Recently, you may have been hearing about COVID-19 a bit too often for your liking. Cases have been on the rise nationally, and perhaps getting a booster shot has been on your mind.
Last month, the FDA approved the latest COVID vaccine. It’s intended to target a strain known as KP.2, the dominant variant during the summer. However, as of Aug. 19, the current prevalent strain is KP.3.1.1, according to the CDC.
As of Saturday, the CDC lists KP.3.1.1 in 52 percent of the U.S. cases, with KP.2 in 3 percent.
This difference is the focus of the Florida Department of Health’s most recent vaccine guidelines. In a memo sent Thursday, the agency urged people to skip the new booster because it doesn’t target the most infectious strain.
At the University of South Florida College of Public Health, epidemiologist Edwin Michael doesn’t fully agree. He said KP.2 and KP3.1.1 are closely related - close enough that the booster should still be effective.
For Michael, the question to address is the need for a booster, not its efficacy.
“I’m sitting on a fence here, you know; as an epidemiologist and a forecasting person in particular, I’m not that worried,” he said. “This is not going to flare up immediately. This will become like (the) flu.”
Furthermore, Michael explained that the current spike in COVID cases was expected.
“As people mix, colleges reopening, schools reopening, there’s greater mixing and immunity will keep waning and rising again.”
The health department’s guidelines also claim that the FDA failed to conduct sufficient human clinical trials for the strain-specific booster.
“None of these vaccines have been seriously tested, especially for long-term effects. So there is some truth to that,” Michael said. He elaborated on the fact that all human testing since the beginning of the pandemic has been accelerated and on a smaller scale than usual.
He added that getting vaccinated may not be necessary, provided someone is not immunocompromised or at high risk, such as the elderly or those with respiratory issues.
The memo from the health department marks the third straight year the state has recommended against the use of an FDA-approved mRNA COVID vaccine.
In 2023 and 2022, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo claimed insufficient human testing, lack of efficacy and vague adverse health effects as reasons to avoid the shot.
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