The Biden administration said that the United States has hit a turning point in the pandemic at which yearly COVID-19 vaccine doses will likely be adequate to provide “sufficient” protection against serious illness and death as the pandemic stretches past two years.
White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said yearly COVID-19 vaccinations, as with the flu shot, will enable the U.S. to move forward with fewer disruptions to daily life.
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“For a large majority of Americans, we are moving to a point where a single annual COVID shot should provide a high degree of protection against serious illness all year. That’s an important milestone,” Jha said Tuesday.
Jha cautioned that though there could be curveballs, such as a new variant of the virus driving up case numbers again, officials are optimistic that with the addition of the omicron subvariant-specific booster, the vaccines will continue to provide a high degree of protection.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said COVID-19 shots updated for new variants would be recommended once a year rather than every six months or so.
“For those who have underlying conditions, immunocompromised, we may need to do it more. But for the bulk of the population, we can look at it on a yearly basis,” said Fauci.
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The Biden administration began shipping out doses of the updated omicron-specific boosters to pharmacies across the country after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention greenlit the new shots last Thursday. By the end of this week, over 90% of people in the U.S. will live within 5 miles of a pharmacy or other healthcare provider who will offer the updated boosters, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
