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Vanessa Lavigne heard about the Pfizer booster from a friend. Lavigne, 66, received his first two shots when Vermonters in his age group became eligible last winter. So when a friend mentioned that the booster was available at the Costco Pharmacy in Colchester on Friday afternoon, the Milton resident said she went there right away.
“I would like to think that I am more protected,” she said afterwards. “But I always wear a mask when I go somewhere.”
Lavigne is among thousands of Vermonters who became eligible for a third Pfizer hit on Friday after the state issued guidelines for the recall. The guidelines reflect a recent advisory from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that allows recalls for certain high-risk adults who received their second injection of Pfizer more than six months ago.
The Scott administration has touted vaccines and boosters as the only way to bring Vermont back to everyday life before the pandemic. Vermonters got a little glimpse of this reality earlier this summer, when vaccination rates topped 80% of eligible residents. Then came the highly contagious Delta variant, prompting the state to impose vaccine mandates for state employees and a scheme for school testing. But Gov. Phil Scott has been hesitant to impose further drastic measures because many eligible Vermonters – over 88% – are fully vaccinated.
The Social Services Agency said about 95,000 of the 192,000 Vermonters who received the two-dose Pfizer vaccine are eligible for the booster, officials from the Vermont Social Services Agency said.
As of Tuesday, 9,000 of them had received booster shots, heads of state said at Tuesday’s weekly press conference. Another 5,000 immunocompromised Vermonters also received their third injection of Pfizer, a plan approved by federal regulators last month.
Booster intake has been slow so far, although nearly all Vermonters who have received the Pfizer vaccine are now eligible, Mike Smith, secretary of the Social Services Agency, said on Tuesday.
This group includes Lavigne and others 65 and over. First responders, grocery store workers and others at high risk of contracting the coronavirus at work are also on the list. People with certain high-risk, widespread chronic diseases, including moderate to severe asthma, diabetes, obesity, and chronic kidney disease, are also eligible.
Smith said the slow adoption isn’t about the availability of boosters, as every region in Vermont offers boosters.
“I think the situation was different from when the vaccine was first deployed,” Smith said. “I think people are waiting, maybe, for their primary care. You know a lot of them haven’t hit six months yet, so we’ll see the rollout unfold in phases here as we go along.
Despite the slow start, the state offers mass vaccination clinics by appointment. The University of Vermont Medical Center is expected to open one of these clinics early next week, although the location is not yet final, according to Lisa Goodrich, vice president of operations for the medical group at the Burlington Hospital.
Clinic staff could administer more than 1000 doses per day at the vaccination site. The clinic would initially offer around 200 vaccine slots per day, but more slots would be added if demand increased, she added.
“The reason we’re going to be able to turn around and set up a second mass vaccination site so quickly is because we know how to do it,” she said.
Even though demand for boosters remains low, Goodrich said, the clinic could offer vaccines to young children and boosters for the other two COVID-19 vaccines as soon as federal regulators allow.
Federal regulators are expected to consider booster shots of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines next week. Regulators will also vote later in the week on the safety and effectiveness of “mix and match” boosters – people who were initially given one type of vaccine could get a booster of a different type.
At Kinney Drugs in Essex Junction, demand for recalls has been robust, pharmacist Hayley Hooks said Monday afternoon. The flu shot season is in full swing, but a lot of people come for the Pfizer booster, she said, and very few come for their first or second dose.
Between appointments, appointments and the general demands of running a pharmacy, Hooks said things are as hectic as they were earlier in the pandemic.
“There is a vaccine scheduled every 15 minutes,” she said. “And if we can squeeze in the people coming in, we try to do it ourselves and we try to fill in scripts. We try to make all of our orders to make it feel the same. “
Unlike those rushed first weeks of vaccine deployment, however, there is no need to schedule additional appointments with booster vaccine recipients. A jab does the job. Patients also tend to have fewer or no questions, so administration of injections is usually quick, unless there is a queue.
“We encourage nominations, just because we do flu shots and we do recalls,” she said. “And unless you have a lot of patience and are willing to wait a bit, then really dating is the way to go.”
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