For Covid-19 vaccine booster, some people line up

Eager booster seekers are crossing state lines, listing autoimmune disorders they don’t have on pharmacy forms and asking healthcare workers to bend the rules. Those who want to get additional shots as soon as possible cite factors including the Delta version’s high transmissibility, the new school year, and some employers’ office-to-off plans.

Julie Levitt stated that she had bought Publix Super Markets Inc. Told a clerk at the pharmacy that he and his fiancé had recently gone for a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine. they are not. The 51-year-old personal assistant in Orlando, Fla., said the couple wanted to boost their immunity against COVID-19 in a few weeks before their wedding. She said that the clerk did not question her request. A few minutes later, he got the shot.

“I don’t think they care” about people’s motivations to get boosters, she said. “There are so many vaccines now, and no one is getting them.”

Daily vaccination has increased in recent weeks as people seek protection against the delta variant and officials reiterate efforts to increase vaccination rates. About 61 percent of eligible people in the US have completed their initial COVID-19 vaccination, according to Center for Disease Control and Prevention data, leaving millions still needing shots. Federal officials have said there will be enough supplies of authorized vaccines available to give booster shots to eligible people.

The Food and Drug Administration has authorized boosters of the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE vaccine or Moderna Inc. shot for people with compromised immune systems. Approval of boosters is expected in mid-September for eligible people who received the complete regimen for those drugmakers’ two-dose vaccines as well as Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose shot months earlier.

A lawyer in Illinois said he crossed state lines to obtain a booster at an independent pharmacy in Wisconsin, correctly guessing it would not check the Illinois database that listed him as receiving two shots. Was. He said he decided to take the extra dose before he was eligible because his new employer was encouraging him to return to the office without requiring vaccinations or masking.

Some booster seekers said they got an extra shot with no extra effort.

Real-estate developer Elliot Berg, 46, said he visited a vaccination clinic in an office building 2 miles from his home in El Paso, Texas, last week. He wrote on the required form that this would be his third shot.

“Thirty minutes later I walked out with an arm and a headache,” he said.

Mr Berg said he does not have low immunity, but he has asthma and travels frequently. He added that he is also concerned about keeping his three children safe. The vaccine is currently only approved in the US for people 12 years of age and older.

“I’m trying to be as careful as possible to keep them safe and keep myself safe,” he said.

Nearly a quarter of 1,517 vaccinated adults surveyed in July by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation said news about the boosters worried them they might not be well protected from the virus.

According to the CDC, roughly 955,000 people have received additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccine since August 13. According to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, at least 10 million people in the U.S. take immunosuppressants which would likely already make them eligible for boosters.

Peppy Kramer, 61, who takes immunosuppressants for rheumatoid arthritis, said she conveniently got an appointment for a third dose at her local pharmacy — unlike earlier this year when she learned how to get a shot of the vaccine. Joined a Facebook group of “hunters”. She said she is more concerned about people who refuse vaccinations than those who jump the line for boosters.

“If anyone else wants to get in there right now, go ahead,” she said.