United States: Thanksgiving commuters might be carrying gifts for their friends and family or a recipe they wish to cook. However, one must not want to bring with themselves a respiratory virus.
More about the news
According to Kristen Mertz, Allegheny County Health Department’s medical epidemiologist at the Bureau of Data, Reporting and Disease Control, “For the past few years, COVID-19 has spiked in the summer, with a bigger spike starting in November or December,” post-gazette.com reported.
“This year in Allegheny County, we had a long summer spike with hundreds of hospitalizations and dozens of deaths. Cases have not yet started to rise again, but we are expecting an increase as people get together for the holidays and new variants arise,” Mertz added.
While COVID infection rates are comparatively rare in Pennsylvania overall, virus concentrations in wastewater are high, indicated by CDC numbers of 28 reporting sites.
Low vaccination rates
Vaccination coverage for COVID is also the lowest rate. As of November 9, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly reported that 18 percent of vaccinated adults took an updated dose while 35 percent had the flu shot.
Currently, in Pennsylvania, only 2 percent of the children, aged from six months to 17 years, and 9 percent of the adults have gotten the updated shot until October, as per the data of the CDC COVIDVaxView Dashboard.
As Michael Stevens, chief of infectious diseases at West Virginia University School of Medicine, reported, “Now is the time to get vaccinated,” and, “The primary value is it makes infection less severe. For folks with ongoing medical problems, this is going to be very helpful.”
The recommendation from Dr. Stevens is consistent with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the World Health Organization, which has recommended that everybody above six months should be administered COVID and flu shots annually.
Dr. Stevens’ recommendation mirrors that of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the World Health Organization, both of which encourage everyone over six months of age to receive COVID and flu shots yearly.
What more are the experts stating?
It is also suggested by these groups that the RSV vaccine be administered to old people aged 65 and above and those between sixty and seventy and above with additional predisposing conditions to severe respiratory disease.
November 2024 is quite a different time than, let’s say, two or three years ago. Viruses have evolved with the COVID virus following the same pattern; people have gotten raised immunity through vaccinations.
However, SARS-CoV-2 is still mutating rapidly. The present most circulating variant, KP.3.1.1, is therefore more contagious and immune-reactive than other omicron predecessors.
Furthermore, recent data suggest that the new vaccine, developed with the current strains in mind for boosting, can cut hospitalizations by sixty percent, regardless of past COVID vaccinations, according to James Mansi, the vice president of medical affairs at Moderna, which has one of the two choices for the mRNA-based injections available in the market.
As Mr. Mansi noted, “That’s not in an isolated pocket of the population that has never been vaccinated,” post-gazette.com reported.
“That’s in the general population, who have been highly exposed, and over 70% who had received their last season’s COVID vaccine. So we see this incremental benefit of clinical protection against a severe outcome, even in a highly exposed, highly vaccinated population,” he added.