(CNN) This week, US health officials announced plans to offer booster Covid-19 shots to all qualifying adults starting on September 20. If the FDA authorizes them and the CDC recommends them, the shots will be available eight months after a person received their second dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine.
The good news is that most qualifying adults will likely take the booster in yet another sign that Americans are, in large part, pro-vaccination when it comes to the coronavirus.
Take an Axios/Ipsos poll completed earlier this month. The pollster asked adults who had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine whether they would get a booster under five different scenarios, ranging from public health administrators recommending it to a rise in cases in the U.S.
Under all different circumstances, at least 87% of respondents said they were likely to get one. At most, 12% said they were unlikely to get one.
A clear majority (59% or greater, depending on how the question was phrased) indicated that they were very likely to receive a booster.
Perhaps most interesting is that many Americans seem willing to get many boosters. Ipsos specifically asked vaccinated adults whether they'd get a booster if it is recommended to get one annually like a flu shot. A near uniform majority (87%) said they would be likely, while 63% said they would be very likely.
Given that 62% of adults are fully vaccinated overall, this means more than 50% of Americans indicate that they likely want a booster and might be willing to get many of them.
(In addition to the 62% of Americans who are currently fully vaccinated, 73% of adults have gotten one dose.)
It's worth noting how these booster percentages compare to where we stood in December, when people were asked whether they would even get one Covid-19 vaccine shot.
Back then, only about 50% of Americans said it was likely that they would get a first dose. Just about 25% said they were very likely to do so.
This means there are more Americans who want a booster now than even wanted a first dose when they were first being offered.
Further, the data surrounding vaccines this past year indicates there is a chance that these initial percentages on how many Americans want a booster might be on the low side of how many ultimately get one. If history repeats itself, some Americans unwilling to get a booster now may decide to get one eventually.
Either way, there will be a lot of Americans potentially getting a booster shot in the months to come, if the timeline laid out by the government clears administrative hurdles.
In September, there will be about 5 million eligible adults. This ramps up rather quickly, so that by the end of 2021 a little less than 100 million adults will be eligible to get a booster shot. About another 50 million adults would become eligible in 2022.
If the polling is to be believed, this means that somewhere between about 55 million and 85 million adults may end up getting a booster by the end of 2021. About another 30 to 45 million will get one in 2022.
All told, up to nearly 130 million adults may end up getting the booster given the polling. This doesn't include any of the people who are partially vaccinated and will be receiving a second dose in the next 21 to 28 days. Nor does it include people who received the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
To put this 130 million in perspective, there are less than 100 million adults who haven't been fully vaccinated. There are only about 70 million who haven't received any doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Another way to look at it, there are a lot more Americans who are willing to mostly follow health officials advice when it comes to the Covid-19 vaccine than not follow it at all.