Following the news that the FDA has approved both the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Moderna omicron-specific booster;

Emily Martyn, MPH, Pharma Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view:

“The success of the mRNA* vaccine platform cannot be understated. It has saved millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and revolutionized the future of biologics therapy. The continued development of Omicron-specific boosters alone highlights the mRNA vaccine platform’s speed and flexibility. However, the uptake of these new boosters, expected to be rolled out in fall/winter, is predicted to mirror the poor uptake patterns of other recent boosters. New ideas are urgently needed to encourage as many people as possible to accept the fall/winter boosters, or we risk reinfection and the possibility of yet more variants.

“The Omicron variant induces milder disease, with a study published by JAMA revealing that 56% of those infected were unaware that they had the Omicron variant, and 46% were asymptomatic**. This, in turn, correlates with poor booster uptake rates: if you don’t know you have the disease, you may be tempted to risk not getting a booster. Data from the CDC*** shows that only 27.3% of the population have received a booster dose within the 18-49 age group. Uptake is stronger in the older age groups, yet only 24.6% of those aged over 65 have received their second booster dose. This falls to 10.2% in those aged 50-64.

“The attitude towards COVID-19 and its severity has changed drastically in 2022. The majority of countries have not imposed public health measures or restrictions, despite the Omicron variant causing a higher number of infections compared to previous variants. While hospitalizations in the US peaked in January 2022, deaths were lower than the January and May 2021 peaks. Much of this has been attributed to the vaccine rollout, which did not prevent all Omicron infections but it did reduce hospital admissions and death. Now that people are learning to “live with COVID-19”, individuals may prefer to risk having a mild illness than getting another booster vaccine. There is an acknowledgement that the public is suffering from ‘vaccine fatigue’, unwilling to get boosters and feeling overwhelmed by COVID-19 vaccine information.”

* mRNA stands for ‘Messenger Ribonucleaic Acid’. In this context, it is referring to a a type of vaccine that uses a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA to produce an immune response

** Joung SY, Ebinger JE, Sun N, et al. Awareness of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant Infection Among Adults With Recent COVID-19 Seropositivity. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(8):e2227241. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.27241

*** https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-additional-dose-totalpop