Catrina Nesper of Kailua did not hesitate to get the newly recommended bivalent COVID-19 booster, which targets the latest omicron subvariants.
She scheduled an appointment at her local Safeway store last week, and went in Wednesday to get the COVID-19 booster shot in one arm and a flu shot in the other in anticipation of an upcoming trip to California to visit her grandsons. Nesper, who is in the age bracket of 50 or older, had received her second booster back in April, and she wanted to get the updated one as soon as she could.
Michele Shields, 65, of Kaneohe hopped online to schedule an appointment with CVS and drove to Pearl City over the weekend to get the booster, along with her husband. She said other than a sore arm, she has not experienced any side effects.
Several pharmacies have already started taking appointments for the boosters, while some community health centers are preparing to do so in the coming days. Kaiser Permanente Hawaii will begin offering the bivalent COVID-19 boosters at its facilities Friday.
The Hawaii Department of Health preordered its full allotment of 37,800 doses, according to spokesperson Brooks Baehr.
A total of 24,000 doses have been shipped, with some 9,600 doses that were expected to be delivered Wednesday and today. Deliveries go directly to providers, who determine when they will schedule availability of booster shots.
Separately, pharmacies, which order independently of the DOH, are getting more than 30,000 bivalent doses.
CVS, which operates Longs Drugs in Hawaii, Walgreens and Safeway are among stores with pharmacies taking appointments online at various locations in Hawaii. A recent online search at cvs.com found appointments available within a day or two in Liliha, Waipahu and Wahiawa, among other locations.
Hawaii’s average COVID- 19 case counts, meanwhile, has continued to decline at the start of September.
The state’s seven-day average of new cases Wednesday fell to 190, down from 245 on Aug. 31, marking the first time the weekly average dropped below 200 since mid-April. The state’s average positivity rate continued its descent to 6.4% compared with 7.3% reported the previous week. It’s a considerable plummet from early June, when the state’s average positivity rate peaked at 19.2%.
“I think we’re in a great place right now, and it’s getting better,” said Gov. David Ige during a Honolulu Star-Advertiser “Spotlight Hawaii” webcast conversation Wednesday. Ige said he recommended that all who are eligible should get the bivalent boosters, which were authorized last week by the Food and Drug Administration, and subsequently recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC endorsed Pfizer’s bivalent booster for people ages 12 and older and Moderna’s bivalent booster for adults ages 18 and older.
The new bivalent vaccines are formulated to provide protection against both the original COVID-19 strain and the most recent omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, the latter of which is dominant across the U.S. and Hawaii.
People who have completed a primary series of COVID-19 vaccines, and those who have had one or two booster doses — with the most recent dose administered at least two months ago — are advised to get a single booster dose.
Additionally, the new bivalent vaccines replace previously authorized monovalent mRNA boosters for those ages 12 and older.
The CDC continues to recommend Pfizer’s monovalent boosters for children ages 5 to 11 and for those not yet vaccinated with their primary series.
In a briefing earlier this week, the White House COVID-19 Response Team framed COVID boosters as something to expect annually, similar to flu shots.
COVID-19 adviser Dr. Ashish Jha said it was reasonable to expect the new vaccines, which now match the dominant strain, will provide better protection against infection. This, he said, marks significant progress in managing the virus moving forward.
“Barring any new variant curveballs — we’ve seen curveballs — for a large majority of Americans, we are moving to a point where a single, annual COVID shot should provide a high degree of protection against serious illness all year,” he said. “That’s an important milestone.”
Officials hope the bivalent vaccines will stave off another surge heading into fall and winter, when colder weather on the U.S. mainland pushes more people indoors, where respiratory viruses like COVID-19 tend to spread more easily.
The annual flu vaccination campaign also kicks in during the fall, and officials said people may get the COVID-19 and flu shots at the same time.
The DOH on Wednesday reported 1,215 new COVID- 19 infections over the past week — a lower count than previous weeks, bringing the total number of cases since the start of the pandemic to 340,729. By island, there were 805 new infections reported on Oahu, 134 on Hawaii island, 151 on Maui, 86 on Kauai, and seven on Molokai. An additional 32 infections were reported for out-of-state Hawaii residents.
The DOH also reported 11 more deaths, bringing the state’s coronavirus-related death toll to 1,655.
Vaccine and booster uptake has slowed in recent months, with about 45% of the state’s population having gotten a booster against COVID-19.
Visit hawaiicovid19.com/vaccine to find vaccine appointments.
