Q&A: How Do We Live with COVID Now?As COVID restrictions become more relaxed, and more people go into offices and states drop mask mandates, questions remain about how careful people need to be, particularly those who are immunocompromised or have unvaccinated children. Here’s the latest news on common concerns:
Q: Who should get a second booster?
A: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized a second booster dose of the COVID vaccine for all adults 50 and older. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the additional booster is especially important for people 65 and over and those 50 and older with underlying medical conditions. They also recommend that all adults who received a primary and booster dose of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccine get a second booster of an mRNA vaccine.
Q: What is the plan for a future with COVID?
A: A new 136-page report written by dozens of experts provides a comprehensive roadmap to the next normal both to address the pandemic and protect against future biosecurity threats. The group identified 12 key areas of focus, including long COVID, equity, and vaccines. The report also addressed concerns about how the end of the pandemic will disrupt the U.S. health care system when policies introduced during the public health emergency come to an end.
Q: What are the current COVID-19 variants?
A: The Omicron subvariant BA.2 is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S. and while experts are seeing a rise in cases, they are hopeful that it won’t cause another surge. There are also reports of infections caused by new subvariants such as ‘Deltacron’ and Omicron XE, which is a hybrid of BA.1 and BA.2 and may be more contagious.
Q: Do vaccines and treatments work on the variants?
A: A recent study showed that two doses of mRNA vaccine provide similar protections against BA.2 as BA.1, but the Omicron variants have a higher likelihood of breakthrough infections compared to the Delta variant. There are plans to design variant-specific and pan-variant vaccines to improve protection in the future. In other news, health officials have limited an antibody treatment that is ineffective against the BA.2 variant.
Q: What about COVID-19 for children?
A: During the recent Omicron wave more than 30,000 children were hospitalized, 20% of which needed care in intensive care units. While the majority of these children were unvaccinated, there are also reports of the vaccines’ decreased protection against Omicron in children and adolescents. Over a month ago, the FDA delayed the process for authorizing the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children under five but Moderna released data that its vaccine is safe and effective for children ages six months to six years and plans to request emergency use authorization.
Q: What should people who got Johnson & Johnson know?
A: The Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine was initially billed as “one and done” and despite concerns about its effectiveness, it has largely been left out of the public guidance on COVID. New data from the CDC suggests that the nearly 17 million Americans who received the J&J vaccine should get at least one booster of one of the mRNA vaccines. While research points to the effectiveness of the J&J shot, the COVID-19 death rate among J&J recipients was more than double that of other vaccinated Americans during the Omicron wave. | 
Comments