Vehicle wait in line at the Capstone Clinic drive-thru COVID-19 test site at the Alaska Airlines Center parking lot on the UAA Campus on Monday, Jan. 10, 2022. (Bill Roth / ADN)
Alaska reported rising virus hospitalization numbers Friday and the highest case rate in the nation as the omicron variant continues to snarl staffing at health care facilities that have had to adapt to the ups and downs of the pandemic.
The state on Friday reported 5,897 cases of COVID-19 over the past two days and a seven-day case rate of 2,360.4 cases per 100,000 higher than any other U.S. state, according to a CDC tracker.
Meanwhile, cases and hospitalizations in many other states and countries continued to fall. Alaskas omicron surge began a few weeks after other states, which is likely why cases here have not yet begun to slow, Dr. Anne Zink, Alaskas chief medical officer, said Thursday during a call with reporters.
Alaska, Oklahoma and Washington are currently leading the pack, she said, while many of the East Coast states such as Maryland and Washington, D.C., have really started to come down significantly after these large peaks. So just different places at different times with this virus.
The latest case count included 5,699 cases among Alaska residents and 198 among nonresidents in the state.
[Coronavirus Q&A: Facts and tips for Alaskans as omicron drives up case counts]
Around the world, omicron surges have been marked by less severe disease in many cases, along with fewer hospitalizations and deaths. However, in Alaska, a combination of staff shortages and rising patient counts are continuing to strain the states health care system.
By Friday, there were 156 COVID-positive patients hospitalized up from 129 reported Wednesday and 139 reported Monday, but still well below the more than 230 hospitalizations reported during a peak last fall. About 15% of all hospitalizations in the state involved people with COVID-19.
At Providence Alaska Medical Center, the states largest hospital, there were somewhere between 80 and 100 staff members who had called out on Friday due to illness or possible exposure, according to Mikal Canfield, hospital spokesman. Just one ICU bed remained available by Friday at noon.
One hopeful sign, Canfield said, was that it appeared as though staff callouts at the hospital had somewhat plateaued by the end of week they were neither decreasing or increasing.
At Alaska Native Medical Center, our COVID inpatient numbers have gradually increased, but we do have beds available, said Fiona Brosnan, a hospital spokeswoman. She said that staffing continued to be challenging with high numbers of callouts.
Despite the surge in cases and hospitalizations, Zink said she thinks that in some ways, Alaskas pandemic response feels smoother this time around.
Unfortunately, we had a bad delta surge here in this state, and what happened was the team got really good at being able to record a lot of cases quickly. The health care sector started to meet on a regular basis, she explained. We figured out how to get additional nurses.
[At-home COVID-19 tests that freeze in transit are likely still usable just make sure theyre thawed out]
Other states hit less hard by delta are now very underwater trying to figure out how to respond during omicron, she said. So I think we just have to use a lot of caution when we look directly at state-to-state comparisons, to have a full sense of whats happening.
Public health officials continue to emphasize vaccination, as well as social distancing and masking, as the best ways to combat the omicron variant. As of Friday, just over 61% of residents over 5 and military members or veterans had completed their primary series of vaccinations. Only about a quarter of eligible residents had received booster shots.
The national average for fully vaccinated people is 63%. Alaska ranks 33rd among states for its vaccination rate.
Alaska on Friday also reported four more deaths from the virus, all involving Anchorage residents: three men in their 40s, 60s and 70s, respectively, plus a woman in her 70s.
Since March 2020, there have been 1,052 COVID-19 deaths among Alaska residents and 33 nonresident deaths.
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) Health experts say they are seeing a new tendency, an increase in false-negative COVID-19 rapid tests. This week KSN News talked with a local advanced nurse to learn more.
Luisa Taylor works for Free State Health Care and says since winter break the spike in false-negative rapid tests has increased significantly.
What happens is patients go get tested at a health clinic or a local COVID-19 testing site. Those rapid tests come back negative, but the PCR test comes back positive within a few days. The negative part about this is some people continue socializing with others during their infectious period and increase the spread of COVID-19.
We have a little bit of everything going on not just COVID so it is hard to know when to isolate but I would air on the side of caution. If you are sick enough or symptomatic enough that you are going to test yourself even with a rapid test, I would go ahead and recommend quarantining yourself for the 5 days that the CDC recommends, Taylor said.
Taylor suggests people go back and get tested after 3 days with a PCR test if results were negative but they are still having symptoms of a cold, flu, or COVID-19.
