Weeks After Approval, COVID Vaccines Are Still Tough to Find

It’s been a month since the latest round of COVID-19 boosters were approved, but many Americans are still having trouble finding the shots. 

Officials had initially said the shots would be available within a week of approval, but the rollout has been rocky and uneven nationwide. As of Wednesday, just seven million Americans had received the latest jab, according to Reuters.

Comparatively, last year’s boosters were approved about 10 days earlier in September and by September 28, 2022, almost 7.6 million Americans had received their updated shot. 

Both Pfizer and Moderna received approval for their latest vaccines last month, while Novovax got the green light for its vaccine in early October. With so many options, the stalled rollout has been frustrating to both health care professionals and those seeking the vaccine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Mandy Cohen, M.D., MPH, last week blamed the delays on the privatization of the vaccines. 

The government ended the public health emergency for the COVID pandemic in May, and among other changes, this meant that private pharmacies would now be responsible for purchasing and procuring the vaccines themselves. Previously, the government had been responsible for the rollout. 

“We are actually waiting with bated breath,” Veronica Ford, a nursing manager at the Cahaba Medical Care, which has 26 community health clinics throughout Alabama, told NBC News. “We are checking daily to see if the state has received their supply so that we can get ours.”

Ford said they have yet to see a single shipment of the new vaccines since the approval in September. 

Vaccines were supposed to be made available at no cost to uninsured adults through the government's Bridge Access Program, which includes private pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS, plus public health clinics like the one where Ford works. 

But in practice, these community health centers, which rely on federal funding, are currently left in the lurch. This means that those who depend on federally-funded free or low-cost services are still waiting for their vaccine. Many of those individuals also fall into COVID vulnerable groups, including those over the age of 60.

Ongoing shipment delays from the Bridge Access Program, which reportedly has $1.1 billion in funding, according to The Hill, has led to uncertain service across the country, in both rural and urban areas. Individuals say they have been turned away upon arriving at COVID appointments because the vaccines either ran out or never arrived in the first place.

“We don’t have the resources to provide for the communities most in need,” Jim Mangia, the president and CEO of St. John’s Community Health in Los Angeles, told NBC News. “The same vaccine disparities seen before the pandemic are rearing their ugly head again.” 

In a statement to NBC News, a spokesperson for the CDC said that the agency "has been in frequent contact with state health departments and has not been made aware of any system-wide shortages or obstacles to distribution of the updated COVID-19 vaccine to community health centers." 
All of this occurs as the general interest in COVID shots continues to diminish. Nearly 80% of Americans (over 204 million adults) received the primary series of vaccines. But last year, only about 17% of the population, or around 56.5 million adults, received the updated bivalent booster, according to the CDC.