The Government of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, predicted this Sunday that it is likely that in the future a booster dose of vaccines against covid-19 for the general public will be approved, despite the fact that a panel of experts He has refused to recommend it for everyone, only those over 65.
The chief epidemiologist of the White House, Anthony Fauci, explained in an interview with the television network CNN that the “optimal” is likely to be a booster dose for everyone, despite a panel of experts from the Agency of US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will choose not to recommend it.
Still, Fauci said she respects the decision made Friday by the FDA’s advisory committee to only advise her for those 65 and older.
A “GOOD” RECOMMENDATION FOR FAUCI
“I don’t think they made a mistake,” said Fauci, calling the FDA experts’ recommendation “good.”
During the debate of more than eight hours of the advisory committee of the US regulator, with interventions of dozens of scientists from the US and other countries, such as Israel and the United Kingdom, doubts in the international community about the safety and security were evident. relevance of the booster vaccine for those over 16 years of age.
Finally, this panel voted in favor of recommending the application of the third dose of Pfizer serum for those over 65 years of age and the high-risk population, after a first vote in which it rejected for broad support to administer it to the majority of people , considering that there is insufficient evidence of its benefits.
Fauci indicated that, despite the results of these votes, new data arrives each week on the evolution of the pandemic and vaccines, with which he predicted that there is likely to be “an evolution” of the decision of the FDA panel of experts.
In a similar way, the director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis Collins, said that it would be “a surprise” for him if a third dose of the vaccine is not approved.
“It would be a surprise if it is not clear in the next few weeks that it is necessary to expand the administration of booster doses,” Collins told Fox News.
In that sense, he remarked that, according to the data they have seen in the US and Israel, it is “clear” that the effectiveness of vaccines fades over time: “We need to react to this,” he added.
The recommendation of the FDA experts has thwarted the plans of the Biden Government, which had given its explicit support to the application of the third dose for everyone and began to make plans to start its administration for those over 16 years of age.
THE WHITE HOUSE RECOGNIZES “SOME CONFUSION” ON THIRD DOSE
Fauci acknowledged on CNN that there may have been “some confusion” after Biden announced that they were going to administer a third dose to the general public starting September 20, without the FDA having yet given its necessary go-ahead. .
According to Johns Hopkins University, USA, the country most affected by covid-19 in the world, has registered more than 42 million infections and more than 673,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
Fauci ruled out that the US will reach one million deaths from covid-19 if measures are adopted.
“I do not think that all this is inevitable, we have the ability (to avoid it) in our hands with all vaccines, which are very efficient and effective,” said the epidemiologist.
He explained that the way to prevent this death toll from being reached is to ensure that all those who are not vaccinated end up being immunized.
In another interview with the ABC channel, Fauci stressed that it is possible that data on vaccines for children under 12 years old will be available in mid-autumn to evaluate them for approval.
Currently, there is no approved vaccine for children under 12 years of age in the United States and there is only one, Pfizer’s, which has emergency authorization for adolescents between 12 and 15 years of age.
So far, more than 211 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine in the US (63% of the population) and more than 181 million are fully immunized (54.5% of the population). , indicates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, in English).
One of the US states most impacted by covid-19 is Mississippi, which leads the number of deaths per capita and if it were a country it would be only behind Peru worldwide.
Given these data, the governor of Mississippi, Republican Tate Reeves, who opposes Biden’s mandates to force federal employees and private companies to get vaccinated, considered that the death toll is “an indicator that is lagging behind.” because the total number of covid-19 cases has dropped in recent weeks from 3,600 to 1,800.
Asked what he plans to do to end the high death toll, Reeves said he believes in the individual responsibility of Americans. “Individuals in Mississippi are going to make the best decisions to take care of themselves,” he said.
And he called the workers an “attack” on the mandates to get vaccinated ordered by Biden.
“The question here is not what we do in Mississippi, but what the president is trying to impose on the American worker,” he said.
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