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Medicine United States

US Plans Shift To Annual COVID Vaccines Akin To Flu Shots 171

The United States is likely to start recommending COVID-19 vaccines annually, health officials said on Tuesday, as new boosters designed to fight currently circulating variants of the coronavirus roll out. Reuters reports: By the end of this week, 90% of Americans will live within five miles (8 km) of sites carrying updated vaccines, U.S. health secretary Xavier Becerra said at a White House briefing. Officials said people could get the new boosters this fall or winter alongside their regular annual flu shots, and said it was likely this would become a yearly ritual.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said even with the seven-day average of COVID hospitalizations down 14% to 4,500 per day, annual shots could save thousands of lives. "Modeling projections show that an uptake of updated COVID-19 vaccine doses similar to an annual flu vaccine coverage early this fall could prevent as many as 100,000 hospitalizations and 9,000 deaths, and save billions of dollars in direct medical costs," she said. The redesigned boosters, green-lighted by U.S. health regulators last week, aim to tackle the BA.5 and BA.4 Omicron subvariants, which account for over 88% and 11% of circulating viruses, respectively, Walensky said. The so-called bivalent vaccines also still target the original version of the virus.

Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said unless a dramatically different variant emerges, annual vaccines should offer enough protection for most people, but that some vulnerable groups might need more frequent vaccinations. "We likely are moving towards a path with a vaccination cadence similar to that of the annual influenza vaccine, with annual, updated COVID-19 shots matched to the currently circulating strains for most of the population," he said.
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US Plans Shift To Annual COVID Vaccines Akin To Flu Shots

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  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday September 06, 2022 @08:07PM (#62858458)

    That's pretty amazing battery technology.

    • Re:Only once a year! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2022 @02:03AM (#62858966)

      By the end of this week, 90% of Americans will live within five miles (8 km) of sites carrying updated vaccines,

      ... and fully 50% of those will then refuse to get it in order to make a political statement.

      While the rest of the world looks on, shaking their heads.

      • There are a lot of pretty smart folk out there who aren’t boosting after their first two shots, and none of the reasons were political at all. Perhaps you spend too much time debating mouth breathers on Twitter.

        Time to face some facts about this “vaccine”: while it worked largely as expected (successfully) and did not cause any widespread major problems in the short term, we also saw some things we did not expect (eg length of protection, protection against transmission), and thus do no
  • by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Tuesday September 06, 2022 @08:10PM (#62858468) Homepage

    Without insurance, the flu shot runs about $40 [goodrx.com] (except for Costco at $20, but if you can afford a Costco membership, chances are you probably have health insurance).

    Meanwhile, for citizens north of the border, the flu shot is free [immunizebc.ca], and I'd bet my butt their annual Covid shots will be covered under their national healthcare too.

    • but if you can afford a Costco membership, chances are you probably have health insurance).

      Er...

      • * Annual price of a Costco subscription: $60
      • * Annual average single health insurance premium: $7,739
    • by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      That depends on the cost. Even with insurance, for some, the 2-shot shingles vaccine is quite expensive. My insurance paid in full but those with things like medicare part-d are still left paying $300+ per shot. Thats quite expensive for a retiree. The high deductible obamacare type plans in the health exchange also leave a lot out of pocket left to the insured. IMO this is more than an insurance problem, its letting the price be this high to begin with. Doesnt matter if the government picks up the tab or n
    • Meanwhile, for citizens north of the border, the flu shot is free [immunizebc.ca], and I'd bet my butt their annual Covid shots will be covered under their national healthcare too.

      Yes, flu shots and COVID shots are free here. Myself and most people I know expected all along that COVID shots would eventually evolve into a yearly tailored dose just like flu shots. Ideally I will get them both at the same time, maybe even combined into a single formulation. I get a flu shot every year anyway, so combining them makes it simple.

    • Without insurance, the flu shot runs about $40 [goodrx.com] (except for Costco at $20, but if you can afford a Costco membership, chances are you probably have health insurance).

      Meanwhile, for citizens north of the border, the flu shot is free [immunizebc.ca], and I'd bet my butt their annual Covid shots will be covered under their national healthcare too.

      Most of the US discussion I hear about private vs. socialized medicine boils down to selfish desires for either wanting others to pay for my healthcare, or not wanting to pay for other's healthcare. It makes a great zero-sum wedge issue.

      A more productive debate would center around "what level of healthcare would be in the public's interest to make freely available?" Things that don't cost that much and would have big quality of life impacts that ripple out. This would probably include preventative car

  • The original Pfizer and Moderna vaccines required two doses to get to high immunity. Immunity after one shot, even against the original Wuhan strain is *bad*.

