Andrea Smadja – C19 – Tamar news
Pfizer said it plans to meet with U.S. health officials on Monday to negotiate a federal license application for the third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine. President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser acknowledged that “it is entirely conceivable, even likely” that booster shots would be needed.
Pfizer said it was scheduled to meet with the Food and Drug Administration and other officials on Monday, days after Pfizer said recall injections would be needed within 12 months.
Pfizer’s Dr. Mikael Dolsten told the Associated Press last week that early data from Pfizer’s recall study suggest antibody levels increase five to 10 times after a third dose, compared with the second dose given a few months earlier – evidence Pfizer says supports the need for a recall.
On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci was ready to consider the possibility but said it was too early for the government to recommend another injection. He said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FDA did the right thing last week by opposing Pfizer’s claim that they did not consider booster shots necessary “at this time.”
Fauci said clinical studies and laboratory data have not yet fully demonstrated the need for a booster shot for the current Pfizer and Moderna two-dose vaccines or for Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose schedule.
Currently, only about 48% of the US population is fully vaccinated. Some parts of the country have much lower vaccination rates, and in these places, the delta variant is on the rise. Last week, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said this leads to “two truths”: large swathes of highly immunized America are returning to normal while hospital admissions are rising in other places.
Fauci said it was inexplicable that some Americans are so reluctant to get vaccinated when the science shows the vaccine is effective in preventing COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, and he said he was dismayed by efforts to make vaccinations more accessible, such as Biden’s suggestion of going door-to-door.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas acknowledged Sunday that there is resistance to the vaccine in southern and rural states like his because “you have a more conservative approach, a skepticism about government.”
Unveiling his efforts to boost vaccinations in his state, which is experiencing a rise in infections, Hutchinson said that “no one wants an agent knocking on their door,” but “we want those who don’t otherwise have access to make sure they know about it.”
The local component of the federal vaccination campaign has been underway since April when vaccine supplies began to exceed demand. It was identified and funded by Congress as part of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid bill passed in March and is being conducted primarily by local officials, private-sector workers, and volunteers.
Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois called the opposition of some Republican lawmakers to vaccination efforts “absolute madness”. He said House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and other party members must stand up to “these clown politicians who are playing on your fears about vaccines for their own gain.”
Mr. Fauci appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union”, ABC’s “This Week” and CBS’s “Face the Nation”; Ms. Hutchinson spoke on ABC and Mr. Kinzinger on CNN.
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