Coming down from Covid Omicron wave

It’s unusual for 3235 to be considered a “low” number, but the Covid-19 community case data for Sunday qualifies — it was the lowest daily figure since February 23.

Even with Sunday numbers generally lower than Ministry of Health data on weekdays, it offered a bit of hope. The sevenday average was also down to 4991 from 5919 the previous Sunday. But hospitalisations are still steady.

There’s further good news with Pfizer/biontech’s vaccine set to be approved to children as young as 6 months in the United States.

The Pfizer kids vaccine is a tenth of the adult dose and is given in three shots. The first two are given three weeks apart, and the third at least two months later. Experts noted that the Pfizer data on the level of effectiveness was limited at this stage.

Vaccines for the under-5s are highly likely to follow the US move in New Zealand, as the case with previous Covid vaccination steps during the pandemic. Very young children are among an estimated 16 per cent of New Zealand’s total population without Covid vaccine protection. A problem both countries will have will be convincing parents to allow their children to get doses.

In the US, Pfizer’s shot has been available for teens since May last year and to children aged 5 to 11 since October. In that time 59 per cent of children 12-17 and 29 per cent of those 5-11 have had two shots. Here the ministry’s data shows over 90 per cent of the 12-17 age group has had two shots. Take-up is lower for 5 to 11-year olds with 26 per cent doubledosed, 55 per cent one dose.

AP reports about 480 children aged under 5 in the US have died of Covid. Here, four children aged under 9 have died, 929 have been hospitalised, and five have been in ICU. There have been 144,709 confirmed cases in that group amounting to 11.4 per cent of the country’s total.

The need for protection, provided by the vaccine primary and booster shots for most people, is still there.

Northern Hemisphere countries are expecting to conduct new booster campaigns from September, focused on the most vulnerable. Regulatory bodies overseas will discuss data on Omicron-specific Covid vaccines later this month.

European countries are experiencing an increase in hospital admissions fuelled by Omicron’s BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, according to a Financial Times analysis. A World Health Organisation advisory panel has backed the idea of a shot targeted towards a variant.

Until there’s a vaccine effective against simply getting infected, Covid will continue to be problematic. — NZ Herald