Americans likely to need annual COVID-19 booster, officials say — but questions abound

 

Experts raised questions about comments from U.S. officials this week that the new bivalent COVID-19 boosters are likely the first of what will become annual shots against SARS-CoV-2.

 

“We likely are moving toward a path with a vaccination cadence similar to that of the annual influenza vaccine, with annual, updated COVID-19 shots matched to the currently circulating strains for most of the population,” Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a White House briefing on Tuesday.

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There is concern, however, that similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and influenza have been overestimated as scientists have raced to keep up with the emergence of new variants and repeated waves of infection.

 

“I don’t think it’s possible to telegraph the behavior of SARS-CoV-2 at this point. There are some analogies of influenza, but they only hold to a certain extent,” Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Healio.

 

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https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20220908/americans-likely-to-need-annual-covid19-booster-officials-say-but-questions-abound

 

 

 

No, thank you.