A military medical team is coming to Maryland to support health care workers treating COVID-19 patients.
A military medical team is coming to Maryland to support health care workers treating COVID-19 patients.
The 40-person team from the U.S. Navy will help at the Adventist HealthCare Alternate Care Site in Takoma Park.
This comes at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is sending some 115 doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists in five teams to five states to support civilian health care workers.
Maine is also getting the beginning support of a 15-person team, while its being expanded in Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio, a U.S. Army news release said.
The Secretary of Defense approved the activation of 1,000 military medical personnel to support the federal COVID-19 response mission last December. The first five hundred became available earlier this month and the next 500 will be available at the end of January.
They will join 400 other military medical personnel who have already been activated to help civilian hospitals.
More Coronavirus news
Looking for more information? D.C., Maryland and Virginia are each releasing more data every day. Visit their official sites here: Virginia | Maryland | D.C.
Like WTOP on Facebook and follow WTOP on Twitter and Instagram to engage in conversation about this article and others.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
2022 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
By Michael Savitt
Updated: 3 hours ago Published: 3 hours ago
FILE - This 2020 electron microscope image provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases - Rocky Mountain Laboratories shows SARS-CoV-2 virus particles which cause COVID-19, isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells cultured in a lab. (NIAID-RML via AP)
Good news, bad news. We have new therapeutics under emergency use authorization by the FDA for treating non-hospitalized people with the omicron variant of COVID-19, but they are not readily available. These medications are used in non-hospitalized patients, early in the illness, when they work best against viral replication to prevent hospitalizations or death.
As most folks know by now, there are monoclonal antibody treatments used to treat COVID-19. There are three different ones that have been widely used up until now. Bamlanivimab/etesevimab and casirivamab/imdevmab are not working against omicron. Sotrovimab is the only one that is, and it is in short supply. It is being used to treat high-risk, non-hospitalized patients with mild to moderate omicron infections. The National Institutes of Health has published risk group prioritizations based on four key elements: age, vaccination status, immune status and clinical risk factors. If you are having difficulty getting monoclonal antibody treatment, this is the reason. It is not lack of planning by the State of Alaska or Municipality of Anchorage.
Other treatment options include the antiviral medications Paxlovid and Molnupiravir, also under FDA emergency use authorization. These are also not readily available. Paxlovid has many drug-to-drug interactions that may limit its use, but when used judiciously, it has shown 88% reduction in hospitalizations or deaths. Remdesivir has been used in the hospital setting, given intravenously. NIH and Infectious Diseases Society guidelines have suggested its use for non-hospitalized patients. Molnupiravir, another oral antiviral medication, has shown a 30% reduction in hospitalization or deaths. The FDA emergency use authorization is only if other authorized treatment options are not available or clinically appropriate, due to concerns that it may cause human DNA mutations.
We expect to see more supplies of these medications become available in the next few weeks and months.
It is important to remember that vaccinations, while not 100% effective, are still important to prevent severe illness and death. Even with so many breakthough cases, unvaccinated patients and those with no prior COVID-19 infection remain the most vulnerable.
The CDC has modified its guidelines on isolation and quarantine. Non-pharmaceutical mitigation measures are still being recommended. New information on mask usage has changed as well. The most effective facial barrier is the N95 mask, followed by the KN95. Cloth masks provide very little if any protection. Surgical and medical masks are not much better. Hand-washing for 20 seconds or more, physical distancing now recommended at three feet, and adequate room ventilation with room air turnover at least two times or more per hour to prevent accumulation of aerosolized viral particles. These four measures must all be used together to be effective.
Keep in mind that omicron, though extremely contagious and spreading rapidly, is still less virulent than previous COVID-19 variants. We have more therapeutic tools at our disposal than ever before, with more being developed.
Michael B. Savitt, M.D., F.A.A.P., serves as chief medical officer for the Anchorage Health Department.
The views expressed here are the writers and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.
Young woman faces amputation after COVID-19 complications
Josh Cascio reports
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Claire Bridges, a 20-year-old, bubbly kavatender at the Grassroots Kava House in St. Pete, is sitting in a hospital room facing the unthinkable reality that she might have both legs amputated after getting sick with COVID-19.
Claire was vaccinated, but due to a congenital heart condition, she developed a complication that could change her life forever.
