State to offer updated COVID boosters this week
Sep. 8—The Georgia Department of Public Health is set to offer the new bivalent COVID-19 booster this week, as shipments of the vaccine are arriving at medical centers across the state.
The new shots, termed "updated boosters" by the Food and Drug Administration, were developed to combat the most prevalent strains of the omicron variant of COVID-19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the new Pfizer booster for those 12 and older, and the new Moderna booster for those 18 and older.
The new vaccine contains the genetic codes of the original COVID-19 strain as well as the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variants, making it more protective against the virus than the old booster shots, which do not contain any genetic COVID codes, according to the Georgia DPH.
At this time, the bivalent vaccine is considered to be only a booster, and is not to be used as an initial two-dose vaccine.
The Georgia DPH recommends people wait at least two months after their initial two-round vaccine cycle, or their most recent booster, before getting the updated booster.
Georgia is currently seeing an average of 3,000 cases of COVID reported a week, with more than 89% of newly reported COVID cases being caused by the BA.5 variant of omicron, the DPH said.
To avoid contracting COVID, public health authorities recommend prevention methods such as masking, social distancing and hand washing.
The community transmission of COVID-19 in Cobb County is seeing a steady decline, staying in the medium category for a second week in a row, and cases still dropping, according to the CDC.
Cobb was averaging 132 cases per 100,000 as of Wednesday, down from a week ago, when it sat at 177 cases per 100,000.
The CDC determines a community's COVID-19 transmission level by the number of new cases, the number of hospital admissions and the number of available hospital beds.
Four people in Cobb died from the virus since last week's report, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
Here's a look at Cobb County and state COVID-19 numbers reported Wednesday, and how they compare to last Wednesday. All information comes from the Georgia Department of Public Health.
As of Monday, Marietta-based Wellstar Health System had 171 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, 64% of them unvaccinated. The system had 18 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units, 72% of them unvaccinated, and 7 COVID-19 patients on a ventilator, 71% of them unvaccinated.
A Cobb and Douglas Public Health report, including data on how the coronavirus is affecting different ZIP codes, genders and ages, is available at reports.mysidewalk.com/17554e75c1#c-452027.
For the Georgia DPH's full report, visit dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report.
National data can be found at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website at cdc.gov.
