Millions of Americans could be eligible for Covid vaccine boosters

By late September, the Covid-19 vaccine will allow more than 5 million Americans to fight delta variants of the virus by giving additional doses eight months after the first vaccination. May qualify for booster shots.

However, the plan depends on some important steps that will take place in the coming weeks. Most importantly, the Food and Drug Administration will need to determine that the third shot is safe and effective for the two first-deployed and most-used vaccines, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. ..

Pfizer goes even further by submitting data to the FDA stating that it supports the use of boosters. Moderna and the National Institutes of Health are still studying whether a third dose is effective, half-dose or full-dose, but expect immediate results. Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, said the company plans to submit the data to the FDA in September.

Government officials will announce their strategy at the White House briefing on Wednesday. Nursing home resident, Health care workers And paramedics are probably lined up first, as they were the first shot. This is followed by other older people, followed by the rest of the general population.

Authorities envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received and using the pharmacy as their primary distribution point.

Government officials have pointed out that the FDA has not yet decided on their safety and efficacy, discouraging people from asking for booster doses themselves. They want to deploy additional shots in an orderly manner so that they can get booster shots when recommended, not just based on their fears.

Dr. Danny Avla, Virginia’s Vaccine Coordinator, said there are already thousands of vaccine providers in his state and it is likely that boosters can be significantly modified and managed. “It was supply restrictions that caused much of the urgency and enthusiasm from January to April,” he said.

Today, the government has more than 100 million doses available for boosters, and tens of millions of doses have already been delivered to pharmacies and elsewhere. More supplies are planned for this fall.

In an interview on Tuesday, hospital staff and doctors generally supported the promotion of booster shots.

Dr. Matthew Harris, Medical Director of the Coronavirus Vaccination Program at Northwell Health, New York’s largest hospital system, said: “What keeps me up late is the inevitability of mutants that do not respond to the vaccine. Therefore, if this is the way we anticipate it, I fully support it.”

Federal authorities envision providing additional injections to Johnson & Johnson single vaccinated individuals and those vaccinated with Moderna or Pfizer. However, the government just launched the vaccine in March, with only 14 million people getting the vaccine. By comparison, 155 million people have been fully vaccinated with either Pfizer or Moderna.

Data from a two-dose Johnson & Johnson clinical trial in participants are likely to be submitted to the FDA later this month and are expected to guide government recommendations for the vaccine.

At the briefing on Wednesday, government officials plan to insist that booster strategies are essential, even if booster strategies need to be modified, as more data comes in. The majority of people who become seriously ill or hospitalized because of Covid still make up.

The government said that without boosters, more vaccinated people would suffer from severe Covid’s disease in the coming months due to the dual trend of stronger effects of delta mutants and diminished vaccine protection. I am concerned that I may suffer.

Data from the Israeli Secretary of Health is considered a warning sign. This suggests that protection from coronavirus infections in June and July decreased in proportion to the length of time an individual was vaccinated. According to one dataset, the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine against severe illness dropped to 55% in people aged 65 and over who were vaccinated in January. However, the error tolerance is wide and experts said the other data seemed less worried.