With no signs of a COVID-19 summer surge in Colorado and across the nation slowing, the Food and Drug Administration on Aug. 22 gave slightly earlier than expected approval of updated Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, and the rollout of the shots is underway.
“Very high” levels of SARS-CoV-2 infect the wastewater in nearly all Western states, with “high” or “very high” levels being registered in most states throughout the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends updated vaccines for everyone 6 months and older.
“We are seeing the highest level of positive tests since January of 2022,” said Kellie Hawkins, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of infectious disease at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Cases continue to increase in both the clinic and the hospital, although they do not seem as severe as during previous outbreaks, said Hawkins, who practices at Denver Health.
What if I or my child heading back to school gets sick? The CDC recommends that people with COVID infections stay home until symptoms have been improved and fever absent for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications. Then precautions such as masking in public are recommended for five days.
Public health experts hope to keep it that way with the approval of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccines, Hawkins said. Both vaccines target the KP.2 variant. Approval of the more time-intensive, protein-based Novavax vaccine targeting the J.N1 variant is expected in the coming weeks.
For more information, see the CDC guidance on COVID-19 vaccinations.
The top three variants currently circulating are KP.3.1.1, KP.3 and KP.2.3, respectively. All are Omicron descendants and members of the FLiRT family, named after the technical names for their mutations.
“We have been hoping for the approval of the updated COVID vaccines, so they can get rolled out for the fall vaccination campaign,” said Hawkins, who shared more details in the following Q&A. “We really want to combine this with flu vaccination and make it as easy as possible on people to get both vaccines.”