By TOMMY REZAC

St. Joseph Post

The St. Joseph Health Department will start offering the latest COVID-19 bivalent booster shot this Friday.

The Health Department is offering the Pfizer brand of this vaccine to begin with, which is authorized for those ages 12 and up. You must have had your initial doses of the vaccine, and must wait at least two months since your last primary or booster dose of the shot.

St. Joseph Health Department health educator Stephanie Malita says the bivalent booster is effective against multiple strains of coronavirus.

“Moderna and Pfizer have both created a bivalent booster,” Malita explained. “They both target two strains of COVID-19. They address the original strain and two of the omicron subvariants.”

These vaccines will be administered on a walk-in basis at the St. Joseph Health Department on Monday – Friday from 8-11 a.m. and 1-4 p.m. Anyone who receives a COVID-19 vaccine will kept an extra 15 minutes for post-vaccine monitoring.

Malita says Buchanan County is still averaging 28 new cases of COVID-19 per day, though that number is hard to gauge with more people doing at-home testing.

“So the 10-day average is 28 new cases per day,” she said. “The thing we have to remember too is these are just numbers of people who have gone to their physician or have gone to a pharmacy. So many people are testing at home.”

People can choose to get either the Pfizer or Moderna bivalent booster, regardless of which primary vaccine or original booster they got previously, as long as they wait at least two months since their last dosage.