Maui Health vaccine clinic update on COVID-19 boosters

The Maui Health vaccine clinic will reschedule any existing booster dose appointments for individuals who are 12 years and older, until the new bivalent booster is available on Maui.

The Hawaiʻi State Department of Health has placed an initial order for the “updated boosters” and expects arrival within a few days. Maui Health’s vaccine clinic will administer the updated (bivalent) booster as soon as they are received, which could be as soon as Friday, Sept. 9, 2022.

The change comes following yesterdayʻs endorsement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the new bivalent COVID-19 boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech for people ages 12 years and older and from Moderna for people ages 18 years and older.

Effective immediately, the Maui Health vaccine clinic will offer only the original monovalent mRNA COVID-19 as a booster for children ages 5 through 11. Additionally, Maui Health will continue to administer all primary, secondary, and third doses to individuals six months of age and older.

The CDC continues to recommend Pfizer’s monovalent boosters for children ages 5 through 11 and appointments and walk-ins for individuals ages 5 through 11 are still being accepted at Maui Health’s vaccine clinic at Maui Memorial Medical Center.

The bivalent vaccines, which officials are now referring to as “updated boosters,” are reformulated to protect against both the original COVID-19 strain and the most recent omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, the latter of which is dominant across the US and Hawaiʻi with both strains accounting for 95% of all COVID-19 cases in Hawaiʻi now.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration, the bivalent vaccines contain two messenger RNA (mRNA) components of SARS-CoV-2 virus, one of the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 and the other one in common between the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages of the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.

“The research has shown the new bivalent vaccines to be highly effective against the very contagious Omicron variants we have been experiencing on Maui,” said Mike Rembis, CEO, Maui Health. “It is important that all who are eligible receive an updated booster as soon as they become available on Maui, and our vaccine clinic will continue to be an important partner in keeping our community healthy by offering these boosters.”

Per the FDA:

• Individuals 12 years of age and older are eligible for a single booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent if it has been at least two months since they have completed primary vaccination or have received the most recent booster dose with any authorized or approved monovalent COVID-19 vaccine.
• Individuals 18 years of age and older are eligible for a single booster dose of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent if it has been at least two months since they have completed primary vaccination or have received the most recent booster dose with any authorized or approved monovalent COVID-19 vaccine. 

Maui Health opened its community vaccine clinic in December 2020 and has since administered nearly 86,000 vaccines. The vaccine clinic is open weekly on Fridays, from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. 

For the most up-to-date information, visit mauihealth.org/covidvaccine.