Updated COVID-19 vaccines will soon be available in pharmacies, as the United States and several other countries see a rise in cases.
Meanwhile, many are wondering, “Is it better to get the new dose right away, or should we wait?”
In response, Carlos del Rio, MD, a distinguished professor of medicine at Emory University and an infectious disease expert, tells CNN:CNN“There is no simple answer to this question.”
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines have been updated to provide protection against new mutations of the virus.
“We are in the middle of a new wave, many people, including myself, have recently been exposed to Covid,” Del Rio added, noting that his infection made him decide to postpone getting the new dose.
“If you have had Covid in the last three months, you should wait,” he said. “There is no need to get a vaccine, because in a way, you have ‘gotten’ the vaccine from the current strain.”
If a person has not been exposed to Covid recently, especially if they are 65 or older, this specialist recommends getting the vaccine “as soon as possible,” he said.
The same applies to people with chronic health conditions that increase the risk of serious complications.
Who is most at risk of hospitalization or death?
People who get severe COVID that requires hospitalization or is potentially life-threatening fall into four categories, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel, told CNN.
The first category consists of people with weakened immunity, the second, people with medical conditions that put them at high risk, such as obesity, diabetes, and chronic liver, lung or heart disease. The third category is pregnant women, and the fourth category consists of the elderly, or people over 75 years old.
In contrast, Offit and other experts say younger, healthier adults can wait.
“Waiting until the fall ensures better protection during the respiratory virus season, which typically peaks in December and January,” he added.
“If you haven’t been exposed recently, new boosters are very important,” Dr. Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told CNN. “The current mutations of COVID are very different from last winter’s mutations, and these boosters this year are consistent with the new mutations.”
Rani agrees that older adults and people with underlying health conditions who have not been recently exposed should get their vaccine now, but she intends to hold off on getting hers a little.
“I plan to wait until the same time I get my flu shot, in October,” she said.
Rani noted that updated mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna will be available first, with the Novavax vaccine arriving in a few weeks.
New research has shown that people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 may be at higher risk of developing mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders.
“If you are hesitant about mRNA for some reason, even though these vaccines are very safe, the booster dose from Novavax, which is based on protein, will also be available soon,” Rani added.
Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco, says he will also wait a few weeks.
“I’m not going to rush to get the vaccine. I’m more concerned about the winter than the summer,” he said.
On Thursday, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the launch of new vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer (in collaboration with BioNTech), which target the KP.2 variant of the Omicron strain.
These doses will be available to people over 6 months of age, at a time when hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are continuing to rise, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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