Pfizer exec: COVID booster shots likely to be needed

As new, more highly transmissible mutations of COVID-19 continue to circulate in Connecticut and beyond, a top Pfizer executive said Thursday that booster shots are key to fighting the virus going forward.

“With the variants we have seen, that are really quite prevalent in the world now, the need to boost is in our reality,” said Angela Hwang who joined Gov. Ned Lamont at his virtual coronavirus briefing Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Pfizer and BioNTech reported updated trial data showing their vaccine is around 91% effective at preventing COVID-19, with early signs suggesting it works against a concerning variant that first emerged in South Africa.

The two companies are currently studying booster shoots, and Hwang said researchers will likely know by summer when they would be needed and how that process would work.

The first option is to “boost with the same vaccine we have today, keep a very high level of immunogenicity in our bodies and that is the mechanism by which we could manage the new variants,” Hwang said.

The other option is to make a new vaccine, which Pfizer estimates it can do in about 116 days, subject to regulatory approval, Hwang said.

“What we know today is that we have a highly effective vaccine that is safe, that the duration of protection as we know it is to six months,” she said. “This next study will help us to understand what are the time intervals by which you need to boost – at six months or at 12 months?”

Public health experts in Connecticut estimate that about 30 to 40 percent of new cases are connected to the B.1.1.7 variant of COVID-19, which originated in the U.K. The Yale School of Public Health is doing much of the sequencing and analysis of variants in Connecticut.

So far, Connecticut has identified more than 700 cases involving variants of COVID-19, including nearly 600 which involve “variants of concern,” as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Protection, and 105 cases involving “variants of interest.”

Gov. Lamont reported Thursday that Connecticut remains in the top 10 states for new cases per capita, but continues to rank low, #35 in the country, when it comes to deaths per capita. Connecticut’s hospitalizations declined by 21 in the last 24 hours, while coronavirus-related deaths increased by 14, averaging five a day over the last week or two, Lamont said. The state’s daily positivy rate is 4.4%.

“It’s a little unnerving to see the positivity going up Metro North again, a little similar to where we were exactly a year ago,” the governor said.

Lamont wasn’t clear on exactly what’s causing the Northeast to once again emerge as a hot spot, but pointed to varying restrictions and vaccine rollouts across states. Connecticut, he said, is still doing much more testing than other states. Public health experts have said new variants, particualrly the U.K. variant, are likely a contributor.

Connecticut continues hospitalizations down 21, fatalties up 14 but average five a day over the last week or two, Lamont said.