A new COVID-19 booster vaccine is available to everyone ages 12 and up who has received their original series. But according to a new survey, many Americans don’t plan on getting the jab anytime soon, if at all.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey released last week, out of 333 million Americans, 7.6 million have received the new vaccine, which has been available since early September. In Utah, 66.9% are fully vaccinated.

The survey shows many people are hesitant about getting the vaccine because they feel the pandemic is over, they’re suffering from COVID fatigue, they feel the virus is nothing more than a bad cold or they hadn’t heard there was a new vaccine available.

And then there’s the recent announcement from Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, who recommended males ages 18-39 skip the mRNA vaccines altogether after the Florida state health department conducted a small study showing potential heart problems, including an increase in cardiac deaths within 28 days of receiving the vaccine.

Dr. Leisha Nolen, state epidemiologist at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, said Utah also conducted a study looking into the heart issue and, to date, hasn’t seen any data that suggests a strong link.

“The (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) also did a study on the entire country and didn’t find anything alarming, so that makes me feel secure in recommending men in this age group go ahead and get the vaccine,” she said. “We are looking at it closely though and we are going to reanalyze every single angle.”

Dr. Deepti Gurdasani, a clinical epidemiologist and statistical geneticist at Queen Mary University of London, refuted the Florida claim, saying, “It took me six reads to even start to understand what the authors had done, because the methodology makes little to no sense in many ways. Vaccines have saved millions of lives, and are continuing to. Do they have side effects? Yes, they are rare, but they do happen. It’s a benefit-risk calculation. However, this study tells us nothing about the risks or the benefits. It’s incredibly flawed.”

Nolen said there are still people who are getting very sick from COVID-19 and many are ending up in the hospital and dying from the disease.

“It’s easy for people to say it’s nothing more than a bad cold, but the vaccines are protecting us and ramping up our immune system so if we get it, it won’t be anything more than a bad cold for most of us,” she said.

The booster protects against the novel COVID-19 strain as well as omicron strains BA.4 and BA.5, Nolen said. Although it’s hard to predict how hard the virus will hit the state this winter, it’s best to be prepared, she added.

“You don’t put your seatbelt on after a car crash,” she said. “We know we don’t have a huge amount circulating right now, although it’s hard to know with all of the home tests now available, but we want to be prepared because it’s likely going to be a bad season. I hope I’m wrong, but if and when the wave comes, we need to be prepared.”

Nolen also said it’s unfortunate the virus and vaccines have been so politicized.

“It’s a public health issue,” she said. “This is health care and it’s a health procedure. We need to try to separate things out between politics and good health care.”

In addition, Nolen said the country is expecting a significant influenza season and encourages everyone to get the vaccine as soon as possible.

“Most of us haven’t been exposed to influenza for a while because we’ve been taking precautions and our bodies don’t remember it,” she said. “So it could be a bad year.”

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