Who should get the new COVID-19 vaccine?
Aug 28, 2024, 11:00 AM
A Salt Lake County Health Department employee prepares Pfizer COVID-19 booster shots at a free vaccine clinic at the Sanderson Community Center in Taylorsville on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022. (Kristin Murphy/Deseret News)
(Kristin Murphy/Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY—It’s called KP.2 —the new variant of COVID-19 spreading in our community this summer.
“We’ve had a real surge over the summer, particularly with people who travel,” said Dr. Tamara Sheffield, medical director of Immunization Programs for Intermountain Health. “About 10% of those being tested have the disease.”
Related: Back-to-school germs increasing cases of COVID-19
There is a new formulation of the COVID-19 vaccine designed to protect against KP.2.
“The new vaccines are protecting against the strain that is infecting everybody right now,” Sheffield explained. “The KP.2 substrain is off the Omicron lineage. Viruses have a family tree. The children of the viruses who infected us before are infecting us now.”
The new COVID-19 vaccine
The Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax vaccines all have a new formulation for 2024-25. The FDA has already approved both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Dr. Sheffield said we should start to see the vaccine at our local health departments and clinics in the next two to three weeks.
“It’s starting to look a little bit like influenza where we have new iterations of the vaccine that are closely matched to what happens to be circulating in our environment,” she said.
Related: U of U long COVID clinic shares findings after three years of seeing patients
Doctors recommend anyone 6 months or older get the new vaccine, whether or not you were vaccinated in years past.
“Some people who have already received the vaccine in the past think that we don’t need it now,” Sheffield said. “With the last iteration, we only saw one in five adults get it. And yet, this is causing serious disease. It still puts people at risk. We still have long COVID. I would encourage anyone 6 months and older to go get this vaccine.”
The time to get the COVID-19 vaccine is now.
“September/October is better for the flu vaccine,” Sheffield explained, “but don’t wait to get the COVID vaccine. The virus is hitting right now. The flu vaccine is for flu that will hit in November, December and January.”
Symptoms
We all know the symptoms that come with COVID-19 —runny nose, fatigue, fever, sore throat, body aches.
“The symptoms are the same as we’ve known,” Sheffield elaborated. “If you’ve been vaccinated before, your body tends to fight it off better, but this is still a serious disease. We are still having high numbers of hospitalizations with it. We have hundreds of deaths every week with it. Just like influenza, this is a serious disease, especially for those over 65 and our youngest children.”
Amanda Dickson is the co-host of Utah’s Morning News and A Woman’s View on KSL NewsRadio. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
Related: The long arm of long COVID in Utah
