COVID-19 booster shots may soon be available
Most vulnerable in US will be first to receive increased protection
The most vulnerable Americans may receive booster shots soon, after studies show they may not have had an adequate immune response to just two doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
“An additional dose could help increase protection for these individuals,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky in a Thursday White House briefing.
A CDC advisory committee is expected to meet today to review data and issue recommendations for this group, which includes people who have received organ transplants and some cancer patients. The group accounts for less than 3% of adults, Walensky said.
A booster is not yet needed in the general population, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden. A double dose of Pfizer provides above 80% efficacy after six months, and Moderna provides more than 90% efficacy after six months, according to a recent summary in Nature.
“We believe sooner or later you will need a booster for durability of protection,” Fauci said. “The one thing we are doing is we’re preparing for the eventuality of doing that. So, if the data shows us we need to do that, we’ll be very ready to do that and do it expeditiously.”
But some people aren’t waiting until boosters are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Several Florida residents already got a third booster vaccine dose by claiming it was their first.
The CDC estimates that at least 1 million people have taken a booster shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, with Florida among the states where this has happened the most, according to an internal report ABC News reviewed.
Walensky said people shouldn’t get a third dose on their own, as officials are studying if doing so is safe.
“It does undermine our ability to monitor safety,” she said.
The Florida Department of Health communications office in Tallahassee did not respond to multiple requests for comment on how Floridians were able to get third doses.
Thursday’s announcement comes after the World Health Organization asked wealthy nations such as the U.S. not to order boosters until 10% of the population of every country is vaccinated. WHO estimates that goal could be reached by the end of September.
Tom Unnasch, a University of South Florida professor, said that if vaccinations don’t reach the entire world, it is likely that
more infectious variants will form in poorly vaccinated countries and wind up in the U.S., as happened with the delta variant and several others.
Risk of variant spread from faraway places may be higher in Orlando, given the city hosts the nation’s 10th busiest airport. Over 21 million people came through the airport in 2020.
But Unnasch said that low vaccination rates in some countries cannot simply be solved with more vaccines. He came to this conclusion after his involvement in drug distribution programs in remote areas of Africa.
“Just providing the vaccines to a country that doesn’t have the infrastructure that’s capable of delivering those vaccines to the population is worthless,” he said. “The vaccines will come in and they’ll sit in a warehouse and expire.”
The argument could be made, he said, that the vaccines will be more effectively used in the U.S. as booster shots. But ultimately, focus should be on ensuring that everyone gets the maximum amount of protection possible to avoid variants.
“None of us are protected until all of us are protected,” he said.