There should be an asterisk or footnote or something on the website to indicate it was a reporting backlog. Otherwise anyone in the community looking at the website will become very concerned, as I was.
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It also meant that the caseload at the time was underreported, which may have caused some people to have been less concerned than they would otherwise have been at the time.
It is unlikely that people were less concerned as the caseload rates from January without that backlogged data still were at pandemic highpoints (almost 3 times higher than during the delta variant phase highpoints) in the Houston metro data.
PA had a reporting backlog come in once that skyrocketed numbers, though not super recently. It definitely caused me to look into it, and the news reported it as such if people watched a local news. I think they did asterisk it afterward, but not at first.
It surprises me that such a thing might be normal, but then again, Iām learning I shouldnāt be surprised by much anymore.
I am currently in England, where all Covid-related restrictions (testing, masks, vaccine requirements for entry into restaurants if they had that earlier) have been eliminated. And Covid seems way up. Two of the people I was supposed to be meeting with missed my meetings because they have Covid. Both are highly educated senior executives and one is head of a health care organization. Another two had Covid, one recently.
My observation is that among my peers in the US, very few people have had Covid whereas in this group, being infected is much more likely. Both were earlier on. The second family were government-skeptics. They wanted the J&J rather than mRNA vaccines and spent a lot of time gathering information to support their implicit belief that the pandemic was caused by a (probably intentional) leak from the Wuhan lab. I think they were a little more Covid-cavalier than we were (or than most of the peer class).
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I woke up to see the news that anyone 50 and over can get another booster, so I signed up for it immediately. I could have gotten an appointment today if Iād wanted - so different this time! I made an appointment for Friday evening at the same CVS I got my last booster. 
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And some of us are 49.5 lol. Argh! But seriously I will likely wait until fall or if I see some new horrible variant starting to rise.
So for my 50th bday, I will line up for shingles, flu, tetnus, covid. And canāt forget the colonoscopy!! Happy birthday!
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Our CVS app allowed us to schedule a booster (to be our second one) after yesterdayās decision. Local store called later to cancel it, saying it would likely be 2 weeks+/- until they could proceed with them. They related the delay to processing time with governmental protocol. I believe that it could have been done if we were immunocompromised. We are content to wait as needed. Curious about peopleās experiences elsewhere.
Keep in mind, for those who may be traveling to Europe, in some countries, 270 days has been determined to be the ālife spanā of a COVID vaccineāmust have had a shot within 270 days of travel.
So anyone going to one of these countries (would be easy enough to look up), one may want to time their second booster so that their travel happens less than 270 days from the booster date.
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Ugh I hope they let me get mine, then. I entered my information online and the system allowed me to make an appointment, so I think Iām good.
@MaineLonghorn It is confusing. We registered successfully on-line also. Just saw reporting that Rachel Zalensky stated approval was effective immediately. Will call around to understand it better. We may have moved too quickly yesterday.
Due to the upcoming train trip with then 94 year old FIL, weāll get boosters 3 or 4 weeks before traveling. Case loads are still decreasing around us now and we want the most protection when we come into contact with more people from who knows where.
H and I are conflicted about when to get the next shot. We could have done so already but we were hoping the fourth would cover us through the holidays this fall/winter. Our immunocompromised son wants to visit this summer and we have a new grandchild due in early fall. H is concerned that the protection isnāt lasting as long as he expected, and wonders if we should get one very soon and plan on yet another in September.
Weād reconciled ourselves to the idea of an annual, or even semiannual, shot, sort of like getting the flu shot each year. Now H is asking if weāll have to do this quarterly. He had a much worse reaction the last time and doesnāt want to get the next one until I am fully recovered from a recent accident so I can take care of him. 
Regarding boosters if you already had Px3, Mx3, or Jx2, it seems like P or M boosters against the ancestral virus give only a short term somewhat-mismatched antibody boost, which would mean relatively short term protection against infection by current variants (where the volume somewhat compensates for the mismatch). So, rather than getting an mRNA booster now, it may be better to try to time it to just before a higher risk event (e.g. @Creekland 's visit to elderly relative, or activity where there is higher exposure, or travel where getting even an asymptomatic positive test would be a problem) for maximum protection then.
Another option is to try to boost T-cell immunity for increased longer term protection and protection against variants with a J booster.
Yet another option is to try to find a trial of a vaccine targeted against Omicron and Delta, guessing that any new variant of the day may be closer to one of those than the ancestral virus (or that having antibodies and B-cells against them as well as the ancestral virus gives a new variant fewer places to hide from antibodies). But since those are in trial, no one can say for sure that it will give the desired level of protection.
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Here is what I think is a very good article from the WSJ on Singapore and South Korea moving towards an endemic phase. If only we had the same trust in our public health system as the South Koreans, whose death rate was 1/10th the death rate seen in the US. Here are some of the best quotes from the article and the link (behind a firewall for non-subscribers):
āSouth Korea could become the first country to transition to endemic,ā said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. āThey have one of the highest vaccination rates among adults, high trust in the public health system and the right tools to emerge from the pandemic.ā
āSouth Koreaās Covid-19 cases in March were three times higher per capita, based on a seven-day rolling average, than the pandemic peaks for the U.S. and the U.K. In a recent survey, one in three South Koreans said they were likely to be infected with the virus, the highest percentage of people saying so since such polls began in January 2020ā.
āOmicronās impact was blunted in South Korea by one of the worldās highest vaccination rates, with 96% of adults having received two doses. At just 0.13%, the country has one of the lowest death rates from the virus globallyāabout a 10th of the rates in the U.S. and U.K. South Koreaās overall fatality rate for the Omicron variant is 0.18%, but for those younger than 60 it is close to zero, according to Son Young-rae, a senior national health official. The seasonal fluās fatality rate ranges between 0.05% and 0.1%.ā
Iām going to Texas in April to help my dad after his surgery, so thatās why I want to get a booster now.
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Not sure what this is supposed to mean. The US has already transitioned to endemic, even though the US did so in a poorly organized way with a much higher rate of hospitalizations and deaths than most other rich countries, along with bursts of stress on the health care system and already-low trust declining even more.
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@travelnut @MaineLonghorn FWIW I registered yesterday immediately after the announcement. CVS, for this Friday. No issues registering and so far no indication of being cancelled.
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My husband just got his third booster today. Heāll have gotten Pfizer every time. Heās about a month ahead of me regarding getting vaccines. We will be meeting my BIL and nephew in NYC in a week and a half. Who knows if the weather will support outdoor dining, but DH is apt to be very cautious.
Iām still waffling. Iāve had more unpleasant reactions to the shots. (I have 3x Moderna) and Iād really like a more targeted vaccine, which of course doesnāt exist yet. I figure even a shot today wouldnāt be likely to make much difference, so Iāll probably wait till the numbers get scarier around here.
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I got my 3rd moderna in October, and I got very mild Omicron in the beginning of January. At this point getting a 4th booster makes no sense since it doesnt prevent getting disease, just severity. probably will consider booster in the fall for next winter, unless some really bad varient comes around and the boosters work against it.