The two leading US vaccine makers, Pfizer and Moderna, are hoping to release a fourth dose of COVID-19 soon, but some experts doubt they are needed as the number of Covid cases in the US continues to plummet and the virus poses less of a threat. a threat to the Americans.
Dr. Anna Durbin, an international public health expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, has criticized Pfizer, Moderna and the White House for insisting on rolling out COVID-19 booster shots before they are needed. She told ABC this week that she doesn’t believe many Americans would benefit from extra shots.
“In my opinion, there are very few people who require a fourth dose,” she said.
In August, as the White House was mulling plans to roll out the first batch of COVID-19 booster shots, Durbin also came out with criticism, telling that the decision was not backed by scientific evidence.
A very small number of Americans are already eligible for a fourth COVID-19 shot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is advising people with weakened immune systems to get a booster shot now, despite not being cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Dr. Anna Durbin (pictured), a public health expert at Johns Hopkins University, says there is little evidence to support a fourth COVID-19 shot for Americans.
However, only one in every 30 Americans is immune-compromised and eligible for a fourth shot right now.
Pfizer and Moderna are hoping to distribute their fourth doses to the rest of the Americans. Earlier this week, Moderna submitted data to the FDA to approve a fourth dose for all adults in the US. This comes after Pfizer released fourth-vaccination data for all Americans aged 65 and over.
The FDA is expected to allow both companies to add an additional shot to their Covid treatment regimen.
“In general, it is still too early to recommend a fourth dose, except for those who are immunocompromised,” Dr. Paul Goepfert, professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told ABC.
American interest in getting more Covid shots hasn’t changed either, with the scale of the country’s vaccine rollout hitting a low this week.
The number of cases and deaths caused by the virus also continues to decline, and the “invisible” variant that has taken over much of Europe in recent months has so far failed to make much headway in the US.
The U.S. is reporting an average of 29,490 Covid cases daily as of Friday, down 10% from the past seven days, according to Johns Hopkins University. On average, 892 people die every day across the country, a 25 percent decrease from the last seven days.
The “hidden” variant, nicknamed for its ability to evade detection with some sequencing techniques, is considered the most contagious version of Covid, but it’s just as mild as the Omciron BA.1 version that took control of the virus. world last year.
BA.2 accounts for 35 percent of active Covid cases in the US, with BA.1 still dominating, according to the latest data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week.
However, BA.2’s share of Covid infections in America is rising, with the variant accounting for just 23 percent of cases in the previous week.
Moderna CEO Stefan Bancel said this week that he expects a surge caused by BA.2 in the US soon and that his company’s vaccine will be needed to control it.
“There are already several countries around the world doing fourth-dose testing in people at high risk,” Bancel said in an interview with CNBC. Scream box.
“There is now a big wave of BA.2 option in Europe as many public health experts say it should start in the US very soon.”
However, more and more experts are saying otherwise.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we do see some sort of uptick,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a man who has often been one of the most cautious voices during the pandemic, said at the Washington Post event. This week.
“I really don’t see, unless something changes drastically, that there’s going to be a big spike.”
Experts at Harvard University said the BA.2 stealth variant, believed to be responsible for the recent spike in cases, probably already started the spike in America if it was going to do so anytime soon.
“In fact, there is no evidence of an increase in cases or deaths in the region that is consistent with the increase in BA.2 infections we are seeing,” Bronwyn McInnis, director of genomic pathogen surveillance at Harvard’s Broad Institute, told the Harvard Gazette. week.
While this has not yet had a significant impact on the number of cases, the data from abroad cited by Bancel is of some concern.
In some countries where the number of cases has been declining for several months, such as the UK, France and Denmark, infection rates suddenly started to rise last week. However, it appears that cases in these countries have stabilized and growth has stalled for now.
Internationally, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that more than 12 million cases of Covid were reported worldwide last week, up seven percent from the previous week.
However, the death toll dropped by 23 percent to less than 33,000 – another sign of the virus’s decline in deaths.
The rise in cases has been entirely concentrated in the Western Pacific region, where daily infections jumped 23 percent last week. In Europe, the number of infections has stabilized after a slight increase of two percent last week.
In any case, a fourth dose may be unavoidable, even if the number of cases remains low. Fauci, Bancel and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla were among those who said the extra dose was in the pipeline for months, with Bourla even saying annual injections would be needed over the next decade to fight the pandemic.
While vaccines are considered safe and effective by health officials around the world and have likely saved millions of lives over the past year, Pfizer and Moderna’s goals in vaccine deployment are not entirely humane.
Each of the companies has made billions of dollars selling vaccines in the US and around the world.
Pfizer, its partner BioNTech and Moderna estimate total COVID-19 vaccine sales this year at $50 billion, and those numbers will rise even higher if fourth doses are approved.
Shortly before Moderna filed, Pfizer filed with the FDA to get approval for a fourth Covid shot for Americans aged 65 and over.
Both companies also hope to introduce vaccinations for young children in the near future. Currently, the Moderna injection is only available for adults in the US, while the Pfizer vaccine is available for those over the age of five.
On Wednesday, Moderna announced the successful completion of Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine in children aged six months to 17 years.
Vaccines, which are four times less than in adults, were found to be about 40 percent effective in preventing infection from the Omicron variant — similar to the levels of protection it provides adults.
Pfizer has faced some challenges in distributing its vaccine to the youngest age groups. The company had to change the Covid vaccination schedule for the youngest children from two to three doses, as the smaller doses of three micrograms were almost completely ineffective for children aged three and four.
The New York-based firm also submitted data on Covid vaccinations for children under the age of five to regulators, although the approval process was put on hold earlier this year.