U.S. to ask all residents to get virus booster jab
Recommendation this week applies to all ages
WASHINGTON — U.S. experts are expected to recommend COVID-19 vaccine boosters for all Americans, regardless of age, eight months after they received their second dose of the shot, to ensure lasting protection against the coronavirus as the delta variant spreads across the country.
Earlier on Monday, California’s health department and the scientific review panel that also represents three other Western states had recommended that individuals whose immune systems are compromised get an additional vaccine dose “to ensure extra protection from COVID-19.”
But the state advisory would be superseded by the federal decision, which could be announced as early as this week. The goal is to let Americans who received the PfizerBioNTech or Moderna vaccines know now that they will need additional protection against the delta variant that is causing case
loads to surge across the nation. The new policy will depend on the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of additional shots.
Officials said they expect that recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was authorized as a one-dose regimen, will also require an additional dose. But they are waiting for the results of that firm’s two-dose clinical trial, expected later this month.
The first boosters are likely to go to nursing home residents and health care workers, followed by other older people who were near the front of the line when vaccinations began late last year. Officials envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received.
More than 198 million Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with more than 168 million fully vaccinated. Still, the country is experiencing a fourth surge of virus cases due to the more transmissible delta variant, which is spreading aggressively through unvaccinated communities but is also responsible for an increasing number of so-called “breakthrough infections” of fully vaccinated people.
The White House has said that even though the U.S. has begun sharing more than 110 million vaccine doses with the world, the nation has enough domestic supply to deliver boosters to Americans should they be recommended by health officials.
In another step reflecting growing concern over rising coronavirus case numbers, California health officials on Monday directed hospitals statewide to accept transfer patients from those with limited ICU capacity; and Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order extending a rule to let out-of-state health workers stay employed in California.
The order also allows retired school teachers and staff to fill in during staffing shortages caused by anticipated coronavirus infections as fulltime in-person learning resumes.
“We are continuing to see an increase in cases and hospitalizations due to the delta variant of COVID-19 and are taking action to ensure the state’s health care delivery system is prepared and can respond should the situation worsen,” Dr. Tomas Aragón, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “Today’s action will make sure all patients in California continue to receive appropriate care.”
California reported 7,166 COVID-19 hospitalizations on Monday. State officials said it will likely surpass 7,200 hospitalizations before the end of the week — hitting numbers last seen during the summer surge of cases in 2020.
Ahead of Monday’s recommendation on offering booster shots to the immunocompromised, California’s health department and the Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup — which also includes experts from Nevada, Oregon and Washington state — conducted additional research, officials said.
It showed that in some settings those who are immunocompromised represented over 40% of persons recently hospitalized for COVID-19.
Among other worrisome signals, Biden administration officials are particularly concerned about data from Israel suggesting that the PfizerBioNTech vaccine’s protection against severe disease has fallen significantly for elderly people who were vaccinated in January or February.
Some administration officials have viewed Israel as a kind of template for the United States because it started vaccinating its population sooner. Israel has almost exclusively used the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and it has a nationalized health care system that allows it to systematically track patients.
The latest data from Israel shows what some experts describe as continued erosion of the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine over time — both against mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 infections in general and against severe disease among the elderly.