Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an infectious disease authority in the United States, said three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine may become a regular dosing regimen.
Fauci reported yesterday, citing two Israeli studies that showed a reduction in the number of COVID-19 infections in those who received the third dose of the vaccine on the 2nd (local time), CNN broadcast yesterday.
"We have good reason to believe that the third dose is durable," Fauci said.
U.S. health experts, including Director Fauci and Rochelle Wallensky, CDC Director, Food and Drug Administration, and Acting FDA Director, announced last month that all Americans would be offered Booster Shots starting the week of September 20. There is.
Fauci, however, said that it would ultimately be a matter for the FDA to decide whether Americans should receive a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
In fact, the FDA plans to hold an advisory group meeting made up of external experts on the 17th on whether to vaccinate the booster shot.
Prior to this, pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna have applied to the FDA for approval to administer the third dose six or eight months after the second dose.
Vivek Mercy, director of the Public Health Services Group, said that if the FDA advisory board decides to recommend a booster shot, a broad population will be vaccinated, and vaccination could begin as early as the week of the 20th.
He added that someday in the future we may be able to determine who needs a booster shot and who doesn't, but there are currently no indicators to tell.
For this reason, General Mercy added, not only recommending that all, including those who have had COVID-19 in the past, get the vaccine, but also comprehensively administering booster shots to maintain and prolong the immune effect.
In the United States, after the booster shot vaccination plan was announced, calls to schedule the vaccination are flooding the country, CNN reported.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that Acting FDA Commissioner Woodcock and CDC Commissioner Wallensky recommended that the White House reduce plans to vaccinate the general public.
This is because health authorities need more time to collect and review the necessary data.
They told the White House that the FDA and CDC could decide within a few weeks whether or not to recommend boostershot vaccines to Pfizer vaccinated people, especially a small fraction of them.
This is a smaller target than the original announcement that Pfizer, Moderna, or everyone who has been vaccinated would get a booster shot.
"We have always said we will follow science, and that's part of the ongoing process," a White House spokeswoman said in a statement.
The spokesperson added that the government is awaiting FDA review and approval of BoosterShot and a recommendation from the CDC.
Director Fauci and Director Wallensky assessed that the 'mu mutation' from Colombia, newly designated by the World Health Organization as a 'mutation of interest', is not an urgent threat.
"The key is that we're paying attention," Fauci said. "We take all of that seriously. But we don't see it as an urgent threat right now."
Director Wallensky said delta mutations still account for more than 99% of the United States, and mu mutations are rare.
The fourth re-spread of COVID-19 in the United States continues.
According to the New York Times, on the 2nd, the average daily number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States for the past 7 days was 164,326.
Oregon, Hawaii, South Carolina, Washington, and the Dominion Guam recorded the highest number of new cases since the new pandemic in the past week.
In addition, the average number of hospitalized patients per day was 101,572, with 15,500 in Florida alone, the state with the highest number of inpatients.
The average daily death toll stood at 1,521, up 67% from two weeks ago.
That's nearly half of the 3,352 deaths on January 12 this year, when the average daily death toll peaked.