The (not so?) mysterious failure of the US population to get COVID booster vaccines

The stats in this post present a couple of stark facts:

(1) The campaign last winter and spring to get the US population “fully vaccinated” (meaning two doses of Moderna and Pfizer and one of J&J) was fairly successful, despite the combination of right wing paranoia and Alex Berenson/Tucker Carlson-style grifters feeding that paranoia for fun and profit.

(2) By contrast, the campaign that started this past fall to get people to get booster doses has been a striking failure, despite the overwhelming evidence that booster doses are immensely valuable in the fight against COVID.

Beginning with the stats demonstrating the efficacy of boosters:

(All these stats are from the CDC as of January 1, 2022, which are the most recent data available).

Weekly mortality risk from COVID per 100,000 population by vaccination status

All ages

Fully vaccinated + booster: 0.45

Fully vaccinated no booster: 1.83

Unvaccinated: 12.06

Percentage increase in mortality risk relative to fully vaccinated + boosted baseline:

Fully vaccinated no booster: 307%

Unvaccinated: 2580%

Percentage increase in mortality risk by age group:

65+

Fully vaccinated no booster: 324%

Unvaccinated: 2567%

50-64

Fully vaccinated no booster: 279%

Unvaccinated: 2921%

18-49

Fully vaccinated no booster: 225%

Unvaccinated: 2525%

Now let’s look at vaccination rates as of March 2022.

Percentage of population 18+ with at least one COVID vaccine dose: 88%

Percentage of population 65+ with at least one COVID vaccine dose: 95%

The overwhelming majority of these people got a second shot if they got the first shot of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine: (“Fully vaccinated” means at least two doses of the latter vaccines):

Percentage of population 18+ “fully vaccinated:” 75.1%

Percentage of population 65+ “fully vaccinated:” 88.8%

Now let’s look at booster rates.

Percentage of population 18+ fully vaccinated and boosted: 47.5%

Percentage of population 65+ fully vaccinated and boosted: 66.6%

Obviously there’s been a massive decline in vaccine uptake over the six months now that boosters have been available and recommended for everyone by the CDC, even though the data couldn’t be clearer that boosters provide an enormous rather than a merely marginal increase in protection against dying from COVID (I don’t have comparable numbers for hospitalization risk, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t parallel the mortality risk reduction).

The question of course is why? That fully one third of the elderly population hasn’t gotten boosted is particularly striking, given the huge increased risk for this cohort: Note that a fully vaccinated but not boosted person 65+ faces nine times the COVID mortality risk faced by a completely unvaccinated young adult, while getting boosted eliminates almost all of this risk differential.

The answers to this question are speculative at this point, but I’d suggest as possible factors:

(1) General pandemic fatigue

(2) The cumulative social effect of endless right wing lies about vaccines.

(3) The failure of public health authorities to convey clearly enough how critical booster shots are.

The third factor is something that it would be easy enough to do something about I suppose.