It’s time to start requiring booster shots

Nothing will save more lives and get the country back to normal more quickly than a massive effort to quickly boost tens of millions more eligible people with a third shot. That response would be a significant effort at turning the tide against the virus and shaping a new course for 2022.

To many Americans, entering 2022 feels too much like entering 2021. We are coming to grips with what is sure to be an onslaught of cases from omicron and a holiday season marred with outbreaks, full hospitals and canceled plans.

But 2022 is a far cry from 2021, as we now have something we didn’t have then: an arsenal to fight back. To fully engage that arsenal, private actors should require people who use their services to receive a booster shot.

Three doses of an MRNA coronavirus vaccine (either the Moderna or Pfizer-biontech shots) are proving highly effective at keeping the vast majority of people healthy and out of the hospital. The third shot increases the antibody response by approximately 20fold or more, enough to beat back even the many troubling mutations of the omicron variant. Yet to date, less than 30 percent of Americans have received that third shot.

Businesses, sports leagues, colleges, hospitals and schools should require anyone who risks exposing others to have that third shot. Protocols such as this that keep up with the latest evolving science should be routine and without much controversy at this point in the pandemic.

Already we can see how easily and rapidly omicron spreads. Quick, informal gatherings can turn into major superspreader events. And about a quarter of the public isn’t yet eligible for a booster because they are not old enough to receive them, meaning they must rely on others for protection. Same goes for the millions of people who have compromised immune systems that make the vaccines far less effective.

Vaccine requirements aren’t in place solely to help prevent vaccinated people from getting sick; they also help others avoid infection.

Even with the vast majority of cases not requiring hospitalizations, the sheer number of hospitalizations resulting from omicron — on top of many hospitals that are full because of the delta variant — could simply be too much for health-care systems to handle. Standards of care will diminish; cases will be triaged; doctors and nurses will go without sleep, space and protective equipment and will run thin; and people with other dire needs will put off care. Omicron is deadly. No matter if it ends up less deadly than delta, at the level of spread we will see, the only question is whom it will kill, not if.

If you are in a position to decide whether to create a vaccination requirement, you do not need to wait for definitive data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A decade from now, you won’t look back on the temporary disruption the same way you would if there was a superspreader event that was in your control to stop.

While people are understandably reluctant to say so, the winter omicron wave is likely to be short-lived. The case count is doubling every two to three days. At this clip, 100,000 cases on Christmas would become 400,000 by New Year’s Eve. There’s only so long a wave like that can grow before it infects everyone it can and begins to fall. Some scientists estimate omicron will peak in the United States before January is out, and with any luck, cases could be declining again by the Super Bowl and the NBA Allstar Game, cases could be declining again. Soon after that, there is positive news to look forward to. New oral therapies will be available that can make COVID-19 much less deadly, and more targeted vaccines will be available if needed.

To get there, much hinges on our ability to help our health system get through this without fracturing. And we have a rich array of tools to do so: Even before new therapies hit the market, quick at-home tests, better ventilation and high-quality masks should all be part of that equation.

But nothing will save more lives and get the country back to normal more quickly than a massive effort to quickly boost tens of millions more eligible people with a third shot. That response would be a significant effort at turning the tide against the virus and shaping a new course for 2022.