Not many Stanislaus residents are getting updated COVID booster. Is winter surge coming?
Only 3% of eligible people in Stanislaus County have received the updated COVID booster shot, leaving the vast majority without protection against omicron subvariants going into the winter months.
The updated booster, released in September, is designed to boost immunity against the original coronavirus and subvariants of the omicron strain.
As of Monday, only 14,258 adolescent (12 years and older) and adult residents had received the single-shot omicron booster, a county Health Services Agency spokesperson said. About 10% of seniors in the most vulnerable age group, 65 and older, are boosted against the omicron subvariants.
Hospital officials said it leaves the county open to a surge of illness and hospitalizations tied to omicron this winter.
Dr. Kanthi Kiran, medical director of Memorial Medical Center’s emergency department, said the community is still living with COVID-19. With the omicron strain, fewer people end up in intensive care units, Kiran said, but the omicron subvariants may cause serious illness in people who don’t have updated vaccinations.
The Pfizer booster shot is for people 12 and older; Moderna’s shot is for anyone 18 or older. The updated booster shot is authorized at least two months after a primary COVID vaccination or previous booster.
Wednesday, the FDA also authorized updated COVID-19 boosters for children as young as 5, seeking to expand protection to them as the winter approaches.
“We want to prevent needless hospitalizations,” said Kiran, who has overseen Memorial’s emergency department during the COVID-19 surges since 2020. “No one can say you won’t get sick with COVID if you are vaccinated and boosted, but it’s less likely you will get seriously sick and end up in the hospital and die.”
Though the numbers are down, the omicron variant has continued to result in deaths, mostly among elderly people who were not up-to-date on vaccine, Kiran said.
Fewer people may be getting the booster because of perceptions the pandemic is over or omicron is a less severe strain.
A surge of omicron illness and influenza in the late fall and winter could be coming based on reasoning that people are indoors in colder months, they breathe the same air and infectious disease spreads.
Kiran said she hears a misconception that COVID vaccines, in general, are not effective. She said it simply was not the case with COVID-19 surges that hit Modesto after COVID vaccines became widely available in the first half of 2021.
“After the vaccine rollout, more than 90% of the people I admitted to the hospital were not vaccinated,” Kiran said.
Murali Naidu, chief executive officer of Emanuel Medical Center in Turlock, said Wednesday that the number of COVID-19 cases is going up in Europe and the northeast United States, and “going up pretty rapidly,” as sister variants of omicron BA.4 and BA.5 are spreading.
Naidu said he has concern that only 3% of eligible residents in Stanislaus County have received the omicron booster shot.
“We have consistently seen that what happens in Europe and the Northeast will happen in this county and Modesto,” Naidu said.
Omicron mortality higher than influenza
He said mortality from the less severe omicron strain is still several times higher than it is with seasonal flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that vaccinations, along with immunity from previous COVID infections, has likely played a role in the lower severity with omicron.
Naidu said the updated booster shot is especially important for older people and those with underlying medical problems that make them susceptible to serious omicron illness.
As for the general population, “we don’t know yet who is susceptible to the effects of (long-term) COVID,” Naidu said. “We know the vaccines reduce the risk of long COVID.”
About 4% of eligible people nationwide have received the “bivalent” booster that protects against the original coronavirus and omicron strains. The Commonwealth Fund, in a recent report, estimated that getting the updated vaccine into arms could save as many as 90,000 lives and prevent a million hospitalizations.
Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, is a rare side effect of the mRNA vaccines for COVID-19.
A staff member for Stanislaus County’s public health division said the omicron booster shot is available from local pharmacies and health care providers. People can make appointments by using the state’s MyTurn scheduling system.
“We encourage people to get the booster dose,” said Elizabeth McCuiston, a county public health spokesperson. “It is the updated version of the original and is more effective against the current omicron strains.”
This story was originally published October 13, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
