COVID-19 Update October 13, 2022

Nearly 200,000 Arizonans have now received the bivalent COVID-19 booster shots that are designed to specifically counter the Omicron subvariants of the virus, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized that the shots be extended to children as young as five years old.

In Arizona, cases are down for the first week in over a month, with only 2,400 new cases reported to the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) COVID-19 data dashboard. The state recorded 49 new deaths related to the coronavirus.

ADHS is encouraging Arizonans to receive the bivalent booster shot, in a post this week Interim Director Don Herrington published a post in the Director’s Blog seeking to clarify some of the confusion around the booster, and to urge Arizonans to receive the shot before winter:

These are the facts: There are fewer deaths today than during the last surge, but people, particularly those who are most vulnerable, continue to be hospitalized and die from COVID-19. Everyone is vulnerable to long COVID. Protection from COVID-19 primary vaccination and boosters wanes over time. For nearly two years, COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be safe and highly effective.

And he’s correct, last week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that a new report demonstrated that more than 650,000 fewer COVID-19 hospitalizations and 300,000 fewer deaths were linked to the widespread uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine. From HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra:

This report reaffirms what we have said all along: COVID-19 vaccines save lives and prevent hospitalizations.

The study was conducted by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), and updated previous estimates with more recent data to estimate the effects of county-level vaccination rates on the outcome of those counties. In addition to the hospitalizations prevented and lives saved, the reductions in hospitalizations were associated with a savings of $16.5 billion in direct hospitalization costs, according to the report.

On Wednesday, the FDA amended the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Moderna COVID-19 bivalent vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent vaccine for use as a single booster for younger age groups. From Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) Peter Marks, MD, PhD:

Since children have gone back to school in person and people are resuming pre-pandemic behaviors and activities, there is the potential for increased risk of exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19. Vaccination remains the most effective measure to prevent the severe consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death.