The White House defended President Joe Biden’s decision to announce COVID-19 booster shots starting Sept. 20, saying it was driven by science rather than politics.
“Well, first of all, we always lead with the science,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters, “and let me just reiterate some things for anyone who’s expressing a concern.”
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Psaki then cited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Janet Woodcock, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, and Anthony Fauci as the key decision-makers.
“They reviewed mountains and mountains of available data on vaccine effectiveness and made a clinical judgment that boosters would be needed, and announced a plan to begin them in September, subject, of course, to the FDA and CDC processes to continue.”
Psaki was responding to a question that noted some experts believed there was not enough of a consensus behind boosters at this time and thought more voices needed to be heard prior to a decision.
She emphasized that Fauci, Woodcock, and Collins all have medical backgrounds, calling each of them “doctor.”
Biden campaigned last year on ensuring that science drove all decisions on the pandemic, arguing that the Trump administration politicized its handling of the virus.
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The president won voters whose top issue was the coronavirus by 66 points and those who prioritized containing the virus over an economic reopening by 60 points, according to exit polls.
