WASHINGTON – Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday Authorize the first redesign coronavirus vaccines since they were deployed in late 2020, leaving millions of Americans to receive new booster doses targeting the Omicron subspecies as soon as next week.
The new formula comes with about 90,000 infections and 475 deaths still being recorded daily across the US, more than two years into a pandemic that has killed more than a million Americans and led to a pandemic. reduced historical life.
With winter approaching and Omicron’s BA.5 variant still in wide circulation, federal officials hope the redesigned footage will help slow the pandemic’s seemingly incessant march. However, many Americans are indifferent to the virus and its dangers, making the task more difficult than ever.
The new boosters are “bivalent,” meaning they contain a combination of the original formula and a type of targeting BA.5, which is now the dominant version of the virus, as well as a sub-variant of the virus. Omicron. One is made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for use by people 12 years of age or younger, and another by Moderna for those 18 years of age and older.
Officials in the Biden administration argue that even as researchers work to understand how protective the new shots are, re-vaccinating Americans in the coming weeks could better equip the young adolescents and adults if cases recur.
“The idea here is not just to increase the amount of antibodies right now, but hopefully give us a longer period of protection,” said Dr Peter Marks, lead vaccine administrator at the FDA. news summary on Wednesday.
While the number of cases remains high, there are 40,000 fewer people hospitalized with the virus, down 10% since early August and far less than the Delta-driven surge last summer or the one driven by Omicron. pushed last winter. The death toll has also remained flat in recent weeks, a sign that the vaccine is helping to prevent the worst of Covid-19.
Fully immunized persons are eligible for up-to-date shots, regardless of whether they have also received booster doses. But their last shot must have been at least two months ago.
New boosters could launch in the next few days, assuming that Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, signs off, a decision that could come on Friday. The federal government is expected to begin shipping doses to the states as soon as the FDA takes action.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that many Americans will hold off on getting a supplement, either because they are tired of the pandemic or may not feel the urgency about a supplement. With each new shot provided, fewer people will compete.
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Some states and localities also cut programs to provide shots and federal reimbursement for some vaccine-related costs, like setting up sites, has shrunk.
Dr Walensky criticized the lack of resources in an interview earlier this month. “I really think that after Covid, people will understand that we really need this robust infrastructure,” she said. “However, we are here in August 2022 and we don’t have the resources to deploy a massive vaccine in the fall.”
The companies have been creating refitted photographs at phenomenal speed, a testament to the mRNA technology that Pfizer and Moderna have exploited since the early months of the coronavirus outbreak. The FDA told companies just two months ago which formulation they should use for the new vaccine. By the end of this week, millions of those doses will be shipped to the states.
The tight timeline means federal regulators have less data on the redesigned booster than on any previous coronavirus vaccine, sparking controversy. Regulators have approved the vaccine without results from human trials, which have just begun.
Dr. Robert M. Califf, FDA commissioner, warned during Wednesday’s briefing that regulators don’t know exactly when they might see strong clinical data on how substances work. increase divalent.
“If we turn to preliminary data, we can easily get confused in one direction or the other,” he said. “No one is more worried than us about having the data available and getting it out there when we have solid data to talk about.”
John Wherry, director of the Institute of Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania, says that even if half of the vaccine targeting BA.5 doesn’t work well, recipients should still get some benefit from the original portion of the vaccine. .
“The gamble is that we won’t improve as much from BA.5 as we had hoped,” he said. “I don’t see it as a gamble.”
Currently, the FDA is relying on the results of mouse tests and previous human trials by Pfizer and Moderna on modified formulations that target earlier versions of the virus.
The Biden administration is considering the two-way warnings as a standard upgrade Americans should adopt ahead of potential winter bulls. It compared them to the flu shot, which is reconfigured every year to target more current versions of the flu virus.
Dr Marks said a possible wave of declines could peak around December 1, so launching the booster could help control existing infections and protect against an increase. increase in the future.
The boosters will come during a period when the White House has been mostly quiet about the pandemic. President Biden has rarely commented on the coronavirus in recent months, even after he tested positive in July. The White House is no longer holding regular news briefings on the federal pandemic response, as it did in the first year of the administration – a reflection of the fatigue many Americans have in complying with the measures. prevention of Covid.
New poll conducted by Morning Consult shows that Americans are less worried about the virus, including very liberals, who used to be among the most cautious.
“Covid-19 is the third leading cause of death in the United States. And it’s as if we just accepted that it’s going to happen,” said Mercedes Carnethon, an epidemiologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Immunization remains a cornerstone of the federal government’s Covid strategy, even as tests and treatments become widely available. The Biden administration has ordered more than 170 million doses for the fall campaign, and officials don’t expect shortages as they roll out.
“If it’s freezing cold and you have kids, you’ll dress them warmly. This is the concept here,” said Dr. Paul G. Auwaerter, clinical director of the division of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “You’re going to want to go into respiratory season with a virus that we know surprised us with a booster.”
Dr Marks said Wednesday that regulators hope the redesign will raise antibody levels in a way that restores the original vaccine-induced protection against symptomatic infections in many people. But Dr. Auwarter and other experts say researchers will still need to know more about how much antibody from new formulations translates to protection and what other measurements may be needed.
Dr. Califf said the government will also need to collect data in the field on how well the shots are performing. “The proof will be in the pudding,” Dr. Califf said.
Experts warn against trying to choose Moderna’s shot over Pfizer or vice versa; With human studies just beginning, scientists are at least a few weeks away from knowing if one brand offers better protection than the other.
Many Americans have recently been infected with variants in the Omicron family and have some protection against their attacks with the virus, a development the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can count on. comes in his own recommendations on how to use the new injections. An advisory committee to the CDC is scheduled to meet this week to decide on recommendations.
“For most people, the risk of dying at this point is very low because they have been infected or vaccinated, or more likely both,” said Dr. Gregory A. Poland, professor of medicine. department of infectious diseases and director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Poland, who has advised Moderna, Pfizer and White House officials on a coronavirus vaccine, said updating the booster shots the way the Food and Drug Administration did on Wednesday. Tu is like a “chase your tail” strategy, tweaking the design step by step to try to keep up with a fast-changing virus. Such a strategy could be susceptible to new and surprising variations that could complicate the federal immunization program, experts say.
Meanwhile, Dr. Poland said, the new booster has the potential to save the lives of some elderly people and people with weakened immune systems. But they are unlikely to make a significant impact on the rest of the population.
Asked on Wednesday how the new boost campaign would help younger, healthier Americans, Dr. Califf and Dr. Marks suggested they could prevent cases. Castlesometimes debilitating symptoms can last indefinitely beyond an initial episode of infection.
“The number one thing is to immunize people who are at high risk,” says Dr. Califf. “But I think we’ve also been hit hard by the long Covid emerging data.”
