Hawaii residents 5 and over urged to get updated COVID-19 booster

The newly updated COVID-19 boosters are now available to a broader swath of Americans, following federal approval Wednesday for those as young as 5 years old.

The Hawaii Department of Health recommends the COVID-19 bivalent boosters for everyone age 5 and older in the state. “This is great news for parents who want to protect their young children,” said DOH Director Dr. Elizabeth “Libby” Char in a news release. “Bivalent boosters were already available for everyone 12 and older. Now kids ages 5-11 can benefit from these new boosters too.”

The DOH preordered 14,000 doses of Pfizer’s bi­valent booster for kids ages 5 to 11, and expects arrival within days. The Moderna bivalent boosters are already available, to be administered to kids ages 6 to 11 as half of the adult dose. Residents can check for the availability of the boosters at vaccines.gov.

The latest approval comes as health officials are ramping up a campaign to get the bivalent boosters into the arms of Americans ahead of an expected winter surge in infections. The White House on Tuesday urged all eligible people to get the updated COVID-19 boosters by Halloween in order to secure maximum protection against the coronavirus ahead of the up­coming holidays and a “challenging” virus season.

Dr. Ashish Jha, White House COVID-19 coordinator, said the winter holiday season is when contagious respiratory viruses such as flu and COVID-19 spread more quickly.

“We have seen an increase in COVID infections, hospitalizations and deaths each of the last two winters,” he said during a news conference. “And we are carefully monitoring the rise of several subvariants that are evolving rapidly and emerging around the world, including ones that evade some of our treatments.”

The updated bivalent vaccines, he said, should provide a much higher level of protection against infection as well as transmission, and will help reduce counts of serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths. Jha called the updated boosters the “single-most important thing” people can do to protect themselves, their families and their communities.

And yet, a sense of urgency tied to getting the boosters seems to be lost on most Americans, who have been slow to get them or who may not even be aware of their availability.

Only an estimated 11.5 million Americans have received the updated booster, according to CDC’s latest count. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s latest vaccine monitor report found about half of adult respondents in a nationwide survey last month had heard little to nothing about the updated COVID-19 booster.

Hawaii’s vaccination rate is higher than the nation’s, with 77.7% of the state’s population having completed the primary series of COVID-19 vaccinations, and 45.8% having received a first booster. Among children ages 5 to 11 in Hawaii, however, only 40% have completed their primary series.

The new bivalent boosters can be administered only to people who have completed their primary series, with at least two months passing since receiving the last primary dose or booster shot.

As of Wednesday, the DOH reported 105,794 bivalent boosters have been administered since they became available over Labor Day weekend. The vaccines are free and available at pharmacies, community health centers, hospitals and pop-up events in the community.

COVID-19 cases in Hawaii, meanwhile, continued to remain at a plateau after several weeks of decline.

The state’s seven-day average of new cases Wed­nesday was at 145 per day, compared with 148 per day reported Sept. 21. Actual numbers are estimated to be higher since these figures do not include unreported home test kit results.

The state’s average positivity rate declined to 5.6%, compared with 6.3% reported the previous week, landing back to where it was Sept 28.

Hospitalizations of patients with COVID-19 declined during the week, with a seven-day average of 53 patients hospitalized per day, down from 73 the previous week, according to the Healthcare Association of Hawaii. On Wednesday, 47 patients with COVID-19 were in Hawaii hospitals, including four in intensive care.

Epidemiologists, meanwhile, are keeping an eye on immune-evasive variants such as BA.2.75.2, XBB, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 — all of which are omicron subvariants.

In the United States, BA.5 has remained the dominant variant since early July, but is being edged out proportionally by the growth of new variants of concern such as BA.4.6 and BF.7, both of which have also been confirmed in Hawaii.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data as of Saturday shows BA.5 made up about 79.2% of new COVID-19 cases nationwide, while BA.4.6 was at 13.6% and BF.7 at 4.6%. Omicron subvariant BA.2.75 made up 1.8% of new cases.

The DOH released a second wastewater report Wednesday, which compares the concentration levels of SARS-CoV-2 detected in Hawaii’s wastewater with COVID-19 case counts.

The data is provided by Biobot Analytics of Cambridge, Mass., which analyzes weekly samples collected from 15 wastewater treatment plants in Hawaii as part of the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System program. The report, which reflects data from July 1 to Oct. 5, found that the state’s counties, with the exceptions of Hawaii and Kauai counties, are observing a downward trend.

A significant increase in cases, however, has not been observed in Hawaii County. The DOH is waiting for more data to determine whether Kauai County’s wastewater trends will correlate with increased COVID-19 case counts in upcoming weeks.

Whole genome sequencing of the wastewater samples found that, consistent with the variant report, BA.5 continues to be the dominant variant in Hawaii.

Additionally, health officials reported five more deaths, all among kupuna age 60 and older, bringing the state’s coronavirus-related death toll since the start of the pandemic to 1,699.

ELIGIBILITY EXPANDS

Information on the new COVID-19 bivalent vaccines

>> Pfizer bivalent booster: Ages 5 and up, if it has been at least two months since the last primary series dose or booster dose.

>> Moderna bivalent booster: Ages 6 and up, if it has been at least two months since the last primary series dose or booster dose.

>> To schedule a specific COVID-19 booster or vaccine, visit vaccines.gov or DOH’s vaccine finder map at hawaiicovid19.com/vaccine.