    In the bivalent booster, the raw dose is the same but half is the original Wuhan strain. So you only get a half dose for BA4/BA5 and you don't get a second chaser to impress on the immune system that this is important. How is that going to work? And that even assumes that the virus does not mutate significantly within the year.

    I suspect (maybe hope

    • by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Tuesday September 06, 2022 @09:59PM (#62858662)

      We kind of already know how that will work. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are very similar but not the same. It's become pretty clear that people who were initially received one vaccine then boosted with the other ended up with stronger immunity than people who stuck to the same brand. The current COVID strains aren't that different from the original in the grand scheme of things, so it seems quite likely that your immune system will react similarly to getting Pfizer+Moderna.

      I'll also note that the primary reason we didn't get Omicron specific boosters is because it didn't perform significantly better than the original vaccine in trials. It just wasn't worth the extra complications to bother with it, especially when you factored in the speed it spread and the production time.

      The big lesson from the Omicron vaccine trials was that tuning the vaccine to the variant wasn't the key factor in keeping people protected, but rather their antibody levels was. While tuning the vaccines to the latest variants will certainly help, the key seems to be boosting regularly. My feeling so far is that 3 a year would be the sweet spot for me, but I think one before the summer surge and one before the winter surge will be where we end up long term.

      • The big lesson from the Omicron vaccine trials was that tuning the vaccine to the variant wasn't the key factor in keeping people protected, but rather their antibody levels was.

        When you say protected do you mean protected from infection or hospitalization?

        As far as I understand there is still no established correlation between measured antibody levels and health outcomes beyond infection.

        • by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2022 @12:54AM (#62858904)

          The big lesson from the Omicron vaccine trials was that tuning the vaccine to the variant wasn't the key factor in keeping people protected, but rather their antibody levels was.

          When you say protected do you mean protected from infection or hospitalization?

          As far as I understand there is still no established correlation between measured antibody levels and health outcomes beyond infection.

          Infected. I'm far more concerned about the long term health issues after infection than I am about the initial infection. The odds of hospitalization or death are low, but if you do the math on long covid odds assuming that getting infected with covid is a regular occurance, you get a terrifying long term picture.

          • Infected. I'm far more concerned about the long term health issues after infection than I am about the initial infection. The odds of hospitalization or death are low, but if you do the math on long covid odds assuming that getting infected with covid is a regular occurance, you get a terrifying long term picture.

            I should also note people are getting long covid without symptomatic infection.

            Given the notion vaccines prevent long covid at all is shaky at best hard to imagine what kind of signal one realistically expect to see in terms of vaccinated vs. vaccinated + boosted + yearly boosted.

            For vast majority of the population the "initial infection" ship has already sailed whether they realize it or not.

            • by edwdig ( 47888 )

              Infected. I'm far more concerned about the long term health issues after infection than I am about the initial infection. The odds of hospitalization or death are low, but if you do the math on long covid odds assuming that getting infected with covid is a regular occurance, you get a terrifying long term picture.

              I should also note people are getting long covid without symptomatic infection.

              Given the notion vaccines prevent long covid at all is shaky at best hard to imagine what kind of signal one realistically expect to see in terms of vaccinated vs. vaccinated + boosted + yearly boosted.

              For vast majority of the population the "initial infection" ship has already sailed whether they realize it or not.

              Vaccines don't seem to completely prevent long covid, but your odds of long covid do seem to be much higher the worse your infection is.

              We're also starting to see a lot of data now suggesting there were way more asymptomatic cases of Omicron than we realized. That hasn't been worked into the long covid studies yet. The optimistic side of me is hoping that this means that vaccination is more effective against long covid than we realized, but there's way more studies to be done before we know that.

  • India just approved an inhaled vaccine. If its just something I need to spritz into my nose I am OK with taking it every 3 months.
  • I don't get a flu shot either, so I'm gonna give this a miss. Everyone else can do what they want. If a mandate is pushed, then we have a problem.
  • So, we're going back to people that don't get them for arbitrary reasons too? OOOOH, can we have the people back that come into work sick so they don't use a vacation day too??????

    Tonight we're gonna party like it's 2019!

  • by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2022 @10:01AM (#62859684)
    If anyone's interested in getting the updated bivalent vaccine that came out last Thursday that protects against the new strains, some places are starting to get it in stock now. I actually found a Walgreens near me that had it available last Friday, I went in to get it same day. You may need to call around a bit, I don't think it's everywhere yet, but it is available at some places for sure.

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