US eyes authorizing booster shots of COVID vaccines

The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot and could begin offering third shots as early as mid-September, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions, Report informs referring to The New York Times.

Officials are planning to announce the decision as early as this week. Their goal is to let Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know now that they will need additional protection against the Delta variant that is causing caseloads to surge across much of the nation. The new policy will depend on the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of additional shots.

Officials said they expect that recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was authorized as a one-dose regimen, will also require an additional dose. But they are waiting for the results of that firm’s two-dose clinical trial, expected later this month.

The first boosters are likely to go to nursing home residents, health care workers, and emergency workers. They would probably be followed by other older people who were near the front of the line when vaccinations began late last year, then by the general population. Officials envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received.