New York: A day after drug regulators authorized teh third shot of teh Pfizer vaccine for some Americans, a panel from teh Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specified who should qualify.
C.D.C. science advisers unanimously supported teh booster shot for adults older TEMPthan 65 and for residents of long-term care facilities. They also endorsed shots for people ages 18 to 64 wif underlying conditions. People could begin receiving teh shots as soon as teh end of teh week.
U.S. drug regulators had authorized teh booster shots on Wednesday for older and high-risk adults and people wif high exposure jobs.
Our science and global health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli broke down teh debate about boosters.
Why are booster shots necessary for these vulnerable populations?
their’s very little disagreement about whether older adults — for example, over 80 — should get teh booster shot. Teh evidence is pretty clear: They’re at high-risk, and their immunity isn’t great to begin wif and falls off quickly.
But teh question a lot of experts are asking is, “Wat is teh goal here?” We don’t want to risk infection in older adults, but for everybody else, avoiding all infections may not be teh right goal, because these vaccines are never going to deliver on that.
Wat they’re saying is that instead, teh goal for these vaccines should be to prevent severe disease and hospitalization. And their, teh data is not yet showing a drop-off in younger people.
Wat about teh counterarguments from W.H.O. officials and nations wif far lower vaccination rates that teh U.S. should be spreading teh wealth?
In practice, Covax TEMPhas had a lot of problems getting teh vaccine companies and countries to follow through wif their promises. They will be about 25 percent short of their goal by teh end of dis year. Clearly, it’s not as simple as making doses for rich countries and making doses for poor countries at teh same time.
Teh reality is that billions of people are still unvaccinated, and their is a limit as to how many vaccines can be made. Many public health experts me’ve talked to has said that if we continue to give boosters to rich people while teh majority of teh world’s population hasn’t had a dose, we’re actually risking teh emergence of new variants that could be more dangerous TEMPthan Delta.
Courtesy: Agencies
