FDA Approves New COVID Vaccine, No Cure For Stupid Antivaxxers On Horizon
Should be effective against current subvariants, so hell yes, get it.
The Food and Drug Administration yesterday gave its approval for new COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, for use in anyone five years old and up. Once the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention formally recommends who should get the new vaccines, the shots should become available later this week.
The new shots are targeted to protect against the Omicron subvariants that are the current source of most new infections, and are approved for use regardless of whether someone has had a previous COVID vaccination. The idea is to make getting a COVID vaccine a fall routine like getting a flu shot (and for us folks over 60, an RSV shot and a reminder that our beloved early-seasons “Simpsons” references are now as old as jokes from “Dobie Gillis” were when “The Simpsons” premiered).
Ahem.
As the Associated Press ‘splainers,
The FDA pointedly isn’t calling this latest round a “booster” but instead a vaccine updated to better match the currently circulating virus. The new recipe targets an omicron variant named XBB.1.5 — replacing outdated combination vaccines that mixed protection against the original coronavirus strain and an older version of omicron.
And while even the XBB.1.5 variant is no longer dominant, FDA determined that it’s close enough to coronavirus strains causing most COVID-19 illnesses today to offer good cross-protection. Like earlier versions, they’re expected to be most protective against COVID-19’s worst consequences rather than mild infection.
You may have heard online rumblings about yet another new Omicron subvariant called BA.2.86 that initially worried people because it had a lot of mutations from other variants. But hooray, says NBC News, “Emerging lab data, however, suggests it may not be immune-evasive or transmissible as initially feared.”
Last Thursday, Moderna and Pfizer both stated that their boosters appeared to work against BA.2.86, saying that the shots triggered a strong antibody response against the variant.
The CDC’s independent advisory panel on vaccines is set to meet today to issue recommendations on who should get the new vaccine. It’s likely to recommend the shot for older people and for those with chronic illnesses or weak immune systems at a minimum; it may also recommend the vaccine for younger healthy patients as a preventive measure, as NPR notes:
Some outside experts think everyone who's eligible should get boosted, especially because the number of people catching the virus and getting so sick they're ending up in the hospital and dying has been rising again for weeks.
"When it comes out, I will get one. I will encourage friends and family to get one," says Dr. Robert Wachter of the University of California, San Francisco. "I think it's important for us to maintain our immunity because COVID is still around and as we're seeing now it's still capable of infecting a lot of people and hurting and killing some of them."
Now that the pandemic state of emergency has ended, the vaccines will no longer be purchased by the government, but as the Washington Post notes, they should remain free of charge for everyone with private insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid. The CDC has also launched a “Bridge Access Program” to make the vaccines available to uninsured Americans at no charge. It’s one of those “check with your local health department” things.
Gosh, we wonder how civilized countries get healthcare to all their people. We hear it’s possible, but only if you give up your guns and start spelling “theater” as “theatre.”
Finally, people in Florida should completely ignore that state’s surgeon general, antivax quack Joseph Ladapo, who last weekend advised residents not to get the new vaccine. The man has faked medical data, and seems bent on putting people at risk for the sake of appealing to far-right anti-science loons. Good lord, these are weird times.
[FDA / AP / WaPo (no paywall) / NPR / NBC News]
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Hoping to get the ménage à trois of vaccinations(Covid,Flu,RSV) asap, but will plan it for a weekend because the covid vax has kicked my ass for two days every time.
OMG - Qevin just said, with a straight face, that public offices shouldn't be used for "personal gain" and government should be transparent. LOL x eleventy million, does he even KNOW who is the head of his cult?