Booster shots are on people’s minds whether you live in Florida or are on vacation here.
Ron Thomas and his wife are in town from Arizona. They almost got their boosters before their trip here, now they plan to get the extra jab as soon as they get home.
“Just the fact that we are older and we do travel so you never know who you’re going to run into or where or what. So why not get the extra protection? Yeah. I don’t see any reason not to,” said Thomas, walking down Las Olas Blvd.
For the last four weeks, more people have received a booster shot in Florida, compared to the first or second Covid-19 vaccine doses.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
The Florida Department of Health reported at the end of September that the number of booster shots administered edged out the number of people who completed their shot series.
That trend continues. Last week 30,000 more people in Florida got their booster shot, about 102,000 versus 72,000 who got their second Pfizer or Moderna shot, or the single Johnson and Johnson shot.
Experts tell us they’re not surprised.
Local
“You’re seeing something that we could’ve expected from human nature right?” said Dr. Aileen Marty, FIU Infectious Disease Expert. “Somebody who is likely to understand the science and want to use the vaccine and once they see no safety signal to getting that third dose, they’re going to want their third dose.”
Marty isn’t worried about boosting the fully vaccinated, but she wishes she could reach the unvaccinated.
“So much misinformation and so much manipulation of the truth for very nefarious reasons, that just break my heart,” said Dr. Marty.
The popularity around booster shots is also a national trend. The CDC reports a daily average of about 340,000 people getting booster shots. Meanwhile, an average of 157,000 people each day receive their first vaccine shot as of the first week in October.
