About two-thirds of vaccinated Granite Staters have received a booster, according to a recent poll from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.
A Granite State poll sent out to a randomized group of New Hampshire residents in December found that nearly all vaccinated people plan to get, or already have had, a booster shot.
As the Omicron variant spreads through the country, boosters are important now more than ever, health officials say. Though only a handful of Omicron cases have been detected in New Hampshire, national health officials say the variant is spreading rapidly through the country.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said this week that Omicron accounts for nearly three-fourths of COVID-19 cases in the country.
“I think the next several weeks are going to be stressful and there’s going to be increased risk for transmission and certainly hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19,” State Epidemiologist Ben Chan said last week.
Researchers have found that existing vaccines may be slightly less effective against the new variant, but booster shots help replenish virus protection.
Still, a sizable group of Granite Staters has not been vaccinated at all. Official vaccination rates are difficult to pinpoint, as the state has not differentiated booster shots from first-dose shots in their count.
However, the state estimates that about 40% of the population, which is more than 500,000 residents, are not vaccinated.
The majority of unvaccinated survey respondents said they didn’t want the vaccine because they did not believe it would prevent them from getting sick.
Some peer-reviewed studies have found that unvaccinated people are 11 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those who are vaccinated.
Respondents also noted a lack of trust in the pharmaceutical companies that produce vaccines and a fear of the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.
Unvaccinated respondents also said that the spread of the Omicron variant did not make them more likely to consider vaccination for themselves or their children.
The poll found that Granite Staters are generally pessimistic about the future of the pandemic. About a third of respondents said they expected the state of the pandemic to be much worse in a month.
Less than 10% of respondents said they expected the pandemic to be somewhat or much better in the next month.
Hospitals in New Hampshire are struggling with an influx of COVID-19 patients as new daily coronavirus cases hit near-records every day.
New Hampshire will hold its second COVID-19 booster shot event, dubbed the Booster Blitz, in the new year.
Gov. Chris Sununu said the Booster Blitz event earlier this month boosted more than 10,000 residents.