Santa Barbara County Public Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg said the updated COVID-19 vaccines could be available locally as soon as Friday.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee voted Tuesday to recommend the updated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna for everyone ages 6 months and older, following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the new booster vaccine on Monday.
Ansorg said people are recommended to get the new vaccine or booster, especially small children and the elderly.
According to the FDA, this updated vaccine is formulated to “more closely target currently circulating variants” and provide better protection against hospitalization and death from COVID-19.
While individuals can still develop COVID-19 infections after being vaccinated, CDC data showed that people who received the COVID-19 vaccination were much less likely to get severely sick or die of COVID-19 than people who did not get vaccinated.
“Vaccination remains the best protection against COVID-19-related hospitalization and death,” the CDC said in a news release. “Vaccination also reduces your chance of suffering the effects of Long COVID, which can develop during or following acute infection and last for an extended duration.”
The CDC currently considers people to be “up to date” on vaccination if they have received the primary series of the vaccine and at least one dose of last year’s bivalent booster vaccine.
The state’s COVID-19 vaccination data shows that about 20.1% of Santa Barbara County’s population is up-to-date on the vaccine, while 70.1% of the county’s population has received the primary series of the vaccine.
The updated vaccines are recommended for all ages 6 months and older, with different dose recommendations for different age groups.
Additionally, the FDA said that since it has approved the updated COVID-19 vaccine for individuals 12 years old and older, and granted the updated vaccine emergency use authorization for individuals ages 6 months through 11 years old, the bivalent Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 booster vaccines are no longer authorized for use in the United States.
Public health agencies also emphasize that this fall and winter virus season will be the first with vaccines available for COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, and the flu — the three viruses responsible for most hospitalizations.
Ansorg said that there currently is an uptick in COVID-19 cases in Santa Barbara County, but it is nowhere near the uptick that was seen this time last year.
The Public Health Department is expecting to see the first cases of RSV this year in October, followed by the flu season that is anticipated to start in October or November.
Because past years showed later spikes in the flu season, Ansorg recommended getting the flu shot in October to stay protected through the season.
He added that it is safe to get the flu shot with the new COVID-19 booster, but he said that now — or as soon as it’s available — would be a good time to get the updated vaccine.
“We anticipate this vaccine to work really well,” Ansorg said.
Because the COVID-19 vaccine is now commercially available, Ansorg said there won’t be as many free vaccination clinics through the Public Health Department.
The county may provide vaccinations for congregate settings where the populations are more at-risk and may have a harder time going out to get the vaccine, he said.