DENVER (KDVR) — Officials are anxious about a fall COVID wave, but Coloradans seem to be tapped out.
The White House is releasing a vaccination campaign in September with a new vaccine geared specifically for the omicron strain.
The omicron variant has been Colorado’s most common for months. The subvariants, though, keep changing. Every two or three months a new omicron subvariant overtakes the previous one. Since January, Colorado has shifted from B.1.1.529, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.4, BA.4.6 and currently BA.5 as the main strains.
Coloradans, though, seem less likely to get vaccinations than ever, whether from vaccine burnout or because so many have already gotten one or several jabs. To date, 83.5% of eligible Coloradans have been vaccinated with at least one dose, but the daily number keeps dropping.
Vaccinations reached a peak shortly after they were released at the end of 2020. There were over 65,000 daily vaccinations given to Coloradans in April 2021. The second wave of vaccinations came at the end of last year, though at the most there were half as many.
Beginning in early April, the number of daily vaccinations has steadily shrunk from about 10,000 daily vaccinations. Currently, there are an average of 2,300 daily vaccinations.
This is the lowest ever level of vaccination since vaccines were first distributed in mid-December 2020.
By now, vaccine outcomes are clear.
The rates of vaccinated people catching COVID are less and those being hospitalized with it or dying from it are lower, and are all higher for unvaccinated or unboosted people. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has compared the rates among unvaccinated, vaccinated and boosted people.
Boosted individuals are two times less likely to catch COVID, 3.5 times less likely to be hospitalized and 4.5 times less likely to die from COVID.