September 13, 2023 – Hospitalizations attributable to COVID-19 increased for the eighth consecutive week within the period ending September 2, although the rise was in single digits for the primary time during that period. New hospital admissions rose 9% to 18,871 people, the CDC reported in its report last broadcast of virus metrics.
Newly advisable COVID booster shots are expected to be available inside days after a flurry of required approvals and proposals from the CDC and FDA this week. On Wednesday morning, the Walgreens website advised COVID vaccination seekers to “check back soon for more details” and said existing vaccination appointments can be rescheduled until updated vaccinations arrive. The CVS website's online scheduling tool began offering COVID vaccination appointments on Saturday, September sixteenth.
An estimated 97% of individuals within the U.S. aged 16 and older had protective immunity against COVID, either through infection or vaccination, by the tip of 2022, a study finds Article Summary of the present status of the pandemic, published on Tuesday within the Journal of the American Medical Association. Meanwhile, the age-adjusted death rate from COVID fell from 115.6 per 100,000 people in 2021 to 61.3 per 100,000 people in 2022, a decline of 47%.
But the article's authors warned that counting on prior immunity could put people in danger because protection from prior vaccination or infection wanes over time.
“In adults who are otherwise healthy (“immunocompetent”), recent estimates show that the effectiveness of a bivalent vaccine against hospitalization for COVID-19 was 62% in comparison with no vaccination within the two months following the bivalent dose, but fell to 24 % 6 months after the bivalent dose,” wrote Carlos del Rio, MD, associate dean of the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, and JAMA Associate Editor Preeti N. Malani, MD, MSJ.
They also found that in people aged 65 and over, immunity from vaccinations declines much more quickly.
It's unclear what demand will likely be for the newly formulated booster, which targets a virus strain referred to as XBB.1.5 that became prevalent in January. The recent formulation has been proven to extend antibodies against the virus variants which can be currently causing most infections.
In hers JAMA In an article, del Rio and Malani said the impact of COVID this season could depend heavily on what people do once they feel sick.
“Regardless of the test results, any person with symptoms of a respiratory infection should stay home and avoid attending school or work,” they advised. “Although COVID-19 no longer poses a threat to public health, waves of infections will occur for the foreseeable future. How disruptive these are depends on the behavior of the virus, but more importantly, on the behavior of people.”