"She wasnt getting circulation to her legs and, because of that, there was a lot of muscle damage," said her best friend and roommate, Heather Valdes.
Claire nearly died multiple times, but somehow kept her spirits up.
"Claire is just a positive ray of light and she's a wonderful woman," Valdes said."When she woke up and they told her about it, she was very calm and very peaceful and said, I want bionic legs," she noted.
Friends and family have raised tens of thousands of dollars through online fundraisers for her medical bills and future expenses.Though her prognosis is dire, her best friend says Claire's future remains bright, even if it seems dark in the moment.
"I think she's going to make the best out of this and have many opportunities to come into her life," Valdes said. "Just take [COVID] seriously and realize it is not a joke."
https://www.gofundme.com/f/care-for-claire4
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-for-claires-medical-and-ongoing-expenses
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) When the coronavirus began spreading around the world, the remote Pacific archipelago of Kiribati closed its borders, ensuring the disease didnt reach its shores for nearly two full years.
Kiribati finally began reopening this month, allowing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to charter a plane to bring home 54 of the island nations citizens. Many of those aboard were missionaries who had left Kiribati before the border closure to spread the faith abroad for what is commonly known as the Mormon church.
Officials tested each returning passenger three times in nearby Fiji, required that they be vaccinated, and put them in quarantine with additional testing when they arrived home.
It wasnt enough.
More than half the passengers tested positive for the virus, which has now slipped out into the community and prompted the government to declare a state of disaster. An initial 36 positive cases from the flight had ballooned to 181 cases by Friday.
Kiribati and several other small Pacific nations were among the last places on the planet to have avoided any virus outbreaks, thanks to their remote locations and strict border controls. But their defenses appear no match against the highly contagious omicron variant.
Generally speaking, its inevitable. It will get to every corner of the world, said Helen Petousis-Harris, a vaccine expert at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Its a matter of buying enough time to prepare and getting as many people vaccinated as possible.
Only 33% of Kiribatis 113,000 people are fully vaccinated, while 59% have had at least one dose, according to the online scientific publication Our World in Data. And like many other Pacific nations, Kiribati offers only basic health services.
Dr. Api Talemaitoga, who chairs a network of Indigenous Pacific Island doctors in New Zealand, said Kiribati had only a couple of intensive care beds in the entire nation, and in the past relied on sending its sickest patients to Fiji or New Zealand for treatment.
He said that given the limitations of Kiribatis health system, his first reaction when he heard about the outbreak was, Oh, my lord.
Kiribati has now opened multiple quarantine sites, declared a curfew and imposed lockdowns. President Taneti Maamau said on social media that the government is using all its resources to manage the situation, and urged people to get vaccinated.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in the U.S. state of Utah, has a strong presence in many Pacific nations, including Kiribati, where its 20,000 members make it the third-largest Christian denomination. The church has about 53,000 missionaries serving full time around the world, working to convert people.
The pandemic has presented challenges for their missionary work, which is considered a rite of passage for men as young as 18 and women as young as 19.
As the pandemic ebbed and flowed, the church responded. Itrecalled about 26,000 missionaries who were serving overseasin June 2020, reassigning them to proselytize online from home before sending some back out into the field five months later.
When COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in many countries in April 2021, church officialsencouraged all missionaries to get inoculated and required it of those serving outside their home countries.
Church spokesperson Sam Penrod said the returning missionaries remained in quarantine, were cooperating with local health authorities and would be released from their service upon completion of their quarantine.
With Kiribatis borders being closed since the onset of the pandemic, many of these individuals have continued as missionaries well beyond their 18 to 24 months of anticipated service, with some serving as long as 44 months, he said.
Before this months outbreak, Kiribati had reported just two virus cases: crew members on an incoming cargo ship that ultimately wasnt permitted to dock.
But the Kiribati charter flight wasnt the first time missionaries returning home to a Pacific island nation tested positive for COVID-19.
In October, a missionary returning to Tonga from service in Africa wasreported as the countrys first and so far only positive case after flying home via New Zealand. Like those returning to Kiribati, he also was vaccinated and quarantined.
Tonga is desperately trying to prevent any outbreaks as it recovers from adevastating volcanic eruptionandtsunamiearlier this month. The nation of 105,000 has been receiving aid from around the world but has requested that crews from incoming military ships and planes drop their supplies andleave without having any contactwith those on the ground.
