Covid continues to rise across the US, but deaths are lower than their peaks earlier in the pandemic, largely due to vaccinations and immunity. Yet the country continues to struggle to find its footing on vaccination as the virus settles into a pattern of twice-yearly surges.
Covid was not as deadly in 2023 as in previous years, falling from the fourth to the 10th leading cause of death, according to a study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Overall deaths fell by 6% from 2022 to 2023.
Covid vaccines have saved millions of lives, a new study confirmed in the Lancet. The vaccines reduced deaths by at least 59% between December 2020 and March 2023, amounting to more than 1.6 million lives saved in Europe alone, the researchers found.
But Covid still causes hospitalizations and deaths, as well as disruption from illness and prolonged Covid. More than 5% of Americans have reported that they are currently experiencing long-term Covid symptoms this spring.
The current surge is now past last summer’s heights and continues to increase as extreme heat forces Americans indoors and safety precautions are largely abandoned.
Everyone older than six months should get the updated Covid booster, which is expected in the coming weeks, the CDC says.
But knowledge and uptake of new boosters took their toll. Only 22.3% of adults and 14.9% of children in the US are up to date on vaccines.
Even for those who want the new boosters, finding them can be a challenge — especially in the summer months, when pharmacies and doctors may be wary of ordering new shots only to throw them away when the new booster comes out in the fall. roll out
Leigh Anne Riedman, a mother of four in Santa Barbara, California, searched for vaccines for her children to no avail. It’s been a few months since they’ve had Covid, and she wants them to be protected during this summer surge, especially if they go back to school next week – but she’s had no luck.
“There aren’t the usual clinics that were there in the beginning where you would just drive up and get the shot. For the pediatric injections, you have to make the appointment at the doctor’s office,” she said.
“And they just said straight out: ‘We don’t have and we won’t have until we get those in September. We don’t know when that will be, but start calling back in September to get an appointment.’”
Next, she began searching the websites of local pharmacies, including big ones like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid.
Getting younger children vaccinated can be particularly complicated; big pharmacies will not children under a certain agesuch as three years or 18 months.
Riedman’s children are 11, 15, 16 and 18, but she still couldn’t get any vaccination appointments at local pharmacies.
“They were having none of it,” she said. “One of them said I could drive about an hour to get the shot.”
Even vaccines.gov no longer lists open vaccine appointments. The CDC will add a pharmacy tracking tool once the new boosters are available, according to a message on the website.
“It’s a flashback to the early days,” Riedman said, when vaccines first came out and she was constantly refreshing websites looking for an appointment.
Now she will send her children back to school at the height of a major outbreak without the protection of recent vaccination. She hopes to get an appointment in September. Whether the kids receive last season’s booster or this season’s shot doesn’t matter to her as much as getting it quickly.
For other people, the problem may not be availability, but knowledge of when boosters come out and how long protection lasts.
“We live in a confused maze of Covid vaccine understanding,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. A big part of the problem, he said, was that the US adopted the annual vaccination strategy of a virus like influenza or RSV – but Covid fell into a year-long transmission pattern from the start.
“We didn’t set up our vaccines that way,” Osterholm said. “What we need to do is get away from this idea that you can [only] vaccinate for Covid in late autumn, early winter.”
Those at particular risk, including people over 65 and those with medical conditions, should be vaccinated twice a year to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death, he said.
Two of Riedman’s children have medical conditions, and one of her children has been hospitalized with Covid in the past. She desperately wants to avoid it again. Her children will wear masks this fall, but she worries they are at greater risk the longer they wait for vaccines.
“It feels a lot like you’re just cut loose and on your own these days,” she said.
It reminds her of earlier in the pandemic, when there was a long wait for Covid vaccines to be approved for children: “It felt like people were playing fast and loose with the health of these children.”
Osterholm, in Minnesota, was able to get himself another Covid booster. “I know I won’t be able to get the new Flirt variant vaccine, the mRNA [shot]now for four months, but the peak is now,” he said.
He called for greater investment in vaccine research and development, as well as manufacturing capacity, which would strengthen the Covid response and improve future responses to other emerging viruses.
Without it, Osterholm said, “we are less prepared today than we were in 2019 for pandemic response.”
