FDA panel rejects Biden’s proposal to give every vaccinated American an additional vaccine against Covid

You know how Joe Biden made an announcement last month about his plan to get all adult vaccinated in the United States an extra reminder of anything covid-19 vaccine they received? Well, a vaccine advisory committee with the Food and Drug Association rejected the president’s proposal on Friday, the Associated press reports, on the grounds that it was absolutely not necessary – at least not for most people.

The panel made recommend booster shots for fully vaccinated people who, due to various factors, are at greater risk of severe and possibly fatal cases of covid – people 65 years of age and older, people with underlying health conditions, people whose workplace makes them more susceptible to transmission. But the vast majority of fully vaccinated Americans will do well without them., says Aaron E. Carroll, director of health at Indiana University in a new editorial for The New York Times, especially at a time when some countries still boast single digit vaccination statistics:

…the FDA and the Biden administration need to be clearer in their communication. The most important thing would be to clarify the objectives of a recovery plan, if it were to be put in place. If the main reason to vaccinate is to reduce Covid-19 to a more manageable respiratory virus, which causes far fewer hospitalizations and deaths, boosters could be continued for the immunocompromised and considered for the elderly, but might not be still needed by most people.

If the goal is to prevent all breakthrough infections, then boosters may be needed for everyone. But achieving “Covid zero” is probably an unattainable goal, with or without boosters, even if it was defensible.

• The Delta variant of the coronavirus, which has been the dominant strain in the United States for months now, now accounts for more than 99% of all covid infections in the country. “This is not unexpected, because it is more transmissible, but it is also a strong reminder that we must have continued vigilance,” said Dr Saskia Popescu, epidemiologist and professor at George Mason University. “The biggest thing is, ‘Don’t let your guard down. “We need continuous surveillance, genomic sequencing, access to testing and public health interventions” like vaccination and masking. [The New York Times]
• Hospitals are again is experiencing staff shortages about country, and this has a huge impact on the number of patients they are able to provide life-saving care to. [Reuters]
• The number of Americans who are fully immunized is slowly, slowly increasing. Today, just under 55% of us have received all of our injections, while the same can be said of nearly 66 percent of adults. There have been 41,915,285 cases in total in the United States since the coronavirus the pandemic began and 670,565 deaths. [CDC]