LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – It’s been 637 days since the first COVID-19 vaccine was approved for emergency use in the United States. Now, Americans can receive what is being called a “booster” shot to protect against the Omicron variant.
These boosters were made available in Michigan this week.
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The FDA has issued emergency use authorizations for these “bivalent” Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. “Bivalent” means they protect against both the original and new strains of the virus. These shots contain two messenger mRNA components of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, one associated with the original strain and one found in the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants.
These newest booster vaccines were created because the efficacy of the past Pfizer and Moderna vaccines waned after two doses. Because of that, the FDA has removed authorization for the older booster vaccines.
The Pfizer vaccines are authorized for people ages 12-years-old and older and Moderna is authorized for ages 18-years-old and older. FDA gave the approval of these boosters after the CDC Director, Rochelle Walensky and a panel of vaccine experts endorsed the vaccines on September 1st. Walensky said, “[Boosters] can help restore protection against the most recently circulating COVID-19 variant.”
Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) says about the boosters, “This is great news as we go into the fall and winter when we expect cases of COVID-19 to increase.”
On Tuesday, MDHHS data showed that Michigan had 15,854 cases and 83 deaths from COVID-19 that also included totals from the previous six days with COVID-19 patients filling up 6.8% of the state’s hospital beds. Nine Michigan counties currently have “high” COVID-19 community levels including Macomb and Wayne while a majority of the
counties are listed as having “medium” community levels. To date, almost 6.8 million Michiganders ages five and older have gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
According to UChealth.org, a health care group that offers assistance through medical networks in the west, these new vaccine formulations have not even been fully studied in people yet even though the FDA and CDC says they are “safe.”
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NBC News confirms the fact that these boosters have not been tested in humans, only in mice. Eight of them. So there’s no way to really know if the boosters are “safe” or effective. And for how long. Dr. Michelle Barron, a top infectious disease expert in Colorado, says, “We don’t test the flu shot each year. We just change it slightly. The new COVID-19 booster just tweaks the formula. The technology is the same. The safety of the vaccines will be exactly the
same because it’s not a new vaccine.”
Barron also says, “COVID-19 is not going away. It’s here to stay.”
And it looks like the boosters are here to stay as well. People will have to decide if they want to get booster vaccines with the mRNA technology put into their bodies on a yearly basis.
