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SALT LAKE CITY — A new COVID-19 vaccine is now available and specialists with University of Utah Health held a press conference Wednesday to encourage Utahns to get the vaccine ahead of a potential winter surge.
Dr. Andrew Pavia, chief of the pediatric infectious disease division at Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital, said this summer has been a "very active COVID-19 summer," and new variants have emerged.
The most prevalent variants are on the decline in Utah, but not yet throughout the U.S.
"Now with the degree of immunity that most people have from being infected several times and having kept up to date on their vaccines, many more people are having a milder illness when they get infected, but not everyone," Pavia said, adding that there will likely be a surge over the winter from a new variant, XEC. The latest strain is in Europe but has not yet made the CDC's list of top viral variants in the U.S.
He said he doesn't know when the surge might happen, or how big it might be.
"It does seem to be more transmissible to people who have had recent infection and recent vaccines," he said.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services is reporting that 65.7% of its wastewater sites show elevated levels of COVID-19, and 37.1% of the sites are increasing — although the data was most recently updated a week ago on Wednesday and an update is expected this week.
These numbers are an improvement, showing plateauing or decreasing levels over the last few weeks.
Additional data shows hospitalizations related to COVID-19 are still increasing, but emergency room visits are decreasing — hinting that the current influx is trending downward.
Josh Benton, an epidemiologist with the health department, said that typically there has been a bigger increase of COVID-19 in the winter and a smaller increase in the summer, or two peaks per year.
He encouraged people with concerns to watch wastewater levels online through the health department website, to evaluate how significant COVID-19 is in any specific area of Utah. He said the situation is "much better" than a few years ago — with better treatments and higher immunity rates — but he still encourages people to be careful and avoid spreading diseases.
Benton said people who are sick should not go out in public, whether they have COVID-19 or not, and should stay home until they're feeling better.
Kavish Choudhary, chief pharmacy officer at U. Health Hospitals and Clinics, said most local pharmacies and clinics are already stocking the new COVID-19 vaccine. He said the vaccine is "safe and effective."
He said U. Health has decided to stock the Pfizer vaccine, rather than Novavax or Moderna vaccines, because it is approved for use in the widest range of ages. The Novavax vaccine, which Pavia said is a protein vaccine rather than an mRNA vaccine, has similar side effects to the others, but is less common.
"You will get a more predictable response from a vaccine than you will from the natural virus itself. So we can manage the response you're going to get from the vaccine, and that's typically less severe than if you were to actually get the virus itself," Choudhary said.
Although it is not 100% effective in protecting against COVID-19, he said, it does protect the person who gets the vaccine and others from getting serious illnesses.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services can provide vaccines for anyone without insurance. He said the "push for getting a shot" is to protect other people whose medical history they may not know, not just the person getting the vaccine, which hasn't been available as the latest one was developed.
Choudhary said people should wait about three months after getting previous COVID-19 boosters or having a COVID-19 infection.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services dashboard shows 73.8 % of Utahns received one COVID-19 vaccine, but only 15.9% received the bivalent booster. The bivalent booster was introduced in the fall of 2022 and is no longer available.
Pavia clarified that the COVID-19 vaccine doesn't last as long as it used to because the virus is mutating more quickly. He said the COVID-19 vaccine has lost effectiveness since its first tests in 2021 because the virus that is spreading now is a "continually moving target."
Pavia said they are not seeing many severe cases of COVID-19 in children who are not dealing with an underlying illness. He still said there is an advantage in providing COVID-19 vaccines for children — to prevent missing school or other activities and prevent the risk of long COVID — although the vaccine wouldn't necessarily be needed to keep them out of the hospital due to a COVID-19 infection.
However, he said infants are not benefiting from previous exposure to COVID-19 and are still at risk of severe illness.
"The best thing we can do is make sure that pregnant women are up to date on their COVID immunity, which means staying up to date with their vaccines," he said.
People at risk for severe disease or who are over 60 could get treatment following a positive COVID-19 test. Testing may also be important for anyone who might work in a public area, like a school or hospital, or plan to be around others who are elderly or immunocompromised.
"Knowing you have COVID can allow you to protect the people around you," he said. "If it's a cold and you infect your grandmother, she's probably going to be fine. If it's COVID and you affect your frail, elderly grandmother, she may get severely ill."
Pavia said the COVID-19 vaccine has become "one of the best-studied vaccines in history" and is "quite safe" — much safer than getting COVID-19.
"No medicine is completely risk-free. But if you compare the risks of the vaccine to the risks of the virus, still, the vaccine looks a lot better," he said, adding that wearing a mask can be beneficial in crowded indoor spaces, especially for people not eligible for the vaccine.
