Posted on 09/07/2022 4:04:12 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The U.S. has reached an important milestone in the pandemic, according to federal health officials.
Going forward, COVID-19 could be treated more like the flu, with one annual shot offering year-long protection against severe illness for most people.
"Barring any new variant curve balls, for a large majority of Americans we are moving to a point where a single, annual COVID shot should provide a high degree of protection against serious illness all year," said White House COVID response coordinator Ashish Jha at a press briefing Tuesday.
The federal government has started rolling out a new round of boosters for the fall — they are updated versions of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines targeting both the original coronavirus and the two omicron subvariants that are currently causing most infections.
These vaccines could be tweaked again if new variants become dominant in the future, which is how the flu shot works. Every fall, people get a new flu vaccine designed to protect against whatever strains of the virus are likely to be circulating that season. The hope is the COVID boosters will act the same way.
Jha cautioned that older people and those with health problems that make them more vulnerable to severe disease may need to get boosted more often. But for most people Jha hopes this latest booster will be the last shot they need for at least another year.
Throughout the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 has been incredibly unpredictable and has been evolving much faster than anyone expected, so officials say they will continue to monitor the virus closely and they are ready to reprogram the vaccines again if necessary.
"You've got to put the wild card of a way-out-of-left-field variant coming in," said White House adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, at the briefing. If that happens he says the recommendations may change. But, "if we continue to have an evolution sort of drifting along the BA.5 sublineage," he says the annual shot should be able to cover whatever is out there as the dominant variant.
But there is still a lot of debate about just how much of an upgrade the new boosters will really be. Some infectious disease experts are not convinced the updated vaccines will be a game-changer, because they haven't been tested enough to see how well they work.
"I think the risk here is that we are putting all our eggs in one basket," Dr. Celine Gounder, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told NPR. "We're only focusing on boosting with vaccines. I think the issue is people are looking for a silver bullet. And boosters are not a silver bullet to COVID."
Federal officials are concerned that a low number of people will sign up for the new boosters, following a low demand for the initial booster shots. According to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention only 34% of people over 50 have gotten their second booster.
So, as we head into the winter, the administration is urging everyone age 12 and older to get boosted right away to help protect themselves and the more vulnerable people around them. People have to wait at least two months since their last shot and should wait at least three months since their last infection.
But they can sign up to get a COVID booster at the same time as a flu shot.
Because Congress has balked at providing addition funding to fight the pandemic, the new boosters are likely to be the last COVID shots provided for free. People who have insurance will get them covered through their policies. The administration says it's working to make sure those who are uninsured have access to future COVID-19 vaccinations.
i’ll pass, thanks!
Like any fed bull crap is believed anymore.
Shove it.
Shove it deep.
Shove it often.
Make it hurt.
we loathe, despise, and hurl at you, feds. (Small f intended)
It may be the last one you will ever need.
One more shot I will not have gotten.
Hahaha
NO
Free beer tomorrow?
Anybody else think they’re quietly backing off?
The stats are just too disastrous for them.
It could be the last you need for the rest of your life even. Still going to pass.
Not even the first I’ll need, let alone the last.
I agree you will probably die within 6 months… my step mom didn’t need a booster because the original two doses killed her in 6 weeks. Dead people believe it or not don’t need vaccines.
I can’t wait to not get it.
It will be the last you need for a year because theres a good chance you’ll die.
It may be the last one you will ever need.
“experts say.....”
I think they’re running out of guinea pigs. Next they’ll be paying ppl to get it.
A good guess is that they do not have a clue as to how safe or effective the new shots are.
It was only tested on eight mice.
Exactly.
They can also shove it *sideways*... for maximum pain.
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