New COVID Booster Arrives In Illinois Soon

ILLINOIS — A new COVID-19 booster shot aimed at the omicron variant subvariant was approved by federal health officials and will soon be available at pharmacies, hospitals, and other healthcare providers, according to state health officials.

About 730,000 doses of these updated booster vaccines have been pre-ordered for Illinois and will be shipped directly to the providers, according to Mike Claffey, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Claffey told Patch in an email on Friday that the exact delivery date of the vaccines is yet to be determined. He said 150,000 doses of the vaccines will be shipped to Chicago, in addition to 580,000 doses that will be sent to providers around Illinois.

On Thursday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky endorsed the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendations for use of the updated boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech for people ages 12 years and older and from Moderna for people ages 18 years and older.

Claffey said that once the new bivalent booster is formally approved by the CDC, residents will be able to start making appointments. Residents will be able to check the availability of the booster by clicking here and searching for "bivalent booster," Claffey said Friday.

As of Thursday, nearly 74 percent of Illinois residents ages 18 and older are fully vaccinated, while 79.7 percent of that group has received at least one dose of the vaccines.

Until now, booster doses have targeted the original coronavirus strain. The new "updated boosters," as the Food and Drug Administration calls them, will tweak the existing vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to take aim at both the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants. That's the lineage that is now dominant in the United States and is predicted to circulate this fall and winter.

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health information on "variants of concern," as of Aug. 28, the BA.5 subvariant accounted for more than 85 percent of the state's cases. That's a large spike compared to early July, when the subvariant made up about 29 percent of the state's COVID-19 cases.

The new boosters are combination, or "bivalent," shots. This means the doses contain half the original vaccine and half the new formula targeting omicron.

The updated shots will be open to anyone who already had their primary vaccinations at least two months before receiving the booster dose.

The United States has purchased more than 170 million doses from the two companies. Pfizer said it could ship up to 15 million doses by the end of next week.

Officials hope the updated booster dose will help curb another fall and winter infection surge.

Last week, state health officials reported 24,297 new COVID-19 cases around Illinois over the previous week and 84 additional COVID-19-related deaths.