Today is Tuesday, September 19, 2023. Today a new COVID-19 booster has been approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a late-night article for the Daily News poses the inevitable question, “will those who are at greatest risk get this new booster?” The answer, unfortunately, is no. The article is entitled “A new COVID booster is here. Will those at greatest risk get it?” by Amy Maxmen for KFF Health News.

The article states that “many who need them most won’t get [these vaccines] them.” The article states that about 75 percent of people in the United States appear to have skipped last year’s bivalent booster (I didn’t) and nothing suggests that numbers will go up this year.

As would be expected, given the inequalities and divisiveness in place among segments of the American population, it appears that urging people to get boosters has only worked for Democrats, college graduates, and people making over $90,000 a year, according to Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at Yale University. He said, “Those are the same people who will get this booster because it’s not like we’re doing anything differently to confront the inequities in place.” So this last statement would seem to be an indictment of the situation about health care provided by this professional working at Yale University.

No matter how you define yourself politically, boosters have indeed shown to strongly protect people against severe COVID and death and more modestly prevent infection. “They can have a dramatic impact on those most likely to die from COVID, such as older adults and immunocompromised people.” Public health experts say scaling up vaccination is also important for those in group housing, like prisons and nursing homes, where the virus can move swiftly between people in close quarters. A boost in protection is also needed to offset the persistent disparities in the toll of COVID between racial and ethnic groups.

A rise in hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID has been noted in recent weeks, where COVID remains a leading cause of death, with roughly 7,300 people dying of the disease in the past three months.

But what is complicating matters this time around is that this is the first round of COVID vaccines that are not covered by the federal government, which means that some 25 million to 30 million uninsured adults might have some trouble financially getting the boosters. This impacts predominantly low-income people and people of color. To counter this situation, the CDC, on September 14, announced a kickoff of plans to temporarily provide vaccines for the uninsured, at least partly through $1.1 billion left over in pandemic emergency funds through the Bridge Access Program.

What is different this time as prices go is that Moderna and Pfizer have moire than quadrupled the price of the vaccines to about $130 a dose, compared with $20 for the first vaccines and $30 for the last boosters, raising overall 1health care costs.

What is still true of the disease is that people aged 75 and older accounted for more than half of the country’s pandemic deaths. As the first vaccines were quickly taken up in nursing homes, boosters have been less popular now, with fewer than 55 percent of residents in Arizona, Florida, Nevada, and Texas getting the bivalent booster released last year. At some facilities nationwide, rates are below 10 percent.

Those at highest risk of contracting COVID-19 are inmates in prisons who have seen some of the largest U.S. outbreaks – yet booster uptake there often appears to be scant. In Minnesota, just 8 percent of incarcerated people in jails and 11 percent in prisons have gotten last year’s booster, according to analyses of electronic health records by the Minnesota EHR Consortium. The outlook for inmates in California was slightly better, with 40 percent effectiveness rates reached with three doses of the COVID booster in the population. Prison staff saw larger benefits from three doses, which amounted to an effectiveness rate of 72 percent, presumably because the chance of infection is lower than not living within the facilities.

There are many reasons for why people opt out of vaccination. They include living farther from vaccine sites and the high rates of misinformation spread by politicians (think of the Orange Hemorrhoid and his Republican allies) that may account for disparities seen along political lines, with 41 percent of Democrats having gotten a bivalent booster compared with only 11 percent of Republicans. Lower vaccine coverage among Black communities has been found to stem from discrimination by the medical system, along with worse health care access. However, many Black people who hesitated initially eventually did get vaccinated when given information and easy access to them, suggesting it could happen again.

The situation concerning boosters has changed dramatically since the COVID crisis was declared a nonemergency this spring in that the downturn on reporting on vaccination and COVID rates has made it harder to tailor outreach. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said, “If we had the data, we could pivot quickly.” He added that this was once possible, but that reporting has lapsed after the end of the health emergency. He sadly noted, “We’ve gone back to the old way, recreating the conditions in which inequities are possible.”

So there you have it: the COVID booster is here, but it seems like not a whole lot of people are going to get it. Elliot and I will get it since we are planning a trip to Japan next month, where we leave on Monday, October 9, so we would want to have an added layer of protection before going abroad. Thus when we got home yesterday from New Jersey, I went onto CVS’s website and registered online. I was able to schedule an appointment at a local CVS this coming Friday at 4:45 p.m. Elliot wanted to go later, so I scheduled an appointment for him on Monday, October 2, at 11:30 a.m.

Also, in the last few weeks, I’ve been hearing of more and more people succumbing to the virus, so that’s another reason to get it, repugnican conspiracy theories about it notwithstanding.

Since it’s getting late here, I’ll briefly report on President Biden’s speech today to world leaders at the United Nations today in which he implored them to strengthen their resolve in supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, telling those gathered at the United Nations General Assembly that it was their duty to uphold the “core tenets” of the U.N. charter. The President declared that “We must stand up to this naked aggression today to deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also spoke before the general assembly. I didn’t hear most of his speech, except for his mentioning the kidnapping of Ukrainian children by the Russians. He did make an impassioned plea for more aid by the United States. His pleas, unfortunately, have fallen on deaf MAGA repugnican ears, it seems. It’s so disgusting that there is a segment of American lawmakers who would not unilaterally aid this democratic nation in its war against a thug like Putin. They are truly anti-American, no two ways about it. I do hope cooler heads will prevail and that Zelenskyy’s financial request will be honored.

Tomorrow Elliot and I may see our Bayside friend “Gene” before he leaves his Queens residence after almost living there for 40 years, so I don’t know if I’ll be here then. Let’s see.

Stay safe and be well.