White House believes new Covid-19 vaccines will be key to controlling a potential fall surge; New COVID-19 booster shot campaign anticipated to begin early September, but both PFE-BNTX and MRNA booster shots target omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants not BA.6
- The White House is rushing ahead to roll out a new COVID-19 booster shot campaign in early September, but is facing an uphill battle to ensure it is successful.
- The vaccines being used in the campaign are the first ones that have been manufactured to specifically target the subvariants of omicron that are currently causing the most infections, and administration officials have indicated they’re preparing to start offering the shots shortly after Labor Day.
- Immunity from the initial round of vaccines is waning and health officials said they want to ensure the public is protected as much as possible against another wave of infections in the fall and winter. Right now, close to 450 Americans are dying every day from the virus, and there’s concern the numbers could rise as people move indoors.
- Both Pfizer and Moderna have asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use authorization for booster shots that target the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. Pfizer’s vaccine will be for everyone aged 12 and older, while Moderna’s will be meant just for adults aged 18 and older.
- During an interview with the radio program “Conversations on Health Care,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said the administration wants to provide people with the broadest possible protection.
- “So the strategy now is to tailor vaccine for giving us the largest breadth of response, ideally one that would have less waning over time,” Walensky said. “I believe it is best to use a vaccine that is tailored for the variant that we have right now.”
- But despite the administration’s optimism, the effort is likely to face major hurdles. Chief among them is a lack of interest from the public. Only about two-thirds of the U.S. population have been vaccinated with a primary COVID-19 vaccine series, while less than half of that group has received even a first booster.
- The vaccination rate among children is even lower. According to the CDC, less than 4 percent of eligible kids under the age of 2 have received at least one dose, and only 6 percent of kids between the ages of 2 and 4 have received a single dose.
- The same people who rushed to get the initial vaccine series and then the first round of boosters will be the ones to receive the omicron-specific shots, she said, and mixed messages from health officials are partly to blame.
- The most recent update to the CDC’s guidance emphasized living with the virus, and downplayed many of its previously recommended mitigation strategies. That doesn’t necessarily mesh with the idea that the public urgently needs to get an updated vaccine.
- Rather than a broad rollout of the updated vaccines for the general public, Limaye and other scientists have suggested a more targeted approach, tailoring vaccine recommendations to the elderly and immunocompromised.
- It is important that health officials provide the public with realistic messaging, and don’t oversell the benefits of the shots.
- The other concern among some scientists is that the government is moving too quickly to authorize the vaccines. Neither Moderna nor Pfizer has clinical trial data for the vaccine. Instead, their requests are based on data from a booster targeting an earlier version of omicron, as well as preclinical data from mice.
- But health officials maintain they don’t need additional data, because vaccine manufacturers are essentially making a minor update to the existing vaccine, which has an established track record of success.
- Much is still unclear about BA.4.6, a descendent of the BA.4 variant that first emerged in April and May. The new strain is now responsible for just over 5% of cases across the country, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, marking a slight increase from numbers reported one week earlier.