Brazil starts booster shots while many still await a 2nd jab

By MAURICIO SAVARESE and DÉBORA ÁLVARES
Associated Press

SAO PAULO (AP) — Some cities in Brazil are providing booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine, even though most people have yet to receive their second jabs, in a sign of the concern in the country over the highly contagious delta variant. Rio de Janeiro, currently Brazil’s epicenter for the variant and home to one of its largest elderly populations, began administering the boosters Wednesday. Northeastern cities Salvador and Sao Luis started on Monday, and the most populous city of Sao Paulo will begin Sept. 6. The rest of the nation will follow the next week. France, Italy, China and Chile are among those countries offering boosters, but much greater shares of their populations are fully inoculated than the 30% in Brazil.