Touting “the science,” President Joe Biden and top officials have turned down calls for vaccine booster shots. But the delay has drawn scrutiny as other nations press forward with new jabs for the already vaccinated.
“I know many of you are wondering if you need a booster shot to add another layer of protection,” Biden said last week. “As my medical advisers say, the answer is no.”
He added: “But if the science tells us there’s a need, then that’s something we’ll do. And we have purchased the supply — all the supply we need to be ready if that was called for.”
Press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday the government’s health experts “continue to look at whether there would be a need for boosters” and are not recommending additional shots as of now.
“If that decision is made, we will be prepared as a government,” she said, suggesting the shots are available if and when officials reach a decision.
“We are just starting to gather data,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters when asked about the possibility of additional shots during an afternoon coronavirus briefing.
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Discussions over the need for booster shots come as the highly transmissible delta variant spreads rapidly, including among fully vaccinated people. As of Monday, 70% of U.S. adults had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, reaching a key milestone for the Biden administration that was first pegged for the Fourth of July.
But many of the people who are at the highest risk of contracting an aggravated COVID-19 case received the vaccine months ago when it was first rolled out.
A Pfizer study, which is not yet peer-reviewed, showed the vaccine was 97% effective at stopping severe cases of COVID-19 for at least six months. But the effectiveness wanes over time, falling from 96% to 84% effective after six months.
Pfizer intends to submit data on its booster shot to health officials by Aug. 16, CEO Albert Bourla said on an earnings call last week. The company has published data that found the efficacy of its vaccine diminished over time.
Scrutiny of the delay has prompted some to question the administration’s intentions.
Last year, top health officials advised people against wearing protective masks as the coronavirus spread.
“CDC does not currently recommend the use of face masks for the general public. This virus is not spreading in the community,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, then a senior health expert at the CDC, told reporters in February 2020. That guidance remained in effect for months.
And while officials today haven’t closed the door on boosters, the message right now is clear that extra shots aren’t needed.
John Banzhaf, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University Law School, compared the process to the early pandemic months when “statements made around the beginning of the pandemic were not truthful and that the misrepresentations were made deliberately to achieve an ulterior purpose.”
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“Even once it was clearly established that COVID was primarily transferred via airborne particles and not surface contact, spokesmen nevertheless told the public that masks did not offer any significant protection,” Banzhaf told the Washington Examiner. “This was clearly incorrect — even ludicrous — to anyone who knows anything about airborne diseases.”
With N95 respirators in short supply, the claim aimed to discourage people from scooping up protective masks.
“In other words, to achieve the worthy goal of helping to ensure that medical personnel, first responders [and others] would not suffer an unnecessary shortage of masks, the public was discouraged, by a deliberate falsehood, from doing what would be in their own individual best self-interest,” Banzhaf said. “Something like that may be occurring here.”
For now, Biden officials are targeting unvaccinated people who remain most at risk.
Rising case numbers, driven mainly by the delta variant, have reached the highest seven-day average since February at 79,905 cases per day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Daily reported deaths have spiked 33%, with hospitalizations up by 46% on average during the last week compared to the week before, CDC data shows.
Biden tweeted on Monday the country must be “prepared to deal with the surge in COVID-19 cases like never before.”
Banzhaf said that with some people refusing the vaccine because they don’t think it is effective, “Telling the public that boosters are (or are very likely to be) required would likely strengthen that mindset, and further discourage holdouts from now getting vaccinated.”
In the United States, the push may come at the expense of people who got their shots early.
But elsewhere, third shots are already on the horizon.
In Israel, health authorities started issuing booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for people aged 60 and over last week. Germany will do so beginning in September.
More than 30 million people in the United Kingdom will be eligible for a third dose this fall, including all people 50 and over and those who are immunocompromised, according to the Telegraph.
“Since medical experts in both Israel and Germany have concluded that the evidence is already strong enough that booster shots are beneficial (and possibly necessary), especially for those at heightened risk, and there appears to be no downside risk to receiving one, they probably are advisable,” Banzhaf said.
Banzhaf, a mathematician and statistician with an MIT scientific background, said waiting for a shot tailored to the delta variant may still be recommended. He spearheaded a national shift on smoking and has prodded federal officials to consider new strategies for fighting COVID-19.
Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said Monday he thinks booster shots for vulnerable people in the U.S. could come as early as next month.
“My guess is sometime by September or October, we will be giving booster shots to older individuals and certainly immunocompromised,” Gottlieb told CNBC. “I just think we’re on a slower path here.”
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Gottlieb said the delay could lead to worse health outcomes.
This is “certainly concerning because eventually, those infections are going to break through and develop into more severe disease,” he said.
