STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – What now, experts?
President Joe Biden wants to start rolling out COVID-19 booster shots to Americans, initially calling for the program to start this coming Monday.
Thing is, there are experts at the Food and Drug Administration who aren’t sold on the necessity for booster shots. They think that the initial round of vaccines should suffice, and on Friday an FDA panel by a 16-2 vote turned thumbs-down on offering Pfizer vaccine boosters.
There’s also some rough vaccine road with the experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who have been going back and forth on the booster issue with the White House, angering some in the Biden administration, according to Politico.
Politico said that the White House and the FDA believe that the CDC has withheld vital information necessary to formulate a national booster program.
The publication said that CDC leader Rochelle Walensky had told the White House that Biden’s September 20 deadline was too ambitious and that the CDC had yet to complete the studies necessary to help provide the rationale for the shots.
“Science takes time,” a CDC official told Politico. “I don’t know how many times we have to say this.”
Others said that the CDC had been in on the planning of the timeline all along.
Either way, I hope the White House isn’t politicizing vaccine boosters.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said that initial vaccine doses are still needed for people around the world. They should be taken care of first, the WHO says, instead of giving the already vaccinated a booster.
What are ordinary Americans supposed to think in a world where we’ve been told for a year and a half to “trust the experts” and follow the science” when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic?
Biden and others, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Bill de Blasio in New York, want to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
It’s gotten to the point where people’s jobs are under threat, never mind the fact that the unvaccinated are being closed out of many facets of normal life. If it were up to Dr. Anthony Fauci, another booster of vaccine boosters, those without the jab would be prohibited from flying on commercial airlines.
Not to say how puzzling this can be for those who are already vaccinated and thought they’d done their duty to their country and their fellow Americans.
It’s perfectly legitimate to ask: If I’m already vaccinated and if the vaccine protects me against serious illness, why do I need a booster shot? And if boosters are going to be needed, how many of them am I going to potentially be expected to get down the road?
In seeking FDA approval for the boosters, Pfizer has said that while its vaccine holds strong against serious illness, its power against milder infection wanes about six or eight months after the second shot. The drug firm said that administering boosters had helped increase antibodies.
In other words, the vaccinated among us could be helping to spread the virus as their protection deteriorates. So much for the “surge of unvaccinated.” The picture is more complicated than that.
And we can all see what’s happened in Israel, which has taken a hellish hit from the delta variant even though Israel has one of the best vaccination rates in the world. Israel began giving third, booster shots last month. Government leaders are pondering distributing a fourth dose.
If you’re wondering where this all ends, and who decides where the finish line is, you’re not alone.
MORE FROM TOM WROBLESKI
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