Happy Nice Mall

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccine eight months after they’ve had their second vaccine, and could begin offering the third vaccine from mid-September, according to administration officials familiar with the controversy.

Authorities plan to announce the decision as early as this week. Their goal is to let Americans who receive the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know they will need additional protection against the Delta variant, which is causing caseloads to increase in much of the country. The new policy will depend on the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization for additional vaccines.

Officials said they expect recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is authorized as a single dose, will also need an additional dose. However, they are awaiting the results of that company’s two-dose clinical trial, expected later this month.

The first supporters will likely go to the nursing home residents, health workers and emergency workers. They would likely be followed by other older people, who were on the front lines when vaccines started last year, and then the general population. Authorities envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received.

The decision came as the Biden administration struggled to regain control of a pandemic it claimed to have tamed a little over a month ago. President Biden had announced that the nation was reopening to normal life for the 4th of July holiday, but the wildfire spread of the Delta variant prevented that. Covid-19 patients are again crushing hospitals in some states, and federal officials are concerned about the increase in the number of children hospitalized as the school year begins.

Biden administration officials have been analyzing the rise in Covid-19 cases for weeks, trying to figure out whether the Delta variant can better evade vaccines or that vaccines become less potent over time. According to some management experts, both may be true, a sad combination that re-energizes a pandemic the nation is fervently hoping to be stopped.

Director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis S Collins, “Fox News Sunday,” he said There is concern that the vaccine may begin to weaken. That said, coupled with the ferocity of the Delta variant, it can dictate boosters.

Federal health officials are particularly concerned about data from Israel suggesting that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s protection against serious illness has dropped significantly for seniors who get their second vaccination in January or February.

Israel can be seen as a template for the US, as it vaccinates most of its population faster and uses almost exclusively the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which makes up most of the US stock. But unlike the US, Israel has a nationalized healthcare system that allows it to systematically track patients.

The latest Israeli data, published on the government’s website on Monday, show what some experts have described as the continued erosion of the Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy against mild or asymptomatic Covid-19 infections in general and serious illness among the elderly who are vaccinated early. year.

One slide shows that for those 65 and older who got their second vaccine in January, the vaccine is currently only 55 percent effective against serious diseases. However, the researchers noted that the data had a wide margin of error, and some said other data from the Israeli government suggested that the decline in effectiveness was less severe.

Vaccine expert Dr. at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “It shows a fairly sharp decline in efficacy against infection, but still somewhat unclear on protection against serious disease,” said Peter J. Hotez. Request by The New York Times.

Reviewing the data, Food and Drug Administration former chief scientist Dr. Jesse L. Goodman said he suggested “worrying trends” that could point to decreased vaccine efficacy. But he said he would like to see more details from Israel and, more importantly, data showing whether the US is moving in the same direction.

Federal officials said the booster program would likely follow the same scenario as the initial immunization program. First shots for the general public in the United States Implemented on December 14days after the FDA authorized the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use. People started receiving the Moderna vaccine a week later.

While frontline healthcare workers and nursing home residents were among the first to be vaccinated nationwide, states followed their own plans for who else was eligible to be vaccinated during the first weeks and months of the vaccination campaign.

But almost everyone aged 65 and over is eligible to be vaccinated by the end of February, as are many police officers, teachers, grocery workers, and others at risk of exposure to the virus in the workplace.

The regulatory path for additional shots is not entirely clear. Pfizer-BioNTech submitted data to the FDA Monday that demonstrates the safety and effectiveness of a booster shot. However, the data were preliminary information from Phase 1 of a clinical trial. Moderna is on a similar path and is investigating the safety and efficacy of both a half dose and a full dose as a third shot.

The World Health Organization has called for a moratorium on booster vaccines by the end of September, saying current doses should be used to help countries far behind in vaccines. But Israel is already offering the third vaccine to people who are at least 50 years old. Germany and France have said they plan to offer additional shots to vulnerable segments of their populations next month. The UK has a plan to do this, but is delaying it for now.

FDA last week Authorized third doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for some people with weakened immune systems and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended them. Officials decided that these people, who make up less than 3 percent of Americans, deserve extra shots, as most do not respond to the standard dose. The agency has yet to allow any of the vaccines for children younger than 12.

Noah Weiland contributing reporting.