When Young, Healthy People Need Covid Vaccine Boosters

You’ve probably heard a lot about booster shots in recent weeks. But no one can agree on when you’ll actually need to get one.

On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee will meet to discuss booster injections, additional doses of Covid vaccines designed to provide continued protection against the virus. The committee should review the data from Pfizer’s request for a third-dose booster and decide who needs boosters, at what dosage, and when.

President Joe Biden said it was up to those experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine what shots to give, when and to whom, during a White House speech last week. “As soon as they are authorized”, eligible people will be able to go to a vaccination site and receive their reminder, said the president.

Originally, senior U.S. health officials announced that the booster injections would be ready for distribution to all eligible Americans starting the week of September 20, starting eight months after their second dose of Pfizer vaccine. or Moderna.

But on Monday, an expert review of the scientific literature published in the medical journal The Lancet determined that boosters are not needed in the general population because vaccines are still very effective in preventing serious illness and even death. against the delta variant.

The large-scale distribution of boosters is “not appropriate,” wrote the authors, including two senior officials from the FDA and several scientists from the World Health Organization.

So what will happen on Friday and will you need a reminder? Here’s what the experts are saying:

Right now, the likelihood that you will need a Covid booster depends on your personal health and which vaccine you received first. Recipients of Johnson & Johnson’s single-injection vaccine, for example, may be more likely to need an additional injection than anyone who has received Pfizer or Moderna.

Evidence also suggests that a third dose of mRNA vaccines will be helpful for people with weakened immune systems, such as organ transplant recipients or cancer patients. These immune systems may not get a sufficient response from two doses, Dr. Sadiya Khan, assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told CNBC Make It.

Fully vaccinated people with no underlying conditions are another story, especially if they have received an mRNA vaccine. People with “adequate” immune responses – which means vaccines successfully help prevent serious illness, hospitalizations and death – likely don’t need a third dose just yet, Khan says.

Indeed, she notes, a third blow might actually be more harmful than helpful. “There may be damage from receiving a third dose too early,” Kahn says, such as myocarditis or inflammation of the heart, as well as thrombosis or blood clots.

That calculation could eventually change, according to the Lancet article, which noted that the general population might need a third dose if vaccine-induced immunity begins to decline significantly, or if a new variant emerges that emerges. more effectively escapes vaccine protection.

The CDC released a report on Friday showing that even though vaccine-induced protection wanes over time, it still resists hospitalization and death.

Determining a realistic schedule for the distribution of boosters is complicated. Dr.Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, said it was “conceivable” that Pfizer’s boosters would be available by the end of the month, with more to follow soon after, when ‘an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” in September. 5.

But even though the boosters are available by October, the optimal timeframe for you to get your extra shot is still unclear. The Biden administration’s plan to give people boosters eight months after their second dose is “a somewhat arbitrary schedule,” said Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Recall times are currently determined using available measurements such as antibody levels and other lab markers, Kahn said, adding that more research is needed to determine exactly what the optimal time range would be. to administer the injections.

Once the boosters are available, Moss says, the “highest priority” should go to the elderly and healthcare workers who are exposed to the virus. If you don’t fit into any of those categories, he says, you should wait – as vaccine makers are working on next-generation vaccines that specifically target the delta variant of Covid.

The country’s recall conversations overlook a more serious fact: Much of the rest of the world has yet to receive a dose of a Covid vaccine.

The World Health Organization on Wednesday called for a moratorium on Covid recalls until the end of the year, saying vaccination rates in low-income countries must improve before anyone has to distribute reminders.

The reason: Such ‘immune deficiencies’ allow the virus to spread and mutate into more contagious variants, which only further prolongs the pandemic, says Dr Jon Andrus, assistant professor of global health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health by George. University of Washington.

According to the authors of the Lancet article, “although some gain may ultimately be obtained from stimulation, this will not outweigh the benefits of providing initial protection to the unvaccinated.” Distributing vaccines “where they would do the most good” is key to ending the pandemic, the authors wrote.

Khan and Andrus both say they agree. “If we stay focused only on our own country, we will totally miss the opportunity to mitigate the risk of future variants entering our country,” Andrus said.

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