Perspectives: Biden's Booster Shot Plan
Summary from the AllSides News Team
President Biden announced in August that his administration would begin offering a third “booster” shot to Americans eight months after their second dose of a Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine starting on Sept. 20. Since the FDA has already authorized certain immunocompromised people to get their third dose, Biden's plan prioritizes older people and health care workers. Many leading health officials have been apprehensive about the White House's premature decision to weigh in on unproven COVID-19 treatments. On Thursday, the respective leaders of the FDA and CDC told White House pandemic coordinator Jeffrey Zients that they might only be able to approve the vaccine produced by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech for "a subset of non-immunocompromised people" in the next several weeks. The U.S. is still waiting for data from other countries around the world like Israel, which began promoting booster shots for individuals 12 and older on Aug. 29.
The majority of voices across the spectrum seemed to agree that the Biden administration has put pressure on the FDA to approve booster shots. Left-rated outlets, which have generally been more critical of Biden since his Afghanistan "debacle," were more likely to take the stance that COVID-19 vaccines and subsequent boosters provide "extraordinary protection" against serious illness or death. Some right-rated outlets highlighted how shifting the public's attention towards booster shots "may send the wrong message about vaccines."
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Biden’s Controversial COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Plan Last month, the Biden administration announced a plan to begin administering third shots of the two mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to healthy people in mid-September to shore up potentially flagging immunity to the coronavirus.
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