Booster Coming Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Biden administration to announce most Americans will need coronavirus vaccine booster shots By Sharon LaFraniere, New York Times/Boston Globe, August 17, 2021
WASHINGTON — T he Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, and could begin offering third shots as early as mid-September, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions. Officials are planning to announce the decision as early as this week. Their goal is to let Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know now that they will need additional protection against the delta variant that is causing caseloads to surge across much of the nation. The new policy will depend on the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of additional shots. Officials said they expect that recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was authorized as a one-dose regimen, will also require an additional dose. But they are waiting for the results of that firm’s two-dose clinical trial, expected later this month. The first boosters are likely to go to nursing home residents, health care workers and emergency workers. They would probably be followed by other older people who were near the front of the line when vaccinations began late last year, then by the general population. Officials envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received. The decision comes as the Biden administration is struggling to regain control of a pandemic that it had claimed to have tamed little more than a month ago. President Joe Biden had declared the nation reopened for normal life for the July 4 holiday, but the wildfire spread of the delta variant has thwarted that. COVID patients are again overwhelming hospitals in some states, and federal officials are worried about an increase in the number of children hospitalized just as the school year is set to begin. For weeks, Biden administration officials have been analyzing the rise in COVID-19 cases, trying to figure out if the delta variant is better able to evade the vaccines or if the vaccines have waned in strength over time. According to some administration experts, 164
UCLA Faculty Association Blog: 3rd Quarter 2021