The updated COVID vaccine is now available as the First State grapples with an increase in cases.
This jump in COVID cases comes at a time when the CDC and the state are not tracking the virus as vigorously. And with at-home testing dominant, reporting positive cases is more difficult.
University of Delaware professor Jennifer Horney, Founding Director of the Epidemiology Program, says it’s understandable COVID is not tracked to the extent it was before.
“But we know that what we are seeing in our data is just the tip of the iceberg of infections,” she explained. “And so that large number of unknown infections that's below the surface so to speak that we aren't counting… we really can't prepare for the kind of surge we might see because we don't have a lot of information about who makes up those unreported cases.”
While the lack of data makes responding to rising cases more difficult, the new COVID vaccine provides a timely tool.
Similar to how seasonal flu shots are formulated each year, the new COVID vaccine was created to attack the most dominant strain of the virus circulating - in this case the omicron subvariant.
For some who just recently had COVID, it may seem the new vaccine came too late. But Horney says people in that group can get the vaccine in 3 months.
“A lot of people have just had COVID. And with the new vaccine recently available, that would put them in a good spot to get the updated COVID vaccine in December, so before holiday gatherings, and maybe travel and those kinds of things.”
It is recommended that anyone else 6 months and older get the updated vaccine as soon as possible to mitigate the spread of the virus and protect against severe infection. It should provide maximum protection for 8 months, and protection against hospitalization for up to 12 months.
And though there is little data on the emerging pirola variant, experts are confident the new vaccine will be effective against it.
This is the first COVID vaccine update since the bivalent booster was approved for use in September 2022. The 2023 vaccine is not being marketed as a booster, which is a shot that boosts existing immunity from a previous vaccination, but rather a new vaccine that builds a new immune response to circulating variants.
The number of people getting vaccinated against COVID has been waning.
When COVID vaccines first rolled out in December 2020 there was some skepticism, but also a large number of people hoping to get their shots and return to a semblance of normalcy.
Years later there is no longer that same sense of urgency. While 67% of Delawareans are fully vaccinated against COVID, only 21.6% got the bivalent booster.
Those numbers don’t bode well for the new COVID vaccine.
Horney says the flu offers a good model in approaching this.
“We usually end up vaccinating around 50 to 60% of people, even though we know that flu kills about 40,000 people a year on average in the US. And so we've had a lot of experience with health education, and making the flu vaccine widely available and free, and still we only get about that 50 to 60% range,” explained Horney. “And so I think that given our limited time and resources, we should really think about trying to target people who are most at risk. With the flu, for example, we've gotten really good with targeting young children and the elderly because we know that they are most at risk. So in this case ensuring that people who are over 65, perhaps people who have certain conditions that would complicate a COVID case or make them more likely to be hospitalized or die, we should put our limited resources into trying to increase the vaccine coverage among those groups.”
The new vaccine is now available at pharmacies, health care providers, state public health clinics, federally qualified health centers. Both state and private insurance plans cover the cost.
For the uninsured or underinsured, free vaccinations are available at federally qualified health centers, public health clinics, local pharmacies, and certain providers via the state's Immunization Program.
And any participant in the CDC’s Vaccines for Children Program can also receive an updated vaccine where they receive their routine vaccinations.
Vaccine locations are available at vaccines.gov.
More information on Delaware's COVID response and the vaccine can be found at coronavirus.delaware.gov.
