[ad_1]
Vaccination rates have steadily increased in recent weeks as fear of the Delta variant has grown. Providers were administering about 837,000 injections per day at the end of last week, and Mr Biden said the most recent seven-day total was the highest since early July. He said more people in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi – some of the states with the highest workloads – received their first injections in the past month than in the previous two months combined. .
Dr Marks said vaccine myths remain a major obstacle to tackling the pandemic, including false claims that injections cause infertility, promote rather than prevent Covid-19, and have even led to thousands of deaths.
“Be clear: these claims are just not true,” he said.
The FDA is in the midst of a storm of decisions about coronavirus vaccines. The next major question looming is whether to allow booster shots.
The Biden administration said last week that it plans to offer third injections to adults who have received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, eight months after their second injection, starting September 20. Third injections are already permitted for some immunocompromised people, but the risk-benefit calculation is different for the general population.
Federal health officials have said vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, which are based on similar technology, decrease in potency over time. This trend, they said, is converging with the rise of the particularly dangerous Delta variant, making those who completed their vaccinations early in the year increasingly vulnerable to infection.
Some public health experts have challenged the booster injection plan as premature. They say the available data shows the vaccines are resistant to serious illness and hospitalization, including against the Delta variant. Additional injections would only be warranted if the vaccines did not meet that standard, some said.
Regulators are still reviewing Moderna’s request for full approval of its vaccine, which it filed in June, a month after Pfizer. This decision could take several weeks. Johnson & Johnson are expected to seek full approval soon.
Susan C. Beachy and Coral Murphy Marcos contributed reports.
[ad_2]
Source link