A new vaccine against COVID-19 is due to be launched next month, but health experts and analysts say it is likely to be met with skepticism even as hospitalizations caused by “Eris”, a variant of the Omicron form of the coronavirus, rise throughout the country, write Reuters.
Some public health experts hope Americans will welcome the new vaccine as they would the flu. But demand for the vaccine has fallen sharply since 2021, when it first became available, and more than 240 million people in the US, or 73 percent of the population, have received at least one shot.
In the fall of 2022, when most people had either the COVID virus or the vaccine, fewer than 50 million people had received the vaccines.
Healthcare providers and pharmacies such as CVS Health ( CVS.N ) will next month begin offering the vaccine, updated to fight the Omicron version of the virus that has dominated since last year.
They will struggle with waning concern about the virus, as well as fatigue and skepticism about the merits of this vaccine, said Ashley Kirzinger, director of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The main reason vaccinated people gave in KFF surveys earlier this year for avoiding annual vaccines was that they believed they had protection against the virus because of previous vaccines or infections, she said.
Makers of COVID-19 vaccines have lowered their expectations for this fall’s vaccination campaign, with Pfizer — the biggest maker of mRNA vaccines with BioNTech — recently warning it may need to cut jobs if it doesn’t do well . Its biggest rival, Moderna, has admitted that demand could be as high as 50 million hits.
Last year, Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine sales topped $56 billion worldwide; analysts project about $20 billion for this year.
Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said he doesn’t expect the fall campaign to match last year’s.
“Look at what happened last winter. It was 50 million in the US, and it looks like it will be less than that, given that there is less concern about COVID this year than last year,” Yee said.
Vaccin post pandemic
The COVID public health emergency ended in May, and the government turned over much of the job of vaccinating America to the private sector. More than 1.1 million people in the United States have died from COVID, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
CDC Director Mandy Cohen said in a podcast last week that she expects the injections — which still need to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and recommended by the CDC — to be rolled out in the third or fourth week of September. She suggested that Americans should see these shots as an annual measure to protect themselves, along with the annual flu shot.
As with the flu, Pfizer (PFE.N)/BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE), Moderna (MRNA.O) and Novavax (NVAX.O) have created versions of the COVID vaccine to try to match the version on which I believe will circulate this fall. The photos are of the XBB.1.5, a sub-variant that is similar to the EG.5 and also a sub-line of the still-dominant Omicron variant.
Hospitalizations related to COVID-19 are up more than 40 percent from recent lows in June, but are still more than 90 percent below the peak levels reached during the Omicron outbreak in January 2022, according to CDC data.
evidence
Some doctors suggest that annual shots should target the elderly and other high-risk people, who are most likely to have dire outcomes if they catch COVID-19.
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University and a liaison to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said ACIP may be making a weaker recommendation for younger, healthier people. This could also affect demand.
“Should kids really be getting this reminder?” Schaffner said. “Should the average person with no underlying disease, who is a younger adult, get this vaccine, or should this vaccine now be a more targeted vaccine?”
The CDC recommended that children receive a single dose of last year’s updated vaccine for those ages 6 and older.
Dr. David Boulware, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Minnesota, said that according to research he has published, people who are boosted have less severe symptoms for a shorter duration.
“When you look at what you can do to reduce the duration of the disease, even if you do get sick, being incentivized is going to be the best way to do that,” he said.
2023-08-14 12:18:55
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