Raise your hand, everybody who has gotten the latest COVID-19 booster. Yeah, that’s what I thought; not many.
Only about 5% of eligible Americans had gotten the new booster a week ago, and that was before it was deemed safe enough for use by kids aged 5 to 18 so the percentage is even lower now. I don’t have New Hampshire statistics but can’t imagine they’re any better.
I’ll admit that I haven’t gotten the bivalent booster – “bi-valent” because it contains two versions of the COVID vaccine – but I have a good excuse. I only just hit the two-month mark since my last booster and the CDC recommends waiting at least two months between boosters to get maximum benefit for your immune system. If you’ve had COVID, you should wait three months.
Next week I will get the new booster along with my annual flu shot. Because I really enjoy not being sick.
Both Pfizer and Moderna have bivalent boosters approved for ages 5 and up. Each contains an mRNA vaccine that codes for the same spike protein as the old vaccine, and an mRNA vaccine that makes a spike protein matching the Omicron variants (BA.4 and BA.5) which are causing most of the problem right now.
It’s worth getting the booster because mid-October is when the back-to-school COVID-19 surge begins. Last year, for example, there were 142 confirmed cases in New Hampshire hospitals at this time and 450 of them six weeks later; in 2020 we went from 35 to 280 hospitalizations over the same period.
Is that surge going to happen again this year with the newest variants sneaking past old vaccination? Recent trends aren’t hopeful.
As I write this the New Hampshire Hospital Association says there are 133 confirmed COVID-19 cases in hospitals, a number that has slowly crept up over the past few weeks to match its highest level of last May, during a small surge in cases.
The concentration of SARS-CoV2 virus in Concord’s wastewater has also been rising steadily for a while. The most recent daily count in the public database, on Oct. 5, was higher than at any point all summer.
So it behooves everybody to get the booster. And keep wearing that mask in public crowds. If we can avoid a third autumn surge then maybe we are getting close to being over COVID, instead of just wishing it would happen.
