The government’s decision comes as cases of the highly contagious BA.5 variant remain high across the country. The administration on Friday said that it had secured 66 million doses of Moderna’s candidate. The Department of Health and Human Services recently made an advance purchase of 105 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine for $3.2 billion, timed for possible deployment in the fall.
The Biden administration has been busy contracting for the newly designed doses. While nearly half of those eligible for the first booster opted to get it, for example, fewer than 30 percent of eligible Americans have chosen to receive the second booster - their fourth shot in total. The number of recipients has been dropping with each new dose offered. “The antibodies stop that next dose from working” if the next dose is given too early, he added - a pattern that applies to other vaccines, such as tetanus or flu shots, as well.įederal officials were also concerned about the public’s patience with additional shots. As of midweek, health officials were still working out their specific advice about the reformulated shots. The federal government also plans to continue to stress that anyone who is eligible for additional shots should get them now and not wait for the fall. Children could be eligible as well, according to people familiar with the deliberations. recently that they could deliver millions of doses by mid-September, regulators decided it was better to wait for those shots.Īll adults are expected to be eligible for the updated booster shots. After both Pfizer and Moderna assured the F.D.A. New Guidelines: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosened its Covid-19 guidance, saying those exposed to the virus no longer need to quarantine.īut officials at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention argued that the government should concentrate instead on the fall campaign with updated doses - if the campaign could begin soon enough.Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser who was catapulted into the spotlight at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, said he would leave government service by the end of the year. Moderna’s Lawsuits: The vaccine manufacturer sued Pfizer and BioNTech in Massachusetts and Germany, claiming that its rivals’ Covid-19 shot copied groundbreaking technology that Moderna had developed before the pandemic.Boosters: The Biden administration plans to offer updated doses of the vaccine targeting the versions of the virus now predominant in the United States to Americans 12 and older soon after Labor Day.