Researchers and policymakers have reacted with unusual intensity to the decision by the Biden administration to give Covid boosters to fully vaccinated Americans. It is seen as a subversion of regular decisionmaking, relying upon data that appears more dramatic than it might be, and undermining US commitments to other countries to support vaccine delivery to ensure that more people are inoculated quicker.
It was called a mockery by vaccine equity by the World Health Organizations Director for Africa. This is according to scientists and ethicists in the US. They hope to have the decision reversed, but they are unlikely to succeed.
Americans led the fight against AIDS, but we also led the fight to eradicate smallpox," Lawrence Gostin (faculty director at the ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University) says. It is shocking to me that in a world crisis like this, we haven't chosen to be the same.
Recap: Wednesday's announcement by the White House stated that anyone aged 18 and older who has had two doses of Moderna or Pfizer mRNA vaccines will be eligible for a third booster eight months later. Although the shots will be given first to elderly and long-term care residents, they can also be used to increase immunity for anyone who wants them. According to the White House, the campaign will begin at 80,000 vaccination sites on September 20.
According to White House Covid-19 Task Force members who spoke at the briefing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released several pieces of research that morning as the trigger for the decision. The research found that mRNA vaccines are becoming less effective in preventing Covid-19 infections in patients in hospitals, residents of nursing homes, and adults who were vaccinated in multiple New York State registries. The research was performed by CDC scientists as well as academic medical groups. It was published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report, which is vetted and edited by researchers but not formally peer reviewed.
The key word is infection. Three studies showed that the vaccine's effectiveness against infection fell from 95 percent to 84 percent in the clinical trials, 79.8 % among New Yorkers and 53 percent among nursing home residents. Researchers point out, however, that the original purpose of the vaccine campaign as documented in the clinical trials that permitted the formulas to become legal was to prevent serious illness and hospitalization. This new research doesn't prove that those numbers have changed. For example, 91.9 to 95.3 per cent of New Yorkers were protected against developing serious illness that required hospitalization.
In other words, the case for boosters might be based upon preventing mild illnesses, which are those not severe enough to warrant hospital admission. The federal representatives who presented the booster decision said that vaccine protection could be further degraded. "While this data confirms that vaccine defense is high against the worst outcomes from COVID, but we are concerned that this trend of decline we are witnessing in the months ahead will lead to reduced protection against severe illness, hospitalization and death," Surgeon General Vivek Muthy stated at the briefing.
This was a blow to WHO. Their director-general pleaded with rich countries to delay booster shots until September so that the most vulnerable people in poor countries are protected. Mike Ryan, the executive director of World Health Organizations Health Emergencies Programme, said in a press conference that he knew the decision was coming.
