A new COVID vaccine is due out next month, but health experts and analysts say it is likely to be coolly received even as hospitalizations from "Eris", a variant of the Omicron form of the coronavirus, rise around the country.

Some public health experts hope that Americans will welcome the new shot as they would a flu jab. But demand for the vaccine has dropped sharply since 2021 when it first became available and more than 240 million people in the U.S., or 73% of the population, received at least one shot.

In the fall of 2022, by which time most people had either had the COVID virus or the vaccine, fewer than 50 million people got the shots.

  • @Erdrick@beehaw.org
    2•11 months ago

    With the current wave very quickly picking up steam, chances are we will be through the worst of it by the time vaccines are available / taken by those still willing to go through with it.

    I think I am 4-5 shots deep at this point, and have had a natural infection once. It was horrible where I fully lose my taste for a number of weeks.
    Then as taste / smell began to return some things were “wrong.”
    It took months for coffee to return to normal.
    If I had to live like that… well, let’s say those months had very unwelcome new dark thoughts that took me by surprise.