Delaware Valley experiences slow start to COVID bivalent booster rollout

In Philadelphia, city health officials could not speak to what vaccine uptake looked like in the first few days of the bivalent booster rollout and said it was “still too soon to gage public demand for the bivalent booster.” The city operates at least eight health centers that offer COVID-19 vaccines to children and adults.

Lasher said vaccine demand has changed at sites in Camden County. There was a bump in interest at the county’s main vaccine clinic in Blackwood immediately following the introduction of the bivalent boosters, she said, but nowhere near the turnout seen with previous vaccine rollouts.

Vaccine fatigue could be playing a role, Lasher said. She added that people who’ve already received their primary series of shots and at least one previous booster may “feel a certain level of protection and they have the thought that they can afford to wait a little bit and see how the [bivalent] vaccine does.”

Camden County has no immediate plans to scale back their vaccine operations. They’ve recently added hours to accompany the latest rollout of new vaccines, but that’s temporary.

“I think if there was a great spike, we would have seen it in this first week out,” Lasher said.

Going forward, Lasher said she expects a slower and steadier acceptance and uptake of the new booster shots. Additional public health messaging could also help increase demand and participation at the local level, she said.

“We’re working here locally, but I think there needs to be a greater state and federal voice really educating people on the availability and benefits of this new booster,” she said.

Michael Carroll, of Doyleston, didn’t wait too long to seek out the new booster. He stopped over at the vaccine clinic in Jamison Monday morning and quickly got a shot in the arm.

It was a sharp contrast to his experience getting the first round of vaccines in early 2021.

“When the vaccine was coming out, my whole family wanted to get it as fast as humanly possible, so we were tracking everything, everywhere,” Carroll said. “The first couple ones that I got, I drove, like, 45 minutes.”

But on this Monday morning, the trip to Jamison was short, foot traffic into the clinic was light, and getting a vaccine was quick.

“I was in, I was out very, very quickly,” said Nancy Branca, who lives just down the street from the clinic in Jamison. “I’ll be traveling, so I’m very happy that I am, you know, boosted further.”