White House says COVID booster campaign going well, should pick up
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[October 10, 2022] By
Ahmed Aboulenein and Michael Erman
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The White House
expects the rate of vaccination in its fall booster campaign to pick up
over the coming weeks, and its COVID response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha
on Friday characterized the initial pace as "a really good start."
The United States in September started rolling out the updated COVID
shots, redesigned to take on both the currently circulating BA.4 and
BA.5 Omicron subvariants as well as the original version of the virus
targeted by all previous COVID vaccines and boosters. The so-called
bivalent boosters are available to anyone aged 12 and older.
Jha estimated that between 13 million and 15 million Americans will have
gotten the so-called bivalent booster by the end of this week.
"We think that's a really good start. Also, let me be very clear, we
need to continue and up that pace as we get into October," Jha said.
Around 11.5 million people received the updated shots over the first
five weeks of the rollout, including around 3.9 million who received
them over the past week, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) data released on Thursday.
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That represents only 5.3% of the 216 million people aged 12 or older who
may be eligible to receive the shots after completing their primary
vaccination series.
This year's booster campaign has not kept pace with 2021, when the
United States initially authorized COVID boosters just for older and
immunocompromised people. Nearly 17 million people received their third
shot in the first five weeks of that vaccination campaign, according to
CDC data.
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![](../images/101022PIX/health11.jpg)
A nurse fills up syringes with the
coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines for residents who are over
50 years old and immunocompromised and are eligible to receive their
second booster shots in Waterford, Michigan, U.S., April 8, 2022.
REUTERS/Emily Elconin
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Oct/10/images/ads/current/lincoln_Printers_sda_FOOTBALL_2022.png) President Joe Biden's administration
hopes to drive up U.S. booster usage by working with medical
societies nationwide and targeting areas with low vaccine confidence
through a media campaign, Jha said.
He was speaking during a U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) call announcing the findings of a new study on the
impact of that 2021 vaccination campaign, which found it led to
around 300,000 fewer deaths and 650,000 fewer hospitalizations among
people enrolled in the government Medicare health plan for those age
65 or older and the disabled.
The study was conducted by researchers in the Office of the
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at HHS.
Europe's uptake of updated booster shots has also lagged last year's
pace.
Weekly vaccine doses administered in the EU were between 1 million
and 1.4 million in September, compared to 6 million to 10 million a
week during the year-earlier period, European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control data showed.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington and Michael Erman in
New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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