The fall arrival of new COVID-19 boosters will more likely resemble typical flu shot clinics more than the targeted rollouts of other shots, with attitudes toward the virus continuing to relax.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention will initially receive a combined 21,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines geared specifically to combat the omicron variant if a federal drug advisory panel approves its emergency use. That could be as early as September after Pfizer and Moderna asked for federal approval of boosters this week.
The boosters will provide some relief from the contagious variant, which, despite its reputation as leading to more mild cases, continues to drive fluctuating hospitalizations and is reinfecting people more frequently, putting more people at risk for acute illness or long-COVID.
Their arrival will be much quieter after restrictions and recommendations wound down. Some of Maine’s biggest hospitals only plan to hold special clinics if demand ramps up. Meanwhile, a pharmacy chain is already getting requests to hold targeted clinics in the fall.
All signs point to the boosters being treated more like an annual immunization akin to the flu, while experts still stress them as the best way to protect against the virus.
“It has sort of lost its specialness at this point,” said Robert Horsburgh, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University. “It’s just something we’re going to have to get used to.”
More than 93 million COVID-19 cases have been reported since the pandemic began over two years ago, according to a New York Times tracker, but the true number is likely much higher due at-home tests and asymptomatic cases. While older people and those with underlying conditions are more at risk of getting severely ill, there are rare cases of long-COVID in children.
Horsburgh said everyone should get the vaccine to lower their risk and anticipated cases would likely increase once the school year begins again.
“Anything people can do to avoid these things, they should do,” he said.
Maine will update its marketing to emphasize the importance of boosters, said Robert Long, a spokesperson for the Maine CDC. But he did not say Maine would do anything new in particular with the arrival of boosters, noting existing infrastructure is flexible and could be adapted if need be.
Two Maine hospitals had similar approaches. Spokespeople for Brewer-based Northern Light Health in Brewer and MaineGeneral Health in Augusta said the systems have integrated boosters into their primary care practices and would only establish clinics if demand was high.
That was a possibility being considered in southern Maine, said Megan Arsenault, deputy director of the York County Emergency Management Agency. Demand for boosters last year caused a spike in activity at the state’s last large COVID vaccine clinic there and she expected it would again. It currently operates three times a week.
And Joe Bruno, the owner of Community Pharmacies, a nine-store chain based in Augusta, said he is already getting booked by group homes and banks to do joint flu and booster clinics in the fall. He anticipated a few dedicated clinics for boosters within the pharmacies would be scheduled, saying that trying to integrate them into a pharmacists’ schedules can be hard.
“My advice is that if you’ve been waiting to get a booster, you should wait for the variant-specific one,” he said.