Sing Tao Daily
Headline: Experts Urge Continued Vigilance as Vaccination Rates Plummet
The Centers for Disease Control recently announced bivalent vaccination rates for the new coronavirus, with just 16% of people nationwide having received the new vaccine and 21% among Asian Americans. In San Francisco, the city’s bivalent vaccination rate is 39%, and 41% among Asian Americans.
These numbers are far below early vaccination rates which topped out at nearly 90%.
Our interviews revealed that there are many reasons preventing the Asian community from receiving the bivalent vaccine, including concerns about side effects, the spread of disinformation on Chinese social media, fatigue caused by prolonged resistance to the vaccine, and a relaxed vigilance against the virus.
Professionals are urging the Chinese community to learn to identify reliable sources of information and to get vaccinated as early as possible.
The current U.S. bivalent vaccine, developed for Omicron BA4 and BA5, is currently available from Pfizer and Moderna, and is available free of charge at pharmacy chains in major supermarkets. However, since the launch of the bivalent vaccine last September, enthusiasm for the vaccine has been much lower than that for the earlier vaccines as the spread of the virus has slowed in San Francisco and the state of emergency for the new strains of Coronavirus has been lifted.
Experts and health care providers say those conditions present potential hazards as the virus is still out there and continues to spread among the public.
Read the full story at Sing Tao Daily (Chinese version only)
