The American Journal of Medicine Volume 134, #1 Jan 2023
Newest Guidance and Evidence for Healthcare Providers: COVID-19 & Other Vaccines
Summary:
1. The FDA & CDC approved and endorsed the use of new boosters to combat most recent omicron variants of COVID-19, BA4 & BA5. The variants are more communicable, but less lethal. However, these boosters now can avoid the specter of more lethal variants in the future.
2. Healthcare providers are the most trusted professionals by the general public, especially for the most updates and reliable information about COVID-19.
- Healthcare providers help patients understand the applicability of the vaccination to their personal life circumstances, including addressing feelings of COVID & booster burnout.
- Healthcare providers will assist patients to feel empowered to participate in their medical care and make the most rational clinical decisions.
- Healthcare providers already have and will continue to play crucial roles in reducing preventable morbidity and mortality from COVID-19.
Guidelines to Healthcare Providers
3. All individuals 12-years and older should receive a booster shot every 4-6 months.
4. Individuals 12-15 years old should receive Pfizer only. (Data from Moderna still forthcoming).
5. Individuals 16-years and older may receive Moderna or Pfizer.
6. FDA & CDC: Unvaccinated U.S. adults 50-years and older when compared with those who received at least 1 COVID-19 booster have about 14 times the death rate. And individuals who received only 1 COVID-19 booster compared to those who received at least 2 boosters have 3 times the death rate.
7. More than 800 large-scale trials have been performed in the U.S. and worldwide, and the results showed markedly favorable benefit-to-risk ratios for Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
a. In addition, post-immunization surveillance of millions of vaccine recipients have shown that Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines are as safe as or safer than most other common vaccines that are routinely administered to millions of children and adults.
b. Their benefit-to-risk ratios far exceed those of the influenza or pneumococcal vaccines, which has been widely accepted by the vast majority of adults in the U.S. who have received them.
Healthcare Providers to Patients Emphasis (Data)
8. Compared with influenza, the mortality rate from COVID-19 is 30 times higher.
9. A patient who is COVID-19 positive is likely to transmit to about 6 people compared with 1 or 2 for influenza.
10. The efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines are 95% against hospitalizations and death, which is much higher than for conventional influenza vaccines.
11. The reported side effects are no greater and are likely to be less than for most vaccinations.
12. Fears of vaccinations are understandable but do not derive from the reliable evidence about COVID-19 vaccines.
13. Healthcare providers should emphasize that many patients with “vaccine hesitancy” believe in their individual right to remain unvaccinated. In this circumstance it may be informative to discuss the issue of balancing individual rights with personal responsibilities. Ex: cigarette smokers’ right to die from lung cancer or heart attack but also have responsibility not to increase the risks to others.
14. The war on COVID-19 is being fought most successfully, valiantly, and selflessly by all healthcare providers in communities and in hospitals.
a. Dedicated and conscientious healthcare providers are doing the most good for the most patients, while placing themselves and their loved ones at increased risks.
b. Redouble our efforts to promote evidence-based clinical and public health practices that should include the vaccination of all U.S. adults and eligible children based on the most recent guidelines.
15. Of the 10 richest countries in the world, the U.S, ranks last in vaccination rate and first in both numbers and rates of deaths from COVID-19.
16. The U.S. has >1 million deaths from COVID-19 or >16% of worldwide deaths.
17. Total daily death from COVID-19 <500 as of 2/2023.
18. Vaccines to prevent common and serious infectious diseases have had a greater impact on improving human health from any other medical advance of the 20th century.
