Omicron booster is step toward Covid 'normalcy'

UW Medicine's Dr. Shireesha Dhanireddy spoke to Seattle Now about how this vaccine booster is different and when you should try to schedule an appointment to get it.

"The original boosters are really just the same vaccine that we had been getting for the original series, just to give an additional dose to improve that immunity that may have waned," Dr. Dhanireddy said. "This vaccine is a little different in that it contains the original strain... but it also contains the newer variants."

Dr. Dhanireddy says that we are in a different phase of the pandemic, with fewer hospitalizations, though some people were still hospitalized during the omicron wave. Vaccinated individuals notably held up against the virus far better than unvaccinated people. Dhanireddy says that we could be heading into a situation similar to the flu, which has routine vaccines updated each year.