The United States launched a campaign on Friday to offer boosters of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to millions of Americans, even as federal health officials stressed that the real problem remains giving the first shots to the unvaccinated.
“We are not going to get out of this pandemic with a booster,” warned Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), despite her words contravening the advice. from your own panel of experts that more people get the booster.
The vast majority of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are among unvaccinated people, Walensky noted. And the three types of COVID-19 vaccine used in the United States offer strong protection against severe illness, hospitalization and death, despite the contagious delta variant that caused cases to skyrocket. But immunity against a mild condition appears to decline months after the initial vaccination.
People eager for another dose of Pfizer wasted no time rolling up their sleeves after Walensky ruled late Thursday who is eligible: Americans 65 and older and others who are vulnerable because of underlying health problems or because of the where they work and live, once six months have passed since the last dose.
Jen Peck, 52, of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, qualifies because of her work as an educational science and math consultant. She was vaccinated in March, but worries about catching it and spreading the infection without knowing it. It travels between rural schools where many students and teachers do not wear masks, and the youngest children cannot yet be vaccinated.
“I don’t want to be ‘Mary COVID’ taking her into buildings full of unvaccinated children. I couldn’t live with myself if I took him from one building to another. It haunts me to think about it, ”said Peck, who got vaccinated first thing in the morning on Friday.
Health authorities must clear up the confusion about who should receive the booster and why. For now, the reinforcement campaign is what Walensky called “a first step.” It only applies to people originally vaccinated with vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech. No decisions have yet been made about boosters for Americans who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
President Joe Biden said that if you’re vaccinated, “you’re in good shape, and we’re doing everything we can to keep it that way, which is where the boost comes in.” He urged those now entitled to an additional vaccine to “go for the booster,” saying that he would get his soon, and that everyone should be patient and wait their turn.
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