Biden administration starts planning for vaccine boosters

WASHINGTON — With a stockpile of at least 100 million doses at the ready, Biden administration officials are developing a plan to start offering coronavirus booster shots to some Americans as early as this fall, even as researchers continue to debate whether extra shots are needed, according to people familiar with the effort.

The first boosters are likely to go to nursing home residents and health care workers, followed by other elderly 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.

They have discussed starting the effort in October but have not settled on a timetable.

While many outside experts argue there is no proof yet that the vaccines’ protection against severe disease and hospitalization is waning in the United States, administration officials say they cannot afford to put off figuring out the logistics of providing boosters to millions of people until that tipping point is reached.

The spotty nature of the nation’s disease-reporting network makes the question of timing even trickier.

Among other indicators, officials say, the administration is carefully watching Israel, where some data suggests an uptick in severe disease among older adults who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine early in that nation’s campaign. Some officials are concerned that even if a decline in protection merely results in mild or asymptomatic infections, those infected people could still spread the virus and prolong the pandemic.

Some federal officials cast the booster discussions as contingency planning; others suggested boosters for the general population were extremely likely, and the questions were how to give it to them and when.