Features

Vaccine hesitation grows as Omicron booster is approved

Phoebe Miller ’23, Associate Managing Editor|October 30, 2022

Photo by Christian Emmer / CEBI At Copenhagen University.

The amount of people receiving vaccinations of the bivalent Omicron vaccine has been significantly lower than previous vaccine doses from the last few years.

The FDA recently authorized the usage of a historic COVID vaccine by Moderna and Pfizer. The booster, known as a ‘bivalent’ vaccine, is targeted specifically toward the two versions of the Omicron strain of the Coronavirus.

Although demand for previous boosters was high when the vaccine was relatively new, opinions have begun to differ on whether another booster shot is necessary, with people additionally questioning how safe it is to mix and match vaccine types.

“I think it is a personal choice based on everyone’s specific situation,” Kristen McGrath, a school nurse at Staples, said. “I do think it offers more protection for those who are more vulnerable to illness.”

Jane Tarsey, a Staples parent and volunteer at the Aspetuck Health District, schedules appointments for COVID-19 shots. During a Sept. 28 booster clinic, an order for doses of the Moderna omicron booster shot was canceled for reasons unknown, resulting in Tarsey having to cancel several appointments instead of delivering the Pfizer alternative.

“Out of the 30 people that I called, not one wanted to switch to Pfizer,” Tarsey said. “Even though Pfizer is readily available, and they say you can cross vaccinate now […], most people are sticking with Moderna now because they didn’t have a serious reaction.”

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Many people feel that the symptoms of omicron are so mild that they don’t warrant receiving a booster. They feel if they get covid they would then have natural immunity, which many feel is better and offers longer immunity than the booster.

— a school nurse at Staples, Kristen McGrath.

The new booster is unique because unlike previous COVID vaccines which targeted the virus as a whole, this shot targets specific strains of the Omicron variant. Sentiments have arisen from groups of people who feel that getting the booster vaccine is unnecessary, for many different reasons.

“Many people feel that the symptoms of omicron are so mild that they don’t warrant receiving a booster,” Mcgrath said. “[…] They feel if they get covid they would then have natural immunity, which many feel is better and offers longer immunity than the booster.”

As of Oct. 4, about 217,000 Connecticut residents had received the new vaccine, including Governor Lamont; however, many other states are lagging behind in Omicron booster vaccinations. According to Gothamist by WNYC, in New York City and New Jersey, about 7-8% of the eligible population have received the bivalent booster shot since they were authorized by the FDA in early September.

“There are going to be opinions on it, and people are going to have speculations and feelings,” Quinn Mulvey ’23, who is also a certified EMT, said. “In terms of medicine right now, there’s a lot of feelings of uncertainty, but I think we all just have to trust science and what the doctors are telling us to do.”