CDC: Boosters cut hospitalization risk for COVID in half

Adults who received the updated COVID-19 booster shots are better protected against severe disease than those who haven’t, cutting their risk of having to visit an emergency room or being hospitalized with the coronavirus by 50 percent or more, according to new federal data.

Two reports released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention give the first detailed look at how well the updated boosters from Pfizer and Moderna protect against serious illness. But uptake of the “bivalent” boosters rolled out in September has been low among vaccine-weary Americans, with only about 14 percent of those eligible — ages 5 and up — having received an updated shot.

Administration officials are renewing a push for more Americans to get the latest shots in anticipation of another COVID-19 winter surge coming on top of an early and aggressive influenza season and high levels of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). The triple whammy of viruses is straining hospitals, keeping families sick for weeks, and forcing parents to miss work in record numbers.

Jeanne Marrazzo, director of infectious diseases at University of Alabama in Birmingham, said the new CDC data on booster effectiveness is encouraging.

“Pretty amazing that both studies could show a significant (and in older adults, quite substantial!) effect so quickly, given that the vaccine wasn’t even available till Sept. 1,” she wrote in an email.

Marrazzo’s takeaway: “In this winter of respiratory viruses run amok, the best thing people can do (especially older adults) is to get the bivalent booster and influenza vaccine (data indicate it’s pretty well matched with circulating strains this year)!”

CDC data last month showed that Americans who had received the updated boosters had better protection against symptomatic COVID infection than those who had not. The latest reports provided more granular detail and show the boosters offer “an even bigger benefit,” especially for adults who received their last vaccine shot almost a year ago, said Ruth LinkGelles, leader of the CDC’s coronavirus vaccine effectiveness team.

For people 65 and older who have received the updated booster, “there is significant added protection against severe disease and hospitalization,” Link-Gelles said. “You’re really getting in the sort of range of 70 to 80 percent extra protection on top of your monovalent or your older vaccine doses.”

But about 150 million Americans who are eligible for an updated booster have yet to receive one. That includes more than 28 million who are 65 years and older, the population at highest risk for severe COVID-19, who have not had a shot in more than 11 months, she said.

The vast majority of Americans have not had a COVID-19 dose this year, putting them at risk of hospitalization due to waning protection of their previous vaccine doses, LinkGelles said. Heading into the holiday season, when people will be traveling and attending indoor holiday parties, their risk of infection will rise because of exposure to new people.

“There is really no time like the present to get vaccinated,” Link-Gelles said.

Officials say the new shots will help broaden immunity because their formulation includes a recipe against highly contagious versions of the virus — BA.4 and BA.5. When the shots were rolled out in September, BA.5 accounted for nearly 90 percent of cases in the United States.