LITITZ, Pa. — A panel of the nation's top health experts met Wednesday to discuss the best measures for vaccines as the coronavirus continues to spread.
A big push for the meeting was the notion of new variants surfacing and the protections we currently have available beginning to wane down.
"What some people are waiting for is a vaccine in the fall which will be based perhaps on the omicron and delta waves rather than on the original Wuhan strain and the alpha wave," said Dr. Joseph Kontra of Lancaster General Health.
This past week, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized and recommended yet another COVID-19 booster dose for those who are immunocompromised and over the age of 50.
The owner and pharmacist of the Lititz Apothecary, Chet Patel, was met with a rush of people this past weekend, with more than 50 booster appointments, but the numbers are going down.
"This week, we've seen a little bit of a decrease," said Patel. "I think it's spread out more, 10-15 today so far, so we'll see a little bit of an uptick later in the day."
Patel says adapting to new vaccines to come will help increase the immunity of others.
"Delta has lower respiratory infection [but] had higher fatality rate," he said. "BA.2 and some of the other ones are more upper respiratory, so, therefore, there's going to be a little bit fewer symptoms or fatality numbers but that doesn't mean the next one [variant] won't."
While coronavirus cases counts remain steadily low in many areas of the south central Pa. region, medical providers say any new booster doses will make "sense," as there may be new waves of the virus.