Zoom photo
New Haven's pandemic voice of authority, Thomas Balcezak, at Monday's briefing.
If you’re eligible to get a second Covid-19 booster shot, go get it. Especially if you’re over 50 and have an underlying medical condition like diabetes that puts you at “high risk” of contracting a severe case of Covid.
Yale New Haven Health (YNHH) Chief Clinical Officer Thomas Balcezak offered that advice during the regional hospital system’s top doctor’s latest assessment of the ongoing pandemic.
Balcezak, YNHH CEO Chris O’Connor, and YNHH top spokesperson Vincent Patrini weighed in on the latest with Covid-19 Wednesday afternoon during a virtual press conference live-streamed on Facebook and Zoom.
Asked for his take on the Federal Drug Administration’s (FDA) recent authorization of second booster shots of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines for everyone 50 and older and for people 12 and older who are immuno-compromised, Balcezak, who has remained a steady and careful and trusted voice of information during the pandemic, recommended that anyone who is eligible to get that second booster shot go out and get one.
“We know that vaccination remains your best protection, particularly against severe disease and death,” he said.
And “we know that immunity due to either infection or vaccination begins to wane after four months, and by six months has substantially waned.”
So, he said, “it’s really important I think for folks over the age of 50, particularly those who have co-morbid conditions like diabetes or underlying lung disease, to go ahead and seek and get that booster now.”
He cited debate among medical experts and the public about when exactly eligible members of the public should get a second booster.
Should people wait until a “variant-specific” booster shot potentially becomes available in the fall? Should they wait until Covid cases surge again after an expected spring and summer lull?
Balcezak responded to that debate by paraphrasing an answer given to that very same set of questions by a California infectious disease specialist named Peter Chin-Hong.
“For now, I think … if you’re over the age of 50 and you have an underlying medical condition, you should run to get a [second] booster,” Balcezak said. “If you’re over the age of 50 and qualify, but are otherwise healthy, maybe you should walk. And if you’re under the age of 50, you should wait.
“I think that’s a nice, very simplistic way of thinking about who should get boosted and who should wait.”
Click here to read more about the debate among medical experts about who should get a second booster, and when.
But what about the relatively low spread of Covid-19 in the community right now?
“The time to get vaccinated if you’re not, and the time to get boosted if you are eligible, is when the cases are low,” Balcezak said, “because when the cases are high, it’s too late and there’s widespread transmission, and you’re at risk.”
He recognized that, just as people “buy snow shovels as it’s snowing,” it’s human nature to put things off “for the day when it’s necessary rather than for the day when it’s well prepared.”
He also recognized that some people may have “vaccine fatigue” and want to know when these recommendations to get more shots against Covid-19 — and when the pandemic more broadly — will end.
“That’s a question for which there is no answer right now,” he said. “We don’t know the answer to that question. Hopefully it will end some day. The best way to get to that end is to get the majority of the population vaccinated and boosted. That’s how we’re going to get to the end.” And, he stressed, “there is no known harm and there is no known risk” to getting additional doses or boosters of the Covid-19 vaccine.
38 Patients W/ Covid Systemwide
YNHH CEO Chris O'Connor.
O’Connor said that there are now only 38 in-patients hospitalized with Covid-19 across YNHH’s regional system, which includes seven hospital campuses in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Nineteen of those Covid-positive in-patients are in New Haven, seven are in intensive care units (ICU), and three are on ventilators.
O’Connor stressed how the current number of Covid-positive patients represents “a great deal of reduction” from the 767 Covid-positive in-patients hospitalized across YNHH’s system on Jan. 11 at the height of the Omicron wave.
Nevertheless, throughout the press conference, Balcezak stressed that Covid-19 is not over. “We are by no means out of the pandemic, and we remain ready to take care of future surges” of cases, likely to come in the fall and winter, he said. “We’re hoping that we have seen the last of the surges for a while.”
Dr B needs to revamp his organization's website, which currently says nothing about fourth shots and doesn't seem to allow for scheduling one.