Safe and happy holidays!

Dear Members,

As the holiday season quickly approaches, we wanted to share our thoughts on how to enjoy family time during the ongoing pandemic.

Numbers are unfortunately on the rise again in Europe. We are seeing similar increases occurring in the United States. It also seems that the numbers of vaccinated people who are hospitalized have started to increase (but the majority in the hospital are still the unvaccinated). This was seen a few months ago in Israel (who is slightly ahead of us in terms of vaccines) and has dropped dramatically since they introduced booster doses.

Anyone who is eligible to get a COVID-19 booster prior to the holidays should get it. This now includes everyone over the age of 18 if 6 months has passed since your 2nd mRNA vaccine or 2 months from your J and J vaccine. New evidence shows that the booster starts to take effect within 48 hours of injection (it peaks around 2 weeks afterwards) so you can still be extra protected for Thanksgiving! We now carry all 3 covid-19 vaccines in our office!

We recommend a “layered” approach to your holidays -

Obviously, the more people fully vaccinated the less are your chances of contracting COVID-19.

We recommend that you “lay low” prior to the get together to reduce your chances. Test a few days prior and then we also recommend that you do a rapid Covid test on the day of your festivity. This will help detect potentially infectious guests. Yes, a PCR is more accurate but not as feasible. The antigen test is great at picking up symptomatic people. It’s also readily available - we have it, pharmacies and walk in clinics have it and you can even do it at home (although $$ and hard to find supply at times). 

Make sure you are in a well-ventilated room (outdoors is preferable if you’re going somewhere warm!). Get an air purifier with a HEPA filter and leave a window or two open if possible.

We feel with these layers in place you should be able to have a happy, festive, and SAFE holiday season!

Which booster should I get?
We get this question a lot. If you have no choice, get what you can. The sooner you get the booster the better. It’s more protection than waiting for a specific one. If you have had J and J previously, we do recommend an mRNA vaccine over another J and J. If you’ve had Pfizer or Moderna previously, either will do. We do think that the Moderna is slightly stronger but mostly based on the dose than the formulation. There is a study going circulating which shows Moderna being MUCH better than Pfizer as a booster. However, this study was done with a full dose of Moderna and the booster currently being used is a half dose. So, we believe this brings it to being equivocal to the Pfizer booster. Side effects seem to be less overall for the boosters as they were for the original series, but some people do report worse side effects (flu like symptoms). 

We also think that it is fine to do the booster and the flu vaccine at the same time. We have not seen any increase in side effects or decrease in efficacy from doing that.

Why isn’t my child 12-17 getting a booster? Mainly there is no data to support this. Although kids' vaccine effectiveness seems to wane as well, it seems to be at a much slower rate than for adults. Also, the peak age for myocarditis is age 16 so the booster may increase the chances of that. For now, kids seem to be doing well with their initial series and there are no boosters on the horizon. 

Children 5-11 and even younger- Children as young as five are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine and we are thrilled to announce that we have had a steady stream of kids in our office getting them. It seems the original timeline for under five has been pushed back a bit. Ages 2-5 now look like they will occur sometime at the end of February/March and kids under 2 by May/June.

As always, we are just an email or phone call away for any issues, concerns, or questions.

Stay safe and we wish you all a very healthy, and joyous holiday season! 

Flatiron Family Medical

@flatironfamily