President Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that he hopes COVID-19 boosters will increase vaccine durability so that “you will not necessarily need it” every six months or year.
“We would hope – and this is something that we’re looking at very carefully – that that third shot with the mRNA not only boosts you way up but increases the durability so that you will not necessarily need it every six months or a year,” Fauci said during “This Week” on ABC.
“We’re hoping it pushes it out more. If it doesn’t, and the data show we do need it more often, then we’ll do it,” he added.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky signed off on a CDC advisory panel’s recommendation to increase eligibility for booster shots to all American adults.
The decision means that all adults who are at least six months out since receiving their second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines are now able to get their third shot of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Booster shots have demonstrated the ability to safely increase people’s protection against infection and severe outcomes and are an important public health tool to strengthen our defenses against the virus as we enter the winter holidays. Based on the compelling evidence, all adults over 18 should now have equitable access to a COVID-19 booster dose,” Walensky said in a statement regarding the news.
The decision comes only weeks after children as young as 5 years old became eligible to get COVID-19 vaccine, much to the relief of parents and health officials seeking to have their kids inoculated in time for holiday gatherings.
Despite widespread vaccine availability, however, it has not stopped the U.S. from passing the grim milestone last week of recording more COVID-19 deaths in 2021 than last year.