President Joe Biden puts his hand on a man’s shoulder while visiting a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination site at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, USA, April 6, 2021.
Kevin Lemarque | Reuters
The Biden administration is preparing for the potential need for booster shots with Covid-19 vaccine, although nothing is certain, a top US official said Friday.
“Requiring additional shots in the future is clearly a foreseeable potential event,” Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to President Joe Biden’s Covid response team, told reporters at a news conference on Friday. “I want to emphasize that while there is certainly speculation about it, this is anything but a claim that this is going to happen.”
Should Americans need booster shots, the US government would likely need to make arrangements with the drug manufacturers to supply additional doses and plan for vaccine distribution.
Slavitt said Friday the government has been reflecting on the need to secure additional doses.
“I can assure you that when we make our planning, when the president orders the purchase of additional vaccines as he has, and when we focus on all of the production expansion opportunities that we are talking about here, we very much like those scenarios. have in mind, ”he said.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in comments first aired Thursday that people are likely to need a third dose, or booster shot, of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of being fully vaccinated. Bourla also said people may need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus every year, such as for the seasonal flu.
“One likely scenario is that a third dose will likely be needed, somewhere between six and 12 months, and from there there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed. And again, the variants will play a key role,” he told CNBC’s Bertha Coombs at an event with CVS Health.
“It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people who may be susceptible to the virus,” he added.
Pfizer and Moderna have both said their two-dose Covid-19 vaccines, which use similar technology, remain highly effective six months after the second dose. However, researchers still don’t know how long protection against the virus lasts after six months of being fully vaccinated, although health experts expect protection to diminish over time.
On Thursday, David Kessler, the chief science officer for the Biden administration, said Americans should expect to receive booster shots to protect against coronavirus variants. He told US lawmakers that currently approved vaccines are highly protective, but noted that new variants could “challenge” the effectiveness of the injections.
“We don’t know everything at the moment,” he told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
“We are studying the durability of the antibody response,” he said. “It seems strong, but that’s declining a bit, and no doubt the variants are challenging … they make these vaccines work harder. So I think for planning purposes, just planning purposes, we should expect that maybe we should do that. boost. “
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC on Wednesday that the company hopes to get a booster shot for its two-dose vaccine that will be available in the fall.