Most Americans don’t need another Covid booster shot, according to one of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) top vaccine advisers.
Dr Paul Offit, who advises the FDA on a range of shots for infectious diseases, told DailyMail.com middle-aged and younger Americans who do not have chronic diseases already had strong enough immunity through previous Covid vaccines and infections to prevent severe illness this winter.
His recommendation comes as the FDA prepares to approve new updated Covid boosters made by Pfizer and Moderna designed to target new variants.
The expectation is the Biden Administration will sign off on another nationwide rollout, encouraging every American to take it, despite other countries, like the UK, saying the vaccines are only needed for adults over 65.
Dr Offit told DailyMail.com: ‘I think we are best served by targeting these booster doses to those who are most at risk of severe disease (i.e. hospitalization).
‘Specifically, those over 75 years of age, those who have health problems that put them at highest risk of severe disease (such as obesity, chronic lung disease, chronic heart disease and diabetes, among others) [and] those who are immune-compromised and those who are pregnant.’
Dr Paul Offit, an internationally recognized vaccines expert, said healthy young people did not need to get the updated Covid booster this fall
He added: ‘Boosting otherwise healthy young people is a low-risk, low-reward strategy. Again, with an understanding that the goal of the vaccine is to prevent severe disease.’
The federal Government will not be covering the cost of updated Covid booster vaccines this fall.
But most Americans will still be able to get the vaccines for free via their health insurance.
For the 28million Americans who do not have health insurance, the federal government will cover the cost of their vaccinations through its $1.1billion ‘Bridge Access’ assistance program — which will help people without insurance get free access to Covid vaccines and treatments through 2024.
Pfizer and Moderna say their vaccines are priced between $110 to $130 per dose.
Dr Offit, who is based at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is one of 14 scientists on the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) — which is tasked with determining whether vaccines are safe and effective
This committee voted against Pfizer vaccine booster shots for all Americans in late 2021, saying they should only be offered to over-65s.
A CDC panel followed its lead — but was later overruled by the agency’s director who said the vaccine should be offered to all adults working in high-risk settings, such as those working in hospitals or care homes.
The committee was not asked for its view this year on which Americans should be offered the Covid booster.
This recommendation will instead come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which will meet September 12.
The CDC director, Dr Mandy Cohen, will then sign-off on the recommendation to kick-start the updated booster vaccine rollout.
The above shows how uptake languished on last year’s booster rollout, with less than 17 percent of eligible adults coming forward
It is not clear what the CDC will recommend, but at the end of last month President Joe Biden said it was ‘likely’ all Americans over five years old would be offered the shot.
This year’s updated Covid booster vaccine is designed to target the XBB.1.5, or ‘Kraken’, Covid variant — which was dominant in the US this summer.
Early tests show, however, the shot can also neutralize the BA.2.86 Covid variant, or ‘Pirola’.
There are also signs it will work against the EG.5, or ‘Eris’, Covid variant that is the current dominant strain.
Younger people who get the shot will be at a very low risk of side effects like myocarditis — or heart inflammation.
Dr Offit has been an outspoken critic of the US’s blanket approach to vaccinating everyone against Covid.
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal published in September last year, he warned the CDC was ‘overselling’ Covid vaccines by offering them to all Americans.
He wrote: ‘As the CDC launches its fall booster dose campaign, it would be wise to focus on those at risk rather than the young and healthy.’
In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer in November last year, he also said that healthy adults under 75 years old did not need to get the Covid vaccines.
Critics have previously accused the CDC’s blanket vaccination policy of being ‘counter-intuitive’ because it was failing to stress the low benefit the vaccine was offering to young people.
The agency said this was also driving down the rate of essential childhood vaccinations, which protect against deadly childhood diseases, including polio and measles.
Last year, barely 17 percent of American adults who were eligible for the bivalent booster shot came forward.
Among over-65s, who stand to gain the most from the shots, uptake languished at 43 percent.
The new vaccines come after the Biden Administration revealed plans to spend another $1.4billion on Covid drugs and vaccinations for all Americans — despite declaring the pandemic over in May.
Officials said the funding — to be awarded in grants — will be used to develop ‘a new generation of tools and technologies to protect against COVID-19 for years to come’.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – the branch of government tasked with bankrolling health initiatives – announced the move Tuesday as part of its ‘Project NextGen.’
Data shows Covid hospitalizations across the US are ticking up, with about 17,400 people admitted to hospitals during the week ending August 26 — an increase from about 15,000 compared to the previous seven-day period.
But this is also still well below the levels reported earlier this year when there were approximately 44,000 admissions a week in January.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk