The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky announced on Sept. 1 that she had endorsed an advisory committee’s recommendation for new coronavirus booster shots. CNN reported that the shots could be ready to ship as of Sept. 2.
The updated boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are engineered to include components of the spike protein found in Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants. That is expected to increase protection against the virus. Benefits of the original booster are likely to have waned.
Pfizer’s booster has been recommended for people aged 12 and up, while Moderna’s is recommended for people aged 18 and up. The CDC expects to sign off on boosters for younger patients soon, according to an announcement on its website.
“The updated COVID-19 boosters are formulated to better protect against the most recently circulating COVID-19 variant,” Walensky said in a statement.
“If you are eligible, there is no bad time to get your COVID-19 booster and I strongly encourage you to receive it.”
According to Public Health – Seattle & King County, 82.5 percent of King County residents have completed their first series of COVID-19 shots. Approximately 52.5 percent of residents have received one booster. According to the CDC, only 34.8 percent of Americans aged 5 years and older have received their first booster.
The announcement of the new booster shot comes as the federal government begins to pull back on other aspects of its COVID-19 response, including free home tests. That program ended on Sept. 2. People with health insurance will be able to get their COVID tests covered, however.
Washington state is still offering free, mailed COVID tests. Access yours after the first of each month at sayyescovidhometest.org.
Proponents of an initiative to establish a framework for social housing in Seattle secured enough signatures for the measure to appear on the February 2023 special election ballot.
If approved, Initiative 135 would create a social housing developer, which would leverage public and private money to build mixed-income housing that would be affordable in perpetuity. It would be open to a wider range of incomes than traditional affordable housing models and would involve renters in running the buildings in which they live.
The House Our Neighbors! campaign — a project of the Real Change Advocacy Department — initially submitted signatures in June, but just over 5,000 could not be verified by King County Elections. That gave the campaign 20 days to get above the threshold, which it did, but not in time to get on the November 2022 ballot.
Ashley Archibald is the editor of Real Change News.
Read more of the Sept. 7-13, 2022 issue.
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