Theyve got enough on their hands without compounding it with the spread of COVID, said Petousis-Harris, the vaccine expert. Anything they can do to keep it out is going to be important. COVID would be just compounding that disaster.
In the long term, however, it is going to be impossible to stop the virus from entering Tonga or any other community, Petousis-Harris said.
Nearby Samoa, with a population of 205,000, is also trying to prevent its first outbreak. It imposed a lockdown through until Friday evening after 15 passengers on an incoming flight from Australia last week tested positive.
By Thursday, that number had grown to 27, including five front-line nurses who had treated the passengers. Officials said all those infected had been isolated and there was no community outbreak so far.
While the incursion of the virus into the Pacific has prompted lockdowns and other restrictions, there were signs that not all traditional aspects of island life would be lost for long.
Government has decided to allow fishing, Kiribati declared on Thursday while listing certain restrictions on times and places. Only four people will be allowed to be on a boat or part of a group fishing near shore.
The omicron surge is on its decline, as new cases are plummeting as fast as they climbed, providing hope for relief from the record-breaking wave of infection. As the country begins to relax, the question is: Whats next?
In the last two weeks, Pennsylvanias average daily number of new infections has dropped to about 14,000 from a peak of more than 28,000. The case numbers are now similar to where they were on Dec. 31 though they still remain higher than in any previous wave.
The Northeast, including New Jersey, has seen a similar drop, while the nationwide case numbers have peaked but are falling more slowly, according to data analyzed by the New York Times.
As the surge wanes, the country is likely to get a reprieve from high COVID-19 spread, particularly once the winter ends. The lull will provide an opportunity to prepare for the potential next wave, using lessons learned from the omicron surge.
Omicron is not the end, said Temple University chief medical officer Tony Reed. This virus is still out there [and] will mutate. So itll be back.
READ MORE: Declining omicron surge is a promising sign for Pa. and N.J. hospitals. But its not over yet.
Federal and state governments found themselves reacting to the omicron surge after it had begun. In some cases, including in Pennsylvania, aid is now coming to residents or hospitals but not arriving until weeks after the peak.
The lag, experts say, is because the infrastructure for it wasnt in place. Pennsylvanias acting health secretary, too, noted at a news briefing last week that it had taken some time to get funding in place for the states recent initiatives.
My hope is that the next time, we dont wait until were mid-surge, said Courtney Boen, a University of Pennsylvania professor and sociologist.
To meet the challenge, hospital officials around Pennsylvania used strategies developed throughout the pandemic, pivoting frequently and moving staff between jobs. In the next few weeks, some that have been overwhelmed hope to restart elective procedures, see patients who delayed care, and examine their responses.
In interviews, public health experts and hospital leaders talked about what hospitals and the public need before the next surge. Here are some of those steps:
Continuing the push for vaccination is key, experts said, both in the United States and globally, because new variants will be able to emerge until most of the population is vaccinated.
Data from the omicron surge show that people who had received booster shots were highly protected from severe cases and hospitalization. A lull will provide an important window for vaccination efforts, allowing people time to complete immunizations before the next wave. It takes several months to get all three shots, so people who need first, second, or third doses should start now, experts said.
READ MORE: Omicrons toughest foe is a booster shot, yet many in the Philly region are skipping theirs
County, state, and federal governments efforts to improve vaccine access and outreach and employer vaccine requirements remain key, experts said. Some also recommended state or federal vaccine mandates.
When you have unvaccinated people, you have variants, said Jennifer Kolker, a public health professor at Drexel University. [Some people] are nearer to getting vaccinated, and we need to stay with them and continue to talk to them.
As omicron infected even people who were vaccinated, wearing masks again became paramount. Now, experts said, communication is essential to help the public better understand when to wear masks and to combat confusion and fatigue.
The public should view taking precautions as good not just for me as an individual, but its good for the community that Im around every day, and its good for my region, said Jack Lynch, CEO of Main Line Health.
And states should consider imposing mask policies tied to virus transmission levels, experts suggested. That would mean a mask mandate would automatically go into effect if another surge arrived but would be dropped as soon as case spread improved.
If the state wants to be serious about protecting health-care infrastructure, Boen said, they really have to take mask mandates seriously.
During the surge, hospitals often had nowhere to send patients who needed further recovery but were ready to be moved out of acute care wards. Not being able to transfer patients to nursing homes and rehabs because of a lack of available beds or staff can cause a backlog of patients in emergency rooms.
