COVID booster shots for fully vaccinated Americans could arrive soon
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Biden administration health officials are expected to recommend COVID-19 booster shots for all Americans, regardless of age, eight months after they received the second shot, a source familiar with the plans confirmed to USA TODAY.
The news, which will be announced as soon as this week, comes as the delta variant rages across the country. It also comes amid anxieties about the Pfizer vaccine’s waning immunity and the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of booster vaccines for immunocompromised people.
The official spoke to USA TODAY on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.
Booster shots will begin as early as mid-to-late September once the FDA formally approves vaccines. The action is expected for the Pfizer shot in the coming weeks. As long as any of the vaccines are issued under an Emergency Use Authorization, no one but the FDA can recommend boosters.
Pfizer Monday also announced that they have submitted preliminary data to the FDA that their booster vaccine “elicits antibody levels that significantly exceed those seen after the two-dose” regimen, said Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said in a news release.
The change comes due to data that’s recently come out from Israel and the Mayo Clinic, among others, said Dr. Eric Topol, vice president for research at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California and a national expert on the use of data in medical research.
Data published by Israel’s Ministry of Health shows that protection from the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine dropped off precipitously after six months, down to 40-50% effectiveness against infection, he said.
The vaccine was still highly protective against serious illness and death, but not against milder COVID-19.
“There’s still a risk for long COVID and people can get quite ill from symptomatic infections, you can’t gloss over that,” he said.
Reports from Qatar and the Mayo Clinic are seeing the same issue, he said.
“It gets down to the 40 to 50% effectiveness range, whereas it used to be 95%,” he said.
Why the mRNA vaccines become less effective over time isn’t known, but Topol has a theory. He thinks it’s likely the problem isn’t the vaccines themselves but the short dosing schedule the United States chose. The two-dose vaccine series was given three weeks apart for the Pfizer shots and four weeks for Moderna.
The United States used the spacing that Pfizer and Moderna used in their trials, because that’s the data that was available.
The short spacing might not have allowed the memory B and T cells in the body to develop as robustly as they would if the interval had been longer.
“This might not have happened if the spacing had been eight to 12 weeks. That’s what Canada, the United Kingdom and Scotland did,” Topol said.
Also in the news:
►Alabama’s intensive care units are near capacity amid the state’s surge in COVID-19 cases. The head of the Alabama Hospital Association says the state has 1,562 intensive care unit beds and 1,560 patients needing intensive care Monday. Dr. Don Williamson says that “this is the greatest demand on the ICU system we’ve ever had.”
►A conservative cardinal who has been openly opposed to COVID vaccines and once said Catholics who voted for former President Barack Obama ”collaborated with evil” is on a ventilator in a Wisconsin hospital with the coronavirus.
►The United States’ delta-variant surge is shifting into a deadly new phase: The number of weekly fatalities is now rising in more than three-quarters of the states. The latest tally shows more than 4,800 deaths in a week, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.
📈 Today’s numbers: The U.S. has had more than 36.8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 622,300 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: More than 207.8 million cases and 4.3 million deaths. More than 168.6 million Americans — 50.8% of the population — have been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
📘 What we’re reading: Some who got the J&J vaccine seek mRNA boosters. Is it safe to mix? Read more.
Keep refreshing this page for the latest news. Want more? Sign up for USA TODAY’s Coronavirus Watch newsletter to receive updates directly to your inbox and join our Facebook group.
New York, the nation’s first major city to require at least partial vaccination for indoor activities such as dining and using gyms, will begin to require proof Tuesday. Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday expanded the list of public venues with the requirement.
“The goal here is to convince everyone that this is the time,” de Blasio said when he announced the plan in early August. “If we’re going to stop the delta variant, the time is now.”
In the south, New Orleans’s vaccine mandate for all indoor venues and outdoor gatherings of more than 500 people went into effect Monday. San Francisco, the third city to mandate vaccines — and the most restrictive requiring a full vaccination for indoor activities — will start requiring Friday.
New York state and D.C. have both become the latest areas to mandate vaccinations for medical workers, with both announcing the mandate Monday. Similar moves were announced previously in California and Washington state.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Monday announced he is issuing an executive order requiring schools to allow parents to exempt their children from mask mandates, a decision that follows an outcry from some conservative legislators over districts’ masking policies for students.
In a statement late Monday, Nashville’s Metro Schools Director Adrienne Battle said she and the school board are charged with education students and keeping them safe.
“Universal masking policies, during the pandemic, are a key mitigation strategy to do just that. To allow anyone to opt out of these policies for any reason, other than legitimate medical need, would make them ineffective and would require more students to be quarantined and kept out of the classroom,” Battle said.
“The Governor’s executive order was released without prior notice to school districts for review or comment. As such, Metro Schools will continue to require face masks, pursuant to the rules adopted by the Board, as we further review this order and explore all options available to the district to best protect the health of our students, teachers, and staff.”
Shelby County Schools, the first school district in Tennessee to announce a mask mandate, also said Monday night that the district is reviewing Lee’s executive order with its lawyer. In the meantime, masks are still required, Superintendent Joris Ray said.
Public health, politics and education made for an uncomfortable mix in many parts of the country Monday. Confusion reigned in several Texas school districts after the state Supreme Court stopped mask mandates in two of the largest districts before the first day of school in Dallas. An Arizona judge upheld, at least temporarily, a mask mandate in a Phoenix district despite a new state law prohibiting such requirements. One Colorado county posted sheriff’s deputies in schools on the first day of classes as a precaution after parents protested a last-minute mask mandate.
– Natalie Allison, Nashville Tennessean
Contributing: Associated Press