COVID cases rising in Charlottesville, UVA doctor cites lack of bivalent booster interest

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - The CDC’s COVID tracker is showing an increase in cases across the Charlottesville area. It also shows that many people in the area decided to skip getting the bivalent booster.

“We’re not doing super great as far as getting everyone vaccinated in Virginia when you look at the country as a whole,” UVA Doctor Bill Petri said.

The tracker shows that COVID hospitalizations in Charlottesville increased by 74% in March.

“We’ve had about two thirds of everyone who could get vaccinated has gotten the original vaccine, but where we’re really falling down is with the bivalent booster,” Dr. Petri said. “It’s even worse unfortunately in the city of Charlottesville. About one out of every ten people has has received the bivalent booster.”

The CDC says 19% of people 65 and up in Charlottesville got the bivalent booster compared to the 74% of that group who got their primary COVID vaccination a few years ago.

“We continue to have anywhere from 10 to 25 patients in the UVA hospital at one time with COVID,” Dr. Petri said.

Dr. Petri says that in the country, the number of COVID deaths in March has been about 400.

“The virus has mutated and so the primary vaccines not working as well as it did originally, and the booster was an attempt to kind of get caught up on the mutations,” Dr. Petri said.

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