Why doctors are urging patients NOT to get their Covid booster vaccines yet
Doctors are advising Americans to wait to get another booster Covid shot – despite the rising number of Covid cases in the US.
Medical experts say people who are not immunocompromised or extremely vulnerable to Covid should wait until the fall to maximize the protection afforded by the updated vaccine.
This is because ttwo new variants, EG.5, or ErisAnd BA.X, or Pirola, have recently been detected in the US and are highly mutated. Because of their mutations, doctors say they should avoid current vaccine immunity.
This has prompted Covid vaccine makers such as Moderna to update their vaccinations to better protect them against the new strains. Health officials say the new boosters, formulated from subvariants of the omicron strain, should be available in mid-to-late September. They have been shown to provide significant antibodies against some of the circulating variants.
While official data suggests that the number of Covid cases has almost doubled in the past month, Dr Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, said that “waiting a few weeks for the updated record is not a problem should be’.
Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid boosters are pictured above in November 2022. Experts say people should wait a few weeks for another updated booster to become available before getting another shot
Despite a rise in cases fueled by two new variants, weekly deaths have fallen, presumably due to the milder symptoms the new strains cause
“If you’re not at high risk and don’t have high exposure at this point, it should be reasonable at this point to wait a few weeks before getting the updated shot,” says Dr Nuzzo. told ABC News.
There are some cases where Dr. Nuzzo recommends that people don’t want to wait to receive the new booster, even if someone thinks they’ll get significant exposure or be in high-risk situations.
Dr. John Brownstein, chief of innovation at Boston Children’s Hospital, also told the paper that if someone doesn’t fall into a high-risk category, such as having comorbidities, or doesn’t interact with high-risk family members or friends, they can wait a few weeks until the updated recording is available.
Dr. Rajendram Rajnarayanan told DailyMail.com that he recommends people get the updated shot “as soon as it becomes available,” as some vaccine makers, including Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax, have provided preclinical data showing their updated boosters work against the major circulating strains .
Based on the number of Americans who received the bivalent booster in 2022, people may not be lining up to get this new opportunity.
Only 17 percent of Americans received last year’s updated booster.
The introduction of the new vaccine will coincide with when many experts are recommending that people get their flu shot.
Dr. Thomas Moore, an infectious disease physician in Wichita, Kansas, told DailyMail.com that it is safe to receive the Covid and flu vaccines at the same time, eliminating the need to make two separate doctor or clinic visits. He, along with other health experts, hopes that this convenience will entice more people to get both shots, which could prevent the “triple-demic” that plagued the US last flu season.
During the winter of 2022-2023, hospitals saw an increase in patients during the tripledemic, which brought in flu, Covid and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
This was believed to have been boosted by the lack of immunity to the flu and RSV after not being exposed to the viruses for several years due to masking and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic.