DENVER — Omicron-specific booster shots are anticipated to arrive in Colorado after Labor Day.
The state health department ordered 145,200 doses and the Colorado retail pharmacies ordered 143,800 doses. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment anticipates they will continue to order more doses with enough supply to meet demand.
Thursday evening, the Associated Press wrote that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director has agreed with advisers and recommends updated COVID-19 vaccine boosters to target the newest omicron strains. Approval is needed before the shots can be administered.
Earlier in the day the state health department wrote:
"Anyone aged 12 years and older who has completed a primary series of COVID-19 vaccines should receive an omicron dose. A primary series usually means two doses of Pfizer, Moderna, or Novavax, or one dose of Johnson & Johnson. People who are immunocompromised may receive up to three doses in their primary series."
The fact that variant specific vaccines are close to being rolled out is a telling sign of the evolution of the pandemic.
Here's part of our conversation with infectious disease specialist Dr. Michelle Barron.
On the Omicron-specific booster:
"It's Omicron specific, BA.4 and BA.5, which is what we've been seeing for the last several month circulating. The other booster previous to this and original vaccine were based on the original strain of COVID. This one in theory will give you a little bit broader protection because it's more specific to what were seeing," Barron said.
On vaccine messaging:
Throughout the pandemic, health experts said vaccines provided a broad protection against a variety of variants, but this booster is variant specific.
Barron said this is a part of the natural evolution of living with COVID.
"This is what we do with flu every year. For people who say this is weird science we've never done this. We do this every year. Every year we look to see, lots of different strains of flu circulating. Not just one. When they develop the flu shots, which ones do they think based on predictions and modeling is going to be the one we should include because you are going to get exposed to this," Barron said. "This is the natural evolution of this. When COVID first came out, we'd never seen it before. We had zero immunity to it. We never had shot to it. And now as we continue to move forward, we will probably have a more specific shot for what is circulating."
"I think it's a good thing," added Barron, "Hopefully we are over the major hump where people where so profoundly impacted by this. Doesn't mean you aren't going to get sick."
How the booster protects against other variants:
"Often the question will be how related are they. That's always going to be the thing just like with the flu shot. How close did we get to the one that's actually causing the infections. We rarely have an exact match. Usually it's close enough. Looking at relatedness, they're likely to be siblings versus some distinct cousin with no overlapping genetics with you. It's hard to gauge. We could obviously end up with a whole new strain. Looking at Omicron specific, it was different enough, to where they felt like having something specific for that will still give you good protection for whatever is coming next," Barron said.
She said the booster also builds on past immunity
What's happening in the southern hemisphere?
"For the last two years we haven't seen a lot of flu, probably because we weren't gathering, schools were not in session and masking everywhere. We had this late upsurge of flu in May, which was so unusual not something we usually see, which gave us a hint of what might be coming," Barron said.
"Their winter is our summer. So they are having their flu season right now. If you look at the data out of Australia it's worrisome," She explained. "Their equivalent of our November, they started to see cases of flu skyrocket. And the number of cases is higher than it's been since probably 2009."
"We usually mirror what they see, so I think starting in November we're probably going to start seeing flu and I anticipate seeing a lot of it," Barron said.
She said they've also seen a high number of hospitalizations in Australia but that mortality rates have been average.
"We haven't been exposed to flu in two years. We naturally get exposed to it every year. When it comes out you get your flu shot or you get exposed to it and it boosts your immunity. And that has some overlap for the coming years," Barron said. "So basically two years without exposure, which means our army is not well trained. They've been on vacation for the last two years, hanging out at home. Now our army of our immune system needs to go back to basic training."
COVID has also been present as flu cases have gone up in Australia.
It's why she's encouraging people to start scheduling flu and COVID boosters when they become available, keeping in mind that it takes two weeks for it's full effectiveness. Barron said both vaccines can be taken together.
What do people brace for going into the fall?
"In a usual year, somebody in the family gets sick the whole family will probably get it. That's unfortunately the way it happens. So I think it will feel more normal, or a little less charged. When you see it, this feels kind of like it did before. It will be novel because for the last two years, all we thought about was COVID, COVID, COVID," Barron said.
Have concerns about a twin-demic have come up before?
Barron said that it has come up and didn't happen.
She does think this fall the conditions are different this time with people masking less, schools back in session and people traveling more.
The state health department also said:
"We do expect to see flu and COVID-19 circulating at the same time in the fall and the spring, as we did last year. However, the last two seasons of flu have been lighter than pre-COVID; therefore it is difficult to predict the magnitude of flu circulation."
The Colorado School of Public Health that does COVID projections wrote:
"Our current COVID models run through early October and project a decline in COVID hospital demand over that time period. We don’t know what COVID will look like after that point. Much depends on the next variant that emerges. Another big question is immunity in the population. Right now, we think it is pretty high but we know what immunity from vaccines and infections declines over time. The new booster approved today can help boost immunity and provide another layer of protection against a late fall wave or winter wave."
UCHealth said the Omicron-specific booster hasn't been tested on humans. They also pointed out that the flu shot isn't tested on humans year to year. Instead the original vaccine, which has been tested, is tweaked based on specific variants and that the same goes for the new booster.
CDPHE wrote:
"It is common practice to adapt vaccines to target new strains of a virus, as we do every year with the flu vaccine. The FDA worked closely with the vaccine manufacturers to ensure the development of these updated boosters was done safely and efficiently. Data supporting the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, bivalent authorization and data supporting the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, bivalent authorization are included in the FDA's press release from yesterday.
The updated vaccines were manufactured using the same process as the original vaccines except now these vaccines include the Alpha strain as well as the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. The reformulated vaccine uses the same technology as the vaccine that hundreds of millions of people have safely received."