Covid Boosters

About 40,000 Americans died of Covid this summer. That toll means that Covid is continuing to kill many more people each day than vehicle crashes, gun violence, the flu or many other health threats.

The situation is especially tragic because most of these Covid deaths could have been prevented — if only more Americans had received vaccine shots, including booster shots for older people and others with vulnerable health.

Consider this data from King County, Wash., which includes Seattle and publishes some of the most detailed, up-to-date Covid statistics in the country:

(The King County data is more current than the publicly available data from other places, but all of the numbers — from King County, other localities and the C.D.C. — are broadly similar.)

As you can see, Covid is killing almost nobody under 50 and is hospitalizing very few people. The death and hospitalization rates also remain low among older people who are boosted. And in all of these groups, severe Covid illness is concentrated among people who have significant underlying medical problems.

The main reason so many Americans are still dying from Covid is that vaccination and booster rates are not higher. Only about half of adults have received a booster shot, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s most recent poll. More than 20 percent have not received any vaccine shot.

I know that there is still a lot of confusion about booster shots — including about the new version, known as a bivalent booster. Today’s newsletter will offer answers to some common questions.

Do boosters matter?

Yes, boosters matter, as the charts above show. The biggest benefit is a reduction in severe illness among vulnerable people, as Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University, told me. For that reason, anybody over 50 who has not yet received a booster shot in 2022 should consider getting one as soon as possible.

(One exception: If you recently had Covid, you should wait several months before getting a booster, as my colleague Dani Blum explains.)

The most effective way to reduce Covid deaths, however, does not involve boosters. It involves persuading more unvaccinated Americans to get their first shot. Their risks are far higher than the risks facing the unboosted. Unfortunately, public health officials acknowledge that they don’t know how to increase that number very much. About four-fifths of the unvaccinated — a group that is disproportionately Republican — say they will “definitely not” get a shot, according to Kaiser.

Covid remains so deadly largely because millions of Americans have decided they would rather accept its risks than receive a vaccine shot.

Do younger people need one?

Whether to get a booster shot is a closer call for healthy people under 50, many experts believe. Rates of severe Covid are already so low among this group that booster shots don’t seem to have a huge health benefit. Of course, the downsides of the shots also seem to be small, because research has consistently shown them to be safe.

But getting a booster shot is not wholly without downsides. Some people are fearful of needles or prefer to avoid taking unnecessary medicines. Other people were sick for a day or two after getting an earlier Covid shot and would prefer not to repeat the experience. For hourly workers and single parents, a day in bed can also bring financial or logistical burdens, especially in a country without guaranteed sick leave or child care.

For these reasons, many experts stop short of telling younger adults and children that they need to be boosted. “I’m not in the camp of saying if you’re under 50, you have to do it,” Andy Slavitt, a former Covid adviser to President Biden and former head of Medicare and Medicaid, told me. “Reasonable people could come out on different sides of it.” Similarly, Dr. Paul Sax, a leader of the infectious-disease division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said, “I don’t think it’s as clear for young healthy people as for older people to get the booster.”

Still, if you’re a booster skeptic, I would encourage you to keep in mind that many of these same experts — including Sax and Slavitt — are encouraging the younger adults in their own families to get booster shots.

Why? For one thing, the data suggests that a booster reduces a person’s chances of being infected with Covid, at least for a few months, and even a moderate Covid infection can keep somebody in bed for days. It can sometimes lead to longer-term symptoms, too. Perhaps most important, a younger person could infect an older person for whom Covid might be more severe.

“You’re doing it for your family and your friends,” Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s Covid coordinator, told The Washington Post. The Biden administration has recently changed its guidance to recommend that all eligible people 12 and above receive a booster shot with one of the updated vaccines. Jha recently said that he expected a Covid shot to become an annual ritual, like a flu shot.

In some cases, it may make sense for younger, healthy people to schedule their next Covid shot to line up with their risk of exposure to the virus, including the chance that they would infect a more vulnerable person. Nuzzo — who’s under 50, without underlying health conditions — told me that she was waiting to get her next booster until shortly before the holidays. “I do appreciate the temporary added benefit against infection and want to time that protection to correspond to when I am most likely to be exposed to Covid,” she said.

