Officials say circulating myths likely prevent many people from getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
In Los Angeles County, there remain 1.7 million residents who have not received a single dose of vaccination, and 2.7 million vaccinated people who are eligible for a booster but have not yet received it, he said. last week the county public health director, Barbara Ferrer.
Even among people over the age of 65, 90% of whom consider themselves fully vaccinated, only 63% have received a booster doseFerrer said.
Among the myths that Ferrer sought to clarify about the reinforcements:
• Some people may think that just two doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines are enough and that they don’t need a third shot, but the booster offers the best protection.
• Some might think that the need for a booster means that the primary series of vaccines is not working. That’s not true: Shortly after receiving the first series of vaccines, protection is high but then fades in the following months, with the booster strengthening the immune response to fend off the coronavirus, Ferrer said.
• Surviving a coronavirus infection after receiving the primary series of vaccines does not count as a booster, Ferrer said, and may not offer as broad protection against future variants as the additional dose of vaccine might. She pointed to recent data showing that immunity from a past infection with the Delta variant of the coronavirus did not necessarily protect people from becoming infected with the later Omicron variant.
• Booster doses do not make you sick with COVID-19. That is impossible, because none of the vaccines or boosters contain the coronavirus.
A key front in California’s battle against COVID-19 remains getting as many people vaccinated as possible.
The majority of Californians, nearly 79%, have already received at least one dose, and about seven in ten are fully vaccinated, according to data compiled by The Times.
Many of those who remain unvaccinated are children under the age of 5 who are not yet eligible to receive vaccines. Until they are, “one of the most important things we need to do is make sure the adults around them are vaccinated,” California Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Mark Ghaly said recently at an event sponsored by the Sacramento Press Club.
But while reaching the still substantial part of the population that is eligible but not vaccinated has been slow, those efforts continue to bear fruit. “Every day, someone who hadn’t made the decision to get vaccinated until now is getting vaccinated,” Ghaly said. “And that is a success.”
“That is also the reason why, in the future, We need to continue to be prepared for those people to make a decision today, for one reason or another.”
“We see it in health care all the time: that people make the decision over time to get treatment, quit smoking, go get their blood pressure checked and, in this case, get vaccinated,” he said.
“So it’s not something new for us. We will be patient. We will continue to try to get messages across and we must continue to fight misinformation and misinformation that I believe has cost many lives in California.”
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