SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Nearly three years into the pandemic, it's the holiday season once again, and that means once again, it's time to navigate COVID-19 precautions with your loved ones.
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Those most at risk of serious illness, hospitalization and death are still people aged 65 and older.
"The thing to understand is it spreads throughout the population – young and old – it just doesn't cause symptomatic disease in many younger people," said Dr. Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist and health demographer at UC Irvine studying infectious diseases and mortality on KCBS Radio's "Ask an Expert" on Monday with Margie Shafer.
While people were very dedicated to getting vaccinated at the beginning of the pandemic, interest has waned in recent months as a low number of people have gotten the new bivalent booster.
"The bivalent booster uptake has been disappointing, there's no doubt about it," said Noymer. "I'm not exactly sure why."
It's likely that people have become used to COVID-19, even thinking that the pandemic itself is just over at this point.
"COVID-19 is not over, we can argue about whether the pandemic phase is over," he said.
That depends on how people define pandemic and how they define endemic, but COVID-19 itself is still very much a presence, despite what people, like President Joe Biden, have said.
"I think the mixed messaging has been detrimental to the bivalent booster uptake and that’s unfortunate," he said. "This is the first vaccine we have that has omicron built into it."
The previous vaccines and boosters were based on the original strains, and hadn't yet accounted for omicron and all of its subvariants that are still very much pervasive even now.
Those who haven't gotten the new bivalent booster should go and get it as soon as they can. In the meantime, masking still helps and people should stick to N-95 masks if they can get them.
"The trends are going up," said Noymer. "These respiratory viruses tend to prosper more in the winter months."
It's not just COVID-19 people have to worry about this time around, it's also influenza and RSV.
"I'm confident we're going to see another wave of COVID-19 this winter," he said.
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