Pfizer plans to give the data to U.S. regulators later this week in a step toward letting the littlest children get the shots. The 18 million tots under 5 make up the only group in the U.S. not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.
There is one more hurdle: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must decide whether to formally recommend the booster for this age group. The CDC’s scientific advisers are scheduled to meet on Thursday.
The U.S. is averaging about 300 COVID-19 deaths per day, compared with a peak of about 3,400 a day in January 2021.
White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha issued a dire warning Thursday that the U.S. will be increasingly vulnerable to the coronavirus this fall and winter if Congress