2nd COVID Boosters For People Over 50? What It Means In NJ

NEW JERSEY — People 50 and older in New Jersey could have an option to get a second COVID-19 booster shot starting early next month, The New York Times reported.

The Biden administration is expected to fall short of recommending the shot, The Times reported, but rather give people 50 and older the option of a second Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna booster, The Times reported.

COVID-19 case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths are declining nationwide, but health officials are keeping an eye on the worrying omicron subvariant, BA.2, or “stealth omicron,” which has caused new cases to more than double in the United Kingdom in recent weeks, National Public Radio reported.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that BA.2 became the dominant strain in the New Jersey region mid-March. BA.2 represented 51.8 percent of surveilled cases in the region — which also includes New York, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands — for the week ending March 19.

The state's rate of COVID transmission increased to 0.98 after many weeks lower than 1. A transmission rate higher than 1 indicates that the virus's rate of spread is accelerating.

Although BA.2's presence in New Jersey has grown, the state hasn't seen a significant jump in cases or hospitalizations. The state averaged 1,013 infections per day last week, compared to 989 daily new cases the week prior, according to federal data. The Garden State had 344 patients in hospitals with confirmed or suspected COVID as of Sunday — far down from the omicron peak of 6,089 on Jan. 11, according to the New Jersey Department of Health.

Approval of a second booster is a complicated matter, though, because health experts don’t know the timing of the next COVID-19 surge, The Associated Press reported. It is more difficult to predict for a number of reasons, including the use of at-home tests, whose results aren't included in government data; and the government’s shift in data collection to focus on hospitalizations, which occur after a surge has arrived.

Citing real-world data from Israel, among a handful of countries that offer a second booster shot, Pfizer has asked the FDA to greenlight the additional booster shot for people 65 and older.

Moderna followed suit, asking the FDA to approve a broad emergency use application of an additional vaccine booster to include any adult over 18 who has gotten any authorized or approved vaccine.

Both vaccine makers cited studies that confirmed infections were two times lower and rates of severe illness were four times lower among people who received the second Pfizer booster, compared to people who received only one, according to a press release.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has scheduled an April 6 meeting of its advisory committee. The agenda for the meeting includes “considerations for use of COVID-19 vaccine booster doses and the process for COVID-19 vaccine strain selection to address current and emerging variants.” The administration doesn’t need the blessing of either the FDA or CDC to move forward, but Dr. Jesse L. Goodman, a former chief scientist at the FDA, said skipping the advisory committees would be a mistake.

“This is a complex decision that involves a pretty deep dive, and I think it would really benefit from public discussion,” Goodman, a former chief scientist at the FDA, told the Times. “I would not want to see an advisory committee skipped on this.”