President Joe Biden puts his hand on a man’s shoulder during a visit to a vaccination site (COVID-19) at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, USA, April 6, 2021.
Kevin Lemarque | Reuters
The government in Biden is preparing for the possible need for Covid-19 vaccine booster shots, though nothing is certain, a U.S. official said Friday.
“This is obviously a predictable possible event to require extra shots in the future,” Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to President Joe Biden’s Covid response team, told reporters at a news conference Friday. “I want to emphasize that while there is certainly speculation about this, it does not say for a long time that it will happen.”
If Americans need gunshots, the U.S. government will likely have to arrange with the drug manufacturers to deliver additional doses and make plans for the distribution of vaccines.
Slavitt said Friday the government has reflected on the need to get additional doses.
“I can assure you that when we do our planning, when the president orders the purchase of additional vaccines as he did and that we focus on all the opportunities for production expansion we are talking about here, we have such scenarios in mind,” he said.
Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, said in the comments that were broadcast for the first time on Thursday that people are likely to receive a third dose or a booster shot of a Covid-19 within 12 months of being fully vaccinated. vaccine required. Bourla also said it is possible that people should be vaccinated against the coronavirus annually, as for the seasonal flu.
“A likely scenario is that a third dose will probably be needed, between six and twelve months, and from there it will be vaccinated again annually, but this needs to be confirmed. And again, the variant will play a key role. , “he told CNN’s Bertha Coombs during an event with CVS Health.
“It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people who may be susceptible to the virus,” he added.
Pfizer and Moderna both said their two-dose Covid-19 vaccines, which use similar technology, remain very effective six months after the second dose. However, researchers still do not know how long the protection against the virus lasts after six months after it has been fully vaccinated, although health experts do expect the protection to decrease after some time.
The Biden administration’s Covid response scientist David Kessler said on Thursday that Americans should expect to receive shots to protect against coronavirus variants. He told U.S. lawmakers that vaccines currently being approved are very protective, but he noted that new variants could ‘challenge’ the effectiveness of the shots.
“We do not know everything at the moment,” he told the House Select subcommittee on the Coronavirus crisis.
“We are studying the durability of the antibody response,” he said. “It seems strong, but there’s a slight decrease in it, and the variant is undoubtedly challenging … it makes these vaccines work harder. So I think for planning purposes, only for planning purposes, we should expect that we might have to boost gee. ‘
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC on Wednesday that the company hopes to get a boost shot for its two-dose vaccine in the fall.