A new fixed site for COVID-19 vaccines and boosters will open in Concord on Friday, as the surge in cases caused by the Omicron variant continues to sweep through the state.
The opening will bring to seven the number of such walk-in sites in the state, with three more set to open next week and a fourth by the end of the month, Gov. Chris Sununu said Wednesday in a weekly press briefing.
As he has done all along, Sununu urged everybody to get vaccines and boosters, to avoid getting sick or lessen the effect of an illness.
“The booster really makes all the difference in the world in terms of the severity of symptions if and when you should be infected,” Sununu said.
For information about this site and other COVID-19 information, check the state website www.covid19.nh.gov.
The push comes as the positivity rate for official tests is above 20%, at least four times the level at which a virus is considered to be spreading throughout the community. This figure does not include the result of thousands of at-home tests.
“The Omicron variant is circulating far more widely than testing numbers even suggest,” he said.
Over the weekend, the state’s official tally of people who have gotten sick from the SARS-CoV2 virus since the pandemic began passed 250,000 – equivalent to the combined populations of Manchester, Nashua and Concord. About three people a day on average are dying with COVID-19 and more than 400 people remain hospitalized with it. Sununu noted that many of those have been in the hospital or even ICU since December suffering long-term effects of the Delta variant.
There are indications that Omicron produces less severe symptoms than Delta, although it is far more contagious.
Also during the press conference, state epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan reiterated that medical authorities do not recommend treating COVID-19 with the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin, which is used among other things to treat head lice.
So far the evidence indicates that “benefits don’t outweigh the risks of therapy,” Chan said, although he added that research is ongoing and “it could change in the future.”
Ivermectin is one of a seri es of treatments touted by non-medical sources to deal with COVID-19.
