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The coronavirus (Covid) is now a manageable concern for the majority of Americans, compared to the flu, and calls for little to no protection. Nonetheless, the virus continues to provide a serious risk to the elderly and the immunocompromised.
Around 300 Americans still may be away from Covid-related causes per day in the United States, with the majority of these fatalities being adults over the age of 70, medically vulnerable individuals, and people with compromised immune systems. So, should they now have a booster shot?
That’s the difficult topic that federal health officials must address.
The Census Bureau estimates that there are 53 million adults in the United States who are 65 or older or about 16 percent of the total population. In addition, seven million Americans suffer from weakened immune systems as a result of diseases or medications.
According to Dr. Céline Gounder, an infectious disease specialist and senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, while coronavirus infection can be an inconvenience or a mild illness for a relatively young, healthy adult, it can cause severe illness, hospitalization, and even death in older adults and immunocompromised people.
Immunocompromised patients and residents in nursing homes should have a booster shot every six months, according to Dr. Gounder. “I don’t believe that everyone should receive annual boosters.”
When they should have the subsequent dose, several Americans who received their most recent boosters in the autumn are inquiring with their doctors. For elderly folks and those with weaker immune systems, extra vaccinations have already been advised in Britain and Canada beginning this spring.
The Food and Drug Administration may or may not follow suit. The FDA announced in January that it will switch to a single injection given to all Americans each fall, as is the case for the flu, in an effort to simplify what had grown to be a baffling array of immunization regimens.
The agency stated in a statement, “We anticipate that streamlining the Covid-19 vaccine regimen in the not-too-distant future will lead to the vaccination of more individuals in the coming years.
A one-size-fits-all strategy might not be effective. The director of the precision vaccinations program at Boston Children’s Hospital and a consultant to the F.D.A., Dr. Ofer Levy, stated that Americans are “different in our age, we’re diverse in our risk, and we’re diverse in our perceptions of risk.”
A high-risk individual should ideally be able to speak with a healthcare professional and determine whether an additional dose of the vaccination is required, according to Dr. Levy.
Nearly all vaccine recipients see a reduction in their ability to fight infection after just a few months. Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician, and health policy expert at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said that in people with weakened immune systems, protection from a booster shot in the fall “wanes fast enough that by the spring or summer, they are no longer distinguishable from people who didn’t get boosted.”
Immunocompromised individuals only benefit from the booster for a very, very brief time, according to Dr. Faust. “Thus, you need to re-up it.”
A high-risk individual should ideally be able to speak with a healthcare professional and determine whether an additional dose of the vaccination is required, according to Dr. Levy.
Nearly all vaccine recipients see a reduction in their ability to fight infection after just a few months. Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician, and health policy expert at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said that in people with weakened immune systems, protection from a booster shot in the fall “wanes fast enough that by the spring or summer, they are no longer distinguishable from people who didn’t get boosted.”
Immunocompromised individuals only benefit from the booster for a very, very brief time, according to Dr. Faust. “Thus, you need to re-up it.”
Data from the initial round of boosters, which were given in the fall of 2021 and targeted the virus’s original variant, were cited by Dr. Faust. The bivalent boosters that were introduced last fall have received significantly less research on their efficacy, and there is no information on when the subsequent round of extra immunizations should be administered.
Several experts are cautious to suggest another shot for any group of people, even the most vulnerable, due to the lack of knowledge.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Vaccine Education Center and a consultant to the Food and Drug Administration, said: “With the paucity of data, I don’t think it’s fair to say to people, “Inject yourselves with a biological agent.”
Dr. Offit said of federal health officials, “It’s incumbent upon them to present the basis on which that suggestion is founded when they make recommendations.” If not, they simply state, “Trust us.”
Regarding intentions to think about providing boosters more frequently than once a year, the F.D.A. made no comments.
The agency issued a statement saying, “We continue to closely watch the developing data in the United States and globally, and we will base any decision on subsequently updated boosters upon those data.”
It’s uncertain how many people would choose to receive another booster shot even if the F.D.A. approved one this spring. Just 42% of persons over the age of 65 and just over 16% of Americans have chosen to receive the bivalent shots.
I do worry that we haven’t even provided the bivalent vaccine to the bulk of immunocompromised and old people, she said, adding that it’s wonderful to concentrate on another dosage of the bivalent vaccine. “Maybe we ought to concentrate on those populations.”
