The Department of Health (DOH) recommends COVID-19 bivalent booster vaccines for individuals age five and older. Bivalent boosters are the first COVID-19 vaccinations designed specifically to protect against original COVID-19 and the most common forms of the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sub-variants.

The BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants account for almost all of the COVID-19 cases in Hawai‘i.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued Emergency Use Authorization for the bivalent booster manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech for children ages 5-11 and the bivalent booster manufactured by Moderna for children and teens ages 6-17. Soon thereafter, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and DOH recommended bivalent boosters for everyone age five and older.

The new bivalent vaccines are to be administered as a single booster dose to those who previously completed a primary series of COVID-19 vaccines and those who have had one or two booster doses. Bivalent boosters can only be administered if it has been at least two months since a person’s most recent vaccination.

People can select a booster by either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna regardless of the vaccine brand they previously received.

For more information regarding providers and services visit the vaccine finder map at https://hawaiicovid19.com/vaccine/.