Post on December 5 in an article titled, “Coronavirus vaccine demand grows in U.S. amid omicron variant concerns, booster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1178,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions\/1178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}