Vaccinations Have Kept the South Fork Healthier Amid Rising COVID Rates; New Boosters Recommended

Hospital admissions of people suffering from bad cases of COVID-19 at local hospitals have remained well below the nearly 22 percent jump in both hospital admissions and fatalities seen nationwide — a track record doctors attribute to the high rate of vaccinations in the local community, especially among vulnerable seniors.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended this week that all U.S. residents over 6 months of age get the latest COVID-19 booster, which was approved by the FDA earlier this month. Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s top doctor said that renewing our region’s high vaccination rate is the best way to protect against severe cases, which are still claiming lives.

The drug company Pfizer said it would have shots available this week, and shots are expected to be widely available by the end of the month.

Admissions at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital have bounced up and down in recent weeks, with as many as four to five people being admitted to the hospital in a day with acute cases of illness from the coronavirus.

The past week saw the highest sustained number of patients admitted for COVID-19 symptoms — as opposed to having been admitted for other reasons and then found to be positive for the coronavirus — with at least three, and as many as five, patients receiving treatment each day since September 5.

All admitted patients are tested for COVID-19, and for the past week the hospital has logged at least seven, and as many as nine, patients who tested positive.

During the height of the pandemic’s first wave in 2020, the hospital had 54 COVID-positive patients.

“Admissions are certainly higher than they were earlier in the summer — they’re bouncing around week to week,” Dr. Fredric Weinbaum, the chief medical officer and interim chief administrative officer at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, said.

“The good news is that the people who are admitted are the people who are most highly susceptible with age and underlying medical conditions, and despite that we are seeing most respond well to treatment and being released quickly.

“We are fortunate,” he added, “because we have such a high percentage of vaccinations in the local community, and just about everyone who gets sick and is vaccinated responds well to treatment.”

A new sub-variant of the omicron strain of the coronavirus, being called Pirola, is believed to be spreading around the nation, though to what extent it is becoming the dominant strain is not yet known.

Weinbaum said that there is no way to know if the new variant is spreading locally because there is no on-site way to determine what variant someone has contracted, but said the medical community believes that the vaccines many have taken already and the new boosters will offer at least some protection against the variant.

The veteran hospitalist recommended that everyone should get the new boosters — as he will — because whether or not it provides direct protection against the spike protein variations or not, it will provide other immune responses that help fend off the worst symptoms of the infections.

“If you get COVID, it is still protection against the most serious effects of infection,” Weinbaum said.

The FDA approved the new boosters this past week after a period of testing for safety and efficacy.

“The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality,” Dr. Peter Marks, head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research said in a statement from the agency on the new vaccines. “We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.”

Anecdotal accounts of a spike in new infections have abounded in the last month, but with at-home testing replacing hospital or clinic testing, tracking the rates of positives has been difficult, leaving hospitalization rates and wastewater sampling — which can reveal increasing coronavirus infections more than a week ahead of when testing would show a spike — as the best way to track growing numbers of infections.

A sampling from the Riverhead wastewater treatment plant on August 30 showed a high level of SARS-Cov-2 RNA in the plant’s intake — with as much as a 75 percent increase in likely cases over the previous sampling.

The new COVID-19 boosters and annual flu vaccines are safe to get at the same time — though a single-shot vaccine is probably another year away.

Needing boosters of the COVID-19 vaccines that evolve as the virus evolves may be a more or less permanent condition as the coronavirus remains in the population, much like the flu vaccines are tailored each year to the strains expected to dominate in the population.

“We’re getting to the point where we’re learning how to live with it,” Weinbaum said. “Maybe one day we’ll come up with a vaccine that takes care of all variants.”