Only 5% of Milwaukee residents have gotten the updated COVID-19 vaccine, despite rising hospitalizations

A "very low" percentage of city residents are up-to-date with their COVID-19 vaccination, even as COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to trend upward, according to the City of Milwaukee's health commissioner.

Only about 5% of Milwaukee city residents have received the latest, updated COVID-19 vaccine, which became available in September, Milwaukee Health Commissioner Mike Totoraitis told a Milwaukee Common Council committee Thursday.

That's compared to about 8.6% of all Milwaukee County residents and 10.3% of Wisconsinites, according to data from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

The city also lags the county and the rest of the state in terms of the percent of people 65 and older who have received the updated vaccine. Only about 21% of city residents 65 and older have gotten the latest shot, compared to nearly 29% of county residents and almost 31% of Wisconsin residents.

"I sense it’s a combination of just pandemic fatigue, as well as folks who had prior infection recently might not see the need to get the booster at this point," Totoraitis said.

The updated vaccines, made by Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Novavax, were designed to target the variants in circulation this year and to boost immune responses that may have flagged since the last vaccination or infection. The vaccines have the most benefits for people age 65 and older, who are among the most at-risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19.

Covid hospitalizations continue to rise

Totoraitis gave members of the Public Safety and Health Committee an update on the city's response to COVID-19, just as COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide continue to rise.

About 473 people were newly admitted to a Wisconsin hospital with COVID-19 in the week ending Nov. 18, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's about a 17% increase over the prior week. No more current data was available from the CDC as of Thursday.

That's a comparable number of admissions to last November. However, the number of new, weekly COVID-19 admissions is far lower than at the height of the pandemic and during the omicron surge, when Wisconsin hospitals were admitting thousands of COVID-19 patients weekly.

If COVID-19 inflections follow the same trajectory as in prior winters, infections and hospitalizations likely will continue to rise over the coming weeks, as winter sets in and people gather inside for the holidays and to escape the cold.

Experts urge updated vaccine for elderly, vulnerable people

State and federal health officials have called on people vulnerable to COVID-19 and the elderly to get the updated vaccine in order to afford themselves the most protection possible against severe illness from the virus. The COVID-19 vaccine is expected to become an annual shot similar to the flu vaccine that is designed each year to target the predominant strains in circulation.

"I think we just have to start getting in the habit of getting the flu and the COVID vaccine in the fall and just get used to it," Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic said at Thursday's committee meeting.

This is all happening as a COVID-19 variant that was once considered rare in the United States is becoming more common and now likely accounts for 5% to 15% of circulating variants in the U.S., according to the CDC. The mutated strain, called BA.2.86, carries a low risk for severe illness compared with other circulating variants, the CDC said.

But the BA.2.86 variant is believed to be more transmissible than other variants and is expected to become more and more common across the United States, USA Today reported. The updated vaccines are expected to be effective in boosting protection against BA.2.86, the CDC says.

Rollout of new vaccine hampered by delays

This year, the rollout of the updated COVID-19 vaccines was hampered by initial delays and complications, national news outlets have reported. It was the first year since the pandemic began that COVID-19 vaccines were distributed through the commercial market, instead of by the federal government. In September, some pharmacies had difficulty obtaining the vaccine from manufacturers or distributors, and some patients reported their vaccine appointments being cancelled unexpectedly or their health insurers denying coverage.

Totoraitis, the health commissioner, reported that more city residents had been vaccinated against the flu — about 18%, also a significantly lower rate than for county residents — than against COVID-19 this season.

He hopes that next year, when the health department and others begin fall vaccine campaigns, there won't be as many delays getting the COVID-19 vaccine out. That way, people can receive their COVID-19 and flu vaccines at the same time.

"If you minimize the hurdles to people getting the shots, ... people take them," he said.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Only 5% of Milwaukee residents have gotten new, fall COVID-19 vaccine