I’m 49 and got my second booster — a bivalent booster, this time — a few weeks ago. I did not want to enter the colder fall weather without updated protection. But I understand why others, especially younger people, may decide to wait.

What about new boosters?

Pfizer and Moderna began offering bivalent booster shots in September, designed to combat Omicron subvariants of the Covid virus. Tests in animals have suggested that the shots will do a better job preventing infections than earlier vaccine shots.

So far, the real-world evidence is unclear. “The truth is,” Slavitt says, “we don’t know.” The situation will become clearer once the C.D.C. releases more data in coming weeks.

But most people don’t need to worry too much about these fine differences. The new boosters, like the earlier versions, are likely to be extremely effective at preventing severe illness, scientists say. For people who are more vulnerable to severe Covid, either because of age or a health condition, the best advice has not changed: Stay up-to-date on your Covid boosters.

THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

• Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, endorsed bipartisan legislation to make it harder to steal presidential elections.

• Election conspiracy theorists are challenging tens of thousands of voter registrations in battleground states.

• Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, said in 2019 that women should be charged with murder if they violated a six-week abortion ban he proposed.

Hurricane Ian

• Hurricane Ian is expected to make landfall today in western Florida. (Track the hurricane.)

• The storm knocked out Cuba’s power grid.

War in Ukraine

• Western officials say leaks in gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea may be sabotage.

• Russia dispatched forces to stop men fleeing draft orders.

Other Big Stories

• Biogen and Eisai said a drug they are developing for Alzheimer’s had slowed the rate of cognitive decline in a trial.

• A string of hacking attacks has the cryptocurrency world on edge.

• Healthcare companies are using TikTok to rebrand the morning-after pill, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Opinions

“We are asking more from polling than it is able to provide”: Amy Walter and Patrick Ruffini discuss whether political polls will be off again.

China has fared worse under Xi Jinping than the conventional wisdom acknowledges, The Atlantic’s Michael Schuman writes.

MORNING READS

Relationship advice: How long does it take to fix a marriage? Give these love researchers seven days.

Sandwich shop: A $100 million deli? Not so fast.

Revenge porn and webcams: The firing of a TV weatherman.

A Times classic: How to receive less junk mail.

Lives Lived: Just Jaeckin was a fashion photographer turned film director. French censors blocked his first movie, “Emmanuelle,” but it later became a sensation. He died at 82.

SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC

U.S.M.N.T. disappoints: The U.S. men’s soccer team faces tough questions after two disheartening tuneups in preparation for the World Cup.

The N.B.A. is already awkward: The Phoenix center Deandre Ayton says he has not spoken with coach Monty Williams since an argument last year, while the Nets coach Steve Nash claims he and Kevin Durant are on good terms after Durant tried to force his way out this summer.

Crunchtime for Aaron Judge: The superstar walked four times in the Yankees’ division-clinching win last night. He is stuck on 60 home runs — two shy of the A.L. record — with eight games left in the regular season.

ARTS AND IDEAS

A fifth-grade prodigy

Andres Valencia is 10 years old, and his artwork is already selling for six figures. He works on his Cubist-style paintings in between more typical activities for his age, like fifth-grade math homework. He lists his inspirations as Jean-Michel Basquiat, George Condo, Picasso’s “Guernica,” Click N’ Play army action figures and Pokémon.

What does Andres, who has been called an “art prodigy” and “little Picasso,” have to say? “I’m glad I can make people happy with my art and they can hang it in their homes,” he told The Times. Alex Hawgood explains how Andres became a sensation.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Make fried bits of pepperoni the foundation of a hearty pasta sauce.

Theater

“Sesame Street: The Musical” delivers a look behind the scenes of putting on a show.

What to Read

Kamila Shamsie’s new novel, “Best of Friends,” is a saga of female friendship.

Late Night

Trevor Noah’s take on Russia’s sham referendums in Ukraine.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was balcony. Here is today’s puzzle.

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: De-freeze (four letters).

And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. A hidden haiku from a Times story about Beaujolais wine: “It’s rich, ripe and well / focused, with stony, earthy / raspberry flavors.”

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about Iran. On “The Argument,” what is feminist sex?

Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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