(Reuters) -The Biden administration plans to begin administering COVID-19 booster shots to Americans as early as mid or late September, pending authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters late on Monday.
Health officials in U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration gathered round the view that most people should get a booster shot eight months after they completed their initial vaccination, the source said.
Dr. Doug Kasper, with the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria, told WMBD’s “The Greg and Dan Show”, there are definite benefits of getting a third shot.
“Not only will it protect against Delta variant, but it protects against any other circulating variant, to the level that the person would be very unlikely to have any significant outcome,” Kasper said.
According https://nyti.ms/3spoZiU to the New York Times, which earlier reported the development, officials are planning to announce the administration’s decision as early as this week, with the first boosters likely to go to nursing home residents and health care workers, followed by other older people.
Last week, U.S regulators authorized a third dose of COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc for people with compromised immune systems who are likely to have weaker protection from the two-dose regimens.
Kasper said booster shots for COVID-19 would further protect those with compromised immune systems, but others too.
“We need to do something else to make the immune response more robust. And, that is what’s really driving this discussion about booster vaccines,” Kasper said.
The administration’s goal is to let those who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know that they will need additional protection against the Delta variant of the coronavirus, NYT said.
The newspaper added that officials also expect recipients of the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, which was authorized as a one-dose regimen, will also require an additional dose.
(Reporting by Steve Holland in Washington and Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
