Allegheny Health Network And UPMC Say They Will Be Ready With COVID-19 Booster Shots
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Very soon, vaccine clinics and lines will be returning to the area.
Both UPMC and Allegheny Health Network said they are making plans now and will be ready come Sept. 20, when COVID-19 booster shots will be available.
Already, booster shots are going into shoulders. At a special clinic at Allegheny General for immunocompromised people, transplant patient Esperanza Bair was happy to get hers.
"I feel much safer because I don't want to lose my kidney," Bair said.
Both Allegheny Health Network and UPMC said they'll be prepared to begin administering the vaccine to the rest of us come September.
While the vaccines remain effective against serious infection, hospitalization and death, researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that both Pfizer and Modena have proved less effective in preventing transmission of the Delta variant.
Pfizer's effectiveness against infection has dropped from 76 to 42 percent, and Moderna's effectiveness decreased from 85 to 76 percent.
"We are seeing more breakthrough infections, and I would caution everyone to take proper precautions with masking and hand hygiene," said Imran Qadeer, the chief medical officer of Allegheny Health Network.
But health experts say the booster will increase resistance to the virus.
"It's definitely going to help a lot because what they've shown is, you take people who have had two doses of an mRNA vaccine and you give a booster, you see a very large increase in antibody response," said Dr. Lee Harrison, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh. "We know it's going to protect against Delta and other variants as well."
Health experts also urge the unvaccinated to come forward.
"People who are dying and who are in the hospital are those who are not immunized," Harrison said. "So those who are still not immunized should go ahead and do so."
The health systems said there is plenty of supply, and they are now figuring out the logistics. AHN, for one, said we will see the return of the mass clinics that we saw last spring.
