Cailianshe July 29 (Editor Xiaoxiang) According to New York Times , citing people familiar with the matter, the Biden administration is currently planning to provide the public with an updated COVID-19 vaccine booster shot in September, as Pfizer and Moderna have promised that they will be able to ensure supply in time by then.
With the launch of an updated vaccine soon, federal officials may decide not to expand the scope of the existing second dose of the new crown vaccine this summer. Although the clinical data obtained from the current updated vaccine are only preliminary, there is evidence that they can provide better protection when facing the Omickron variant BA.5, which has become the mainstream strain in the United States.
The second dose of COVID-19 vaccine in the United States is currently only open to people over 50 years old and those with low immunity. U.S. public health officials have been discussing whether it is necessary to immediately expand the vaccination plan for the second dose enhancement injection, and the debate continued until the end of July.
One of the groups believes that with the increase in the number of infections in new crown cases, the vaccination range of the second dose of enhanced shot should be expanded before the new version of the vaccine is ready. Dr. Fauci , the Biden administration’s chief medical adviser, and Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the White House epidemic response coordinator, both advocated this position. "I think at least the second dose of booster shots should be allowed to be provided to young Americans in a flexible and open manner." But officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) believe that the government should focus more on the vaccination of the fall update version of the vaccine - if relevant vaccination activities can start as soon as possible. With the backdrop of Pfizer and Moderna's recent assurance to the FDA that they can provide relevant vaccines by mid-September, regulators have decided it's better to wait for these updated vaccines to come on the market.
According to people familiar with the matter, all American adults are expected to obtain the updated version of enhanced vaccination. Children may also be eligible to apply.
"races" with BA.5
At present, the highly contagious Omickron BA.5 variant is accelerating across the United States. This may not be difficult to understand why the Biden administration is planning to bet on the updated vaccine.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday that in the week ended July 23, patients infected with the Omickron BA.5 subvariant of the new coronavirus accounted for 81.9% of the total number of new cases, while BA.4 accounted for only 12.9%.
Meanwhile, the number of patients hospitalized in the United States has also risen sharply in recent weeks. Last Thursday, more people were hospitalized for COVID-19 in New York than at the peak of delta infection last year. Although the number of new confirmed cases in the United States hovers around 130,000 per day — this number may be significantly lower than the actual number of infections due to the large number of unreported positive cases of self-tests in households.
The Biden administration has been busy signing supply contracts for the updated vaccine recently. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently booked 105 million doses of updated vaccines developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for $3.2 billion, which may be put into use in the fall. The Biden administration is expected to soon finalize a similar big order with another vaccine manufacturer, Moderna.
Dr. Fauci recently stated on a TV program that the enhanced vaccine against BA.5 is the most likely tool for the United States to use to deal with the new crown epidemic this fall.
However, even if the updated vaccine booster can be successfully launched in September, the US government's vaccine plan may face many other challenges.
Some federal officials are currently worried that the American people's patience with strengthening vaccination may be deteriorating - with a new round of vaccines, the number of people vaccinated will further decline. For example, while nearly half of those who meet the first dose booster will choose to get the vaccination, less than 30% of Americans who meet the criteria will choose to get the second shot—and at this point, they will receive a total of four shots.
