Why did the Biden administration recently call for people to get COVID-19 booster shots? Well, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention convinced the Biden administration to make the call.
Why did Biden call for COVID-19 booster shots?
Sources recently told Politico that there was new CDC data that “showed a worrying drop in vaccine efficacy over time.”
- Specifically, the data “showed a decline in the initial round of protection against COVID-19 infection that’s coincided with a resurgence in cases driven by the more contagious delta variant,” according to Politico.
This data was for all age groups and would vary depending on medical conditions and those who got their first COVID-19 shots at different times.
- “This is what moved the needle,” one top Biden official told Politico.
Why do we need COVID-19 booster shots?
Public health officials have been expressing concern about the delta variant of the novel coronavirus because it appears to be more transmissible among fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike.
The U.S. has been mulling over whether or not to give third COVID-19 shots to elderly people, per The Associated Press.
- But health officials have been monitoring daily COVID-19 case numbers in the U.S., showing all age groups may need the vaccine. There has been some talk about whether or not to call on elderly people only to get a booster shot, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
Officials said they’ve been looking at Israel, too, which “has been offering a coronavirus booster to people over 60 who were already vaccinated more than five months ago,” per The Associated Press.
- Specifically, the Israel data concerned officials because Israel is one of the top vaccinated countries in the world and “the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s protection against severe disease has fallen significantly for elderly people who got their second shot in January or February,” per The New York Times.