Strengthening that system, known as post-acute care, before the next wave is critical, said several hospital officials.
Pennsylvania is aiming to address that temporarily with eight overflow sites that will take patients from hospitals. The sites will be at existing skilled nursing facilities; theyll open sometime in February and operate for about two months, a spokesperson said. Up to four more sites will open later in February.
That type of aid really would be a big help, said Donald Yealy chief medical officer at UPMC.
But hospitals needed the aid a few weeks ago, Geisinger Health chief medical officer Gerald Maloney said last week. We will still have people in the hospital three weeks from now who would benefit from that, so well take it if thats what we get. But if we could get it today, that would be even better.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health defended its timing, with a spokesperson saying the impact on hospitals will continue for weeks and asserting the aid is not specifically tied to the surge in cases caused by the omicron variant.
The department is working aggressively to support our health-care facilities, said spokesperson Mark ONeill.
Increasing access to testing, masks, and other supplies is also critical.
During the lull, a plan should be established, experts said, that would allow measures like the federal governments plan to provide free at-home tests to households to take effect more quickly. And after omicron, it may be more politically palatable, Penns Boen suggested.
Within the last two or three weeks, things that at one time felt like there was a lot of political resistance against, like providing free masks, like providing free tests to people, all of a sudden became doable, Boen said.
READ MORE: How to get free COVID-19 tests from the federal government
Having already seen an influx of patients who put off medical care earlier in the pandemic, doctors will also use the coming months to treat patients who need overdue care. That also includes hospitals resuming elective surgeries that were delayed during the surge.
If there are patients who put off general care, Reed said, its incumbent on our primary care groups to make sure theres nobody outstanding.
Solving the health-care staffing crisis that is impairing hospitals nationwide is one of the most urgent needs, short- and long-term, but possibly among the toughest to address. Hospitals are hoping to hire over the next several months, but with so many workers having left, that pipeline is going to take time to rebuild, said Yealy of UPMC.
And hospitals, which have partly weathered the surge by moving workers between jobs, could potentially reconsider how they use their workforce, Yealy said. They also may craft new contingency staffing plans or seek ways to relieve exhausted workers.
READ MORE: Pa. nurses after 22 months of COVID-19 and a new surge: It is so defeating
Were running folks ragged because we dont have the systems in place to efficiently transition people, said Matthew Ferrari, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University.
Meanwhile, Gov. Tom Wolfs administration offered what acting Secretary of Health Keara Klinepeter called a short-term fix last week, launching a strike team program allowing hospitals to request extra workers for seven- to 14-day periods.
Since its start, the pandemic has laid bare the gaps in public health investment and infrastructure. More government funding would put public health entities in a stronger position for the next crisis, experts say whether it means they have better capacity to open testing sites or more funding to cover higher supply costs and salary increases.
Theres going to have to be relief from the federal and state governments, like they did in 20 and 21, said Lynch of Main Line Health. Were losing money.
Wolf and a bipartisan group of lawmakers last week announced the passage of a law that would inject $225 million of federal COVID-19 relief funds into hospitals and behavioral health centers for recruiting and retaining staff, as well as helping nurses repay student loan debt.
Federal funding is also key for the production of treatments and supplies and continued research.
Unlike the past, where we didnt know what the future was and we didnt know how bad it could be, said Ferrari, of Penn State, now we dont know what the future could be, but we know how bad it can be. We learned the downside of inaction.
Bronson Hospital to honor healthcare workers, lives lost to COVID-19 with virtual vigil WWMT-TV
Lonnie Gee contracted COVID in June of 2021, and now, seven months later, she is still fighting with the virus everyday. The symptoms have never gone away, even though her test results are negative.
CHICO, Calif. - Tens of thousands of people across the country are still fighting with Coronavirus even after beating it, and health experts say there are probably millions of 'long haulers' around the world.
She has been suffering through COVID-19 symptoms for seven months now.
A study done by U.C. Davis shows one in four cases of COVID-19 could bring long term symptoms.
"I could say I was looking standing on the cliff and looking to hell, that's what it felt like," said Lonnie Gee.
She has been battling COVID-19, and it's long term symptoms, for seven whole months now.
"I got COVID back in June last year, it just hit me all of a sudden, then I got so sick I had to call the ambulance and then I ended up in the ER," she said.
She's one of thousands of people who have won the war with COVID-19, but are struggling to win the battles, day in and day out.
"It got worse and worse and worse," she said.
"The weakness is still there, the appetite is not all the way back yet. Battling to go back to work and to even go back out to life again. It's a scary thing because I'm scared I might catch it again," Gee said.
"They looked at 175 patients with COVID and followed them over a year," said Dr. Jeanette Brown a Comprehensive COVID-19 Clinic Doctor at the University of Utah Health.
She is working with long haulers to see if they can tell who will have long term effects from COVID-19.
"They felt like it was about 75% effective at predicting who is going to have persistent symptoms," said Brown.
But Gee feels, this isn't enough.
"They need to do more things for the long haulers, there needs to be clinic for long haulers," said Gee.
"When you think you're just getting out of it, its slaps you right back down again."
Gee says she was unvaccinated when she got sick, and is now looking into getting the shot and how her being a long hauler affects her.
Throughout the whole process of fighting the virus, she's lost 30 pounds.
UC Davis is the closest post-COVID-19 clinic in our area.
If you would like to schedule an appointment, CLICK HERE.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said this week that third shots of coronavirus vaccines significantly reduced the risk that people who are immunocompromised would be hospitalized due to COVID-19.
In a Thursday study in the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the agency said that compared to hospitalized adults who had received two mRNA vaccine doses the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and mRNA vaccines against hospitalization for patients with weak immune systems increased to 88%.
CASES OF 'STEALTH' OMICRON SUBVARIANT CONFIRMED IN NORTHEAST STATES: REPORTS
For immunocompromised people who had only had two doses, or a "primary series," the vaccines were 69% effective.
The data was gathered looking at nearly 3,000 1,385 case-patients and 1,567 non-COVID-19 controls at adults admitted to 21 hospitals across 18 states from Aug. 19 through Dec. 15 of last year.
The agency noted the analysis start date was one week after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized an additional dose for emergency use for people aged 12 and older with immunocompromising conditions 28 days following their second dose.
Vaccine effectiveness was calculated for both groups by comparing the odds of previous vaccination between COVID-19 case-patients and control patients who did not have the disease. The regression model was adjusted for admission date, region of hospital, age group, sex and self-reported race and ethnicity. Separate models were generated for immunocompetent adults and adults with immunocompromising conditions and analyses were conducted using Stata software.
Those who had COVID-19-like illness received positive test results by a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) or antigen test and control patients received negative NAAT tests.
Patients or their proxies were interviewed regarding demographic and clinical characteristics and medical record searches were conducted. Information regarding receipt of prior vaccine doses was obtained through self-report and review of source documentation.
Three vaccination groups were considered including unvaccinated patients, two-dose mRNA recipients and three-dose mRNA recipients.
Three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines were roughly 97% effective in preventing hospitalizations in those with stronger immune systems, compared with 82% of those with two doses.
PSAKI: 'FULLY VACCINATED' DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE 'UP-TO-DATE' ON VACCINATIONS
Notably, the study was conducted when the delta variant was predominant in the U.S., whereas omicron now makes up nearly 100% of new cases nationally.
Limitations to these findings include that vaccine recipients in both dose groups were similar in terms of most demographic and clinical characteristicsbut may have varied with respect to exposure risk for infection, that vaccine effectiveness was not assessed against mild illness or infection, that vaccine effectiveness with a fourth mRNA vaccine dose in immunocompromised individualswas not assessed and that most three-dose mRNA vaccine recipients were vaccinated within several weeks of enrollment and durability of protection will require future analysis.
"Early evidence suggests that a third mRNA vaccine dose elicits markedly stronger neutralizing antibody responses to the omicron variant compared with responses to two vaccine doses, and increases [vaccine effectiveness] against severe disease following infection with the omicron variant," the CDC wrote. "The effectiveness of three doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines against a range of disease severity associated with the omicron variant needs to be carefully evaluated in different populations."
In January, regulators said adults could receive boosters at least five months after their second dose.
As omicron spread, the White House has called on Americans to get their booster and the CDC said that administration of a third COVID-19 mRNA vaccine dose as part of a primary series among immunocompromised adults, or as a booster dose among immunocompetent adults, provides improved protection against COVID-19 hospitalization.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Among adults with and without immunocompromising conditions who were eligible to receive a third dose of an mRNA vaccine, third doses were found to increase protection beyond that of a two-dose vaccination series for the prevention of COVID-19 hospitalization.
According to the American Medical Association, there are about seven million people with weakened immune systems in the country.
