Feds Set to Recommend Booster COVID Shot

Based on data showing waning vaccine effectiveness, the CDC will recommend a booster eight months after the second shot. Some on the left call it unfair to developing and low-income countries.

Summary

A booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine is expected to be approved and announced today by the feds.

• The recommendation will likely say a booster shot is recommended eight months after getting a second dose. 
• The move comes after the CDC says it has compiled data showing a decline in vaccine effectiveness over time. 
• The news comes as the United States recorded 1,000 covid-related deaths yesterday, the first time since this April. 
• The plan to authorize and encourage 8-month booster shots in the United States will be met with resistance among “global health advocates” who argue many “low-income countries still don’t have enough vaccines to give a single dose” to vulnerable populations.

• The New York Times’ report on the vaccine booster noted recipients of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine are not yet eligible but the CDC is waiting on additional data. The Times also said booster shots “would probably go to nursing home residents, health care workers and emergency workers”, since they were among the first to get vaccinated last year.
• The Guardian highlighted resistance among the global health community to America’s booster plan, saying it will “suck many vaccine doses out of the system” and those who now don’t have an opportunity to receive a first dose will die because the West will “reject their responsibility to the rest of humanity.” 
• The Atlantic discussed the prospect of basically lying about one’s vaccine status to get a booster shot early, highlighting the ethical and medical concerns for why that’s a terrible idea.

• Newsmax reported on the director of the National Institutes of Health saying data out of Israel with respect to the delta variant indicating an uptick in breakthrough cases among vaccinated people shows the contagiousness of delta and that “unsurprisingly, vaccine protection does gradually wane over time.” 
• Breitbart reported on a group of Catholic bioethicists are insisting on more religious accommodations for those “who do not wish to receive a coronavirus vaccine for reasons of conscience.” 
• The Spectator argued the obsession with lockdowns and vaccination rates is part of a “Zero COVID delusion” in which “the notion that we could literally stop” COVID-19 “was always a fantasy”, that eventually it needs to treated like the seasonal flu.

Author’s Take

Those saying it is inherently unfair to low-income countries just now getting their vaccine programs off the ground have a point. Some protection is better than none. And while it was largely Western funding and ingenuity that created the vaccine, the social and economic recovery from the pandemic will depend on everyone having access. One of the reasons the United States is seeing economic disruption is a halting and congested supply chain because many nations the US relies on for raw materials and goods are still experiencing side effects of the worst of the pandemic.

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© Dallas Gerber, 2021