Washington – Newly updated COVID-19 boosters designed to target a dominant strain of the virus will be available in the next three weeks or so, assuming the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working through their processes for authorization as expected.
That was the prediction of White House COVID coordinator Dr Ashish Jha on Tuesday at an event hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
In late June, the Food and Drug Administration directed Moderna and Pfizer to make vaccines for the upcoming winter that targeted the more infectious BA.5 omicron variant, along with the original COVID strain. This work was in progress and the next step was for the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC to review the data from the companies as soon as they received it.
Neither the FDA nor the CDC have announced a timeline.
The rollout was expected sometime in September, but Jha’s estimate on Tuesday was the most specific yet.
“We’ll know more about this in the coming weeks and those vaccines will be available by early and mid-September,” he said, including again the warning that the FDA and CDC need to act before anything becomes official.
“But the big picture, the bottom line, is that these are major improvements in our vaccines,” Jha said. And those vaccines will come very soon. “
Jha also said he hopes there will eventually be enough supplies of the vaccine for any adult who wants a new booster to be able to get it, despite funding wrangling that has forced the federal government to order just enough for the most vulnerable Americans.
“We’re still working on trying to pull more resources from other places. I’d like to get to a point where every adult in America who wants a vaccine can get a vaccine. I hope we’ll be there. We’re not. There’s quite a bit yet in terms of the number of doses of vaccine that’s going to go away. We were able to buy it.”
“What’s really limiting us is the lack of resources, but we’re pulling off other high-priority items. So I hope we can make this available to every adult in America. We’ll know more about that in the coming weeks I think.”
The United States has so far contracted 105 million doses of newly updated boosters from Pfizer and 66 million doses from Moderna, the two leading manufacturers of COVID vaccines in the country. Both contracts with Pfizer and Moderna include an option for hundreds of millions of additional doses in the future, if the United States secures the money.
Between Pfizer and Moderna, if both companies can complete their orders, the US will have about 171 million doses of new shots. But more than 260 million Americans have already received at least one dose of the vaccine and would theoretically consider getting a booster.
On the other hand, the demand for reinforcements decreased with each campaign so that people would get another shot. For example, about 108 million people received their first booster dose.
The White House said it withdrew $5 billion to cover the cost of vaccines in the fall and winter. And between the $3.2 billion awarded to Pfizer and the $1.74 billion given to Moderna so far, the government has reached that limit.
Since fall and winter usually bring a high number of flu cases, Jha has also urged the public to get their flu shots and updated COVID boosters as soon as possible — or risk a severe winter of illness with far fewer mitigation efforts than their respective winter pandemic so far. .
“Our healthcare system is going to have a serious problem unless we take proactive action about preventing it — so if we don’t do something and just kind of hope for the best, I think we could end up getting into a lot of trouble this fall and winter,” Jha said.
Noting that people can get a flu and COVID vaccine on the same day, Jha said he hopes the technology will improve next year to the point where there is a two-in-one booster kit available for both flu and COVID.
He also emphasized the importance of improving ventilation in businesses and schools, which he also prioritized in the latest CDC guidelines issued last week.
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