Fauci calls booster shots ‘likely,’ but not right away
With approval for additional Covid-19 vaccine shots for immunocompromised people “imminent,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said Thursday that federal health authorities were “likely” to call for third shots as boosters for a broader swath of the population at some point, though there was no immediate need.
In an interview on the CBS program “This Morning,” Fauci noted federal health authorities were tracking various cohorts of vaccinated people and had seen some early signs that the shots may need shoring up. That is often the case with vaccines.
“We are already starting to see indications in some sectors about a diminution over time” in vaccines’ durability, Fauci said.
Federal regulators were expected to authorize as soon as Thursday additional shots for people with weakened immune systems. In an interview last week, Fauci made the point that, for people with weakened immune systems, “giving them an additional shot is almost not considered a booster, it’s considered part of what their original regimen should have been,” since they need more vaccine to be protected.
In contrast, boosters would be used in the broader population to counter any diminution of the vaccines’ protective power.
There are no immediate plans to authorize boosters, Fauci said, but federal authorities are actively monitoring different groups for signs of waning protection.
“We are following cohorts of individuals, elderly, younger individuals, people in nursing homes, to determine if in fact the level of protection is starting to attenuate,” Fauci said. “And when it does get to a certain level we will be prepared to give boosters” — preferably, he added, with the same vaccine received earlier.
The debate over booster shots has grown more urgent as the extremely contagious Delta variant runs rampant in the country.
Over the past week, an average of roughly 124,200 coronavirus cases has been reported each day in the United States, an increase of 86% from two weeks ago. Average daily hospitalizations are up to more than 68,800, an 82% increase over the last two weeks. The number of new deaths reported is up by 75%, to an average of 552 deaths per day.
Countries like Britain, France, Germany and Israel have already announced plans to provide third vaccine doses to certain groups.
Global health authorities have called booster shots a questionable use of the insufficient supply of vaccines while much of the world has not been inoculated, including front line health workers and other high-risk people.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, called last week for a moratorium on boosters until the end of September, so that all countries would ideally have enough doses to vaccinate at least 10 percent of their populations.
“I understand the concern of all governments to protect their people from the Delta variant,” Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “But we cannot — and we should not — accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it, while the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected.”
There are no immediate plans to authorize boosters, Fauci said, but federal authorities are actively monitoring different groups for signs of waning protection.