A person receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.Photo: FRANK AUGSTEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty
A rising number of Americans have missed their appointment for their second COVID-19 vaccine dose, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control.
Around 8% of people, totaling more than 5 million, did not get their second dose of eitherPfizer or Moderna’s two-shot vaccine. That number is up from March, when CDC data showed that around 3.4% of Americans had missed their second shot.
Both shots, given either three weeks or four weeks apart, respectively, are needed to reach the vaccines' full efficacy of about 91-95%.
However, the data may be missing information. It is based on canceled or missed appointments across the country, but “if a person received the two doses from different reporting entities, those two doses may not have been linked together,” a CDC spokespersontold CNN.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that while its disappointing, it is not uncommon that people do not get their second dose in two-dose vaccinations.
“Obviously whenever you have a two-dose vaccine, you’re going to see people who for one reason or other — convenience, forgetting, a number of other things — just don’t show up for the second vaccine,“Fauci said on CNNSunday.
“I’d like it to be a 0%,” he said, “but I’m not surprised that there are some people who do that.”
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Currently, the amount of people who are getting both COVID vaccine doses — about 92% — is higher than usual in the U.S. For the two-dose shingles vaccine, for example, typically onlythree-quarters of adultsreturn for their second shot.
Getting people both doses was also likely easierat the start of the vaccine rollout, when it was primarily health care workers or nursing home residents receiving the vaccines where they work or live. That was helpful in “potentially reducing barriers and increasing adherence to the recommended vaccine schedule,” the CDC spokesperson said.
And the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which enabled people to get fully vaccinated in one go,was put on pause for a week and a halfafter a small number of women developed a rare blood clotting disorder. After research into the cases and agreeing that the risk of getting sick with COVID-19 is far higher without vaccination, the CDC and Food and Drug Administrationadvised resuming inoculations with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Friday.
As of April 25, more than half of American adults, or 139,978,480 people, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Of that group, more than a third of adults, 36.5%, are now fully vaccinated.
PEOPLEhas partneredwith CVS and Walmartto help Americans sign up for their COVID-19 vaccine appointments. The registration page for CVS can be foundhere, and Walmart’s is availablehere.
As information about thecoronavirus pandemicrapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources from theCDC,WHOandlocal public health departments.PEOPLE has partnered with GoFundMeto raise money for the COVID-19 Relief Fund, a GoFundMe.org fundraiser to support everything from frontline responders to families in need, as well as organizations helping communities. For more information or to donate, clickhere.
source: people.com
