Biden Medical Experts: Get Ready For COVID Booster Shots
President Biden's team announced Monday night that COVID vaccination booster shots need to start going into arms beginning as early as mid-September for those who've already been vaccinated against the virus, administration officials told the New York Times.
The reasoning? The Delta. More protection. How many shots will be enough? It's unclear, but Biden's medical experts say this booster plan will "depend on the Food and Drug Administration's authorization of additional shots."
Up first: nursing homes, medical workers and emergency workers. Then Biden's team would start offering the boosters to people on down the line just like in the spring when vaccines went out across the country.
“There is a concern that the vaccine may start to wane in its effectiveness,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis S. Collins said on Fox News Sunday. “And delta is a nasty one for us to try to deal with. The combination of those two means we may need boosters, maybe beginning first with health care providers, as well as people in nursing homes, and then gradually moving forward.”
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla wrote Monday that his team has sent "initial data" to the FDA that suggests a third dose is needed "within 6 to 12 months after the primary vaccine schedule may help maintain a high level of protection against the disease."
Now, while I have you guys here, let's go back and look at what Biden's COVID response experts were saying in June. Andy Slavitt made the TV show rounds day after day during the 2020 COVID Wars. "There are far greater threats in your life than the Delta variant," he told vaccinated people in June.
Now Slavitt is saying a third dose would protect us against transmitting COVID. Are we positive, Andy? Just three shots? We wouldn't need a fourth? Fifth just to be careful?
On August 6, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said fully vaccinated people who are breakthrough cases can transmit the virus. "Our vaccines are working exceptionally well," Walensky said on CNN. "They continue to work well for Delta, with regard to severe illness and death -- they prevent it. But what they can't do anymore is prevent transmission."