President Joe Biden puts his hand on a man’s shoulder during a visit to the coronavirus disease vaccination site (COVID-19) at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, USA on April 6. 2021.
Kevin Lemarque | Reuters
The Biden administration is preparing for the potential need to make vaccines against the Covid-19 vaccine, though nothing is certain, a senior U.S. official said Friday.
“Requiring additional features in the future is obviously a predictable potential event,” President Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to President Joe Biden’s Covid response team, told reporters. “I want to emphasize that while there is certainly speculation about this, this is far from saying that this is what will happen.”
If Americans needed booster shots, the U.S. government would probably have to make arrangements with drug manufacturers to supply additional doses and make plans for vaccine distribution.
Slavitt said Friday that the administration has thought about the need to insure additional doses.
“I can assure you that when we do our planning, when the president orders the purchase of additional vaccines as he has done, and when we focus on all the opportunities to expand production that we are talking about here, we are very mindful. scenarios like this, “he said.
Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, in comments issued for the first time on Thursday, said it is likely that people will need a third dose, or booster shot, of a Covid-19 vaccine within the next 12 months to full vaccination. Bourla also said people may need to be vaccinated against coronavirus every year, as for seasonal flu.
“A likely scenario is that there will probably be a need for a third dose, between six and twelve months, and from there there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that has to be confirmed. And again, variants will play a key role, ”he told CNBC’s Bertha Coombs during an event with CVS Health.
“It is extremely important to suppress the group of people who may be susceptible to the virus,” he added.
Pfizer and Moderna have said their two-dose Covid-19 vaccines, which use similar technology, remain highly effective six months after the second dose. However, researchers still do not know how long the protection against the virus lasts after six months of being completely vaccinated, although health experts expect the protection to decrease after a while.
On Thursday, Biden administration chief scientific officer Covid’s response, David Kessler, said Americans should expect to receive booster shots to protect themselves against coronavirus variants. He told U.S. lawmakers that currently authorized vaccines are highly protective, but noted that new variants could “challenge” the effectiveness of the shots.
“We don’t know everything at the moment,” he told the house’s selective subcommittee for the coronavirus crisis.
“We are studying the durability of the antibody response,” he said. “It sounds strong, but there’s a certain decrease in that, and certainly the variants challenge … make these vaccines work more. So I think for planning, just for planning, I think we should to expect encouragement. “
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC on Wednesday that the company expects to have a booster vaccine for the two-dose vaccine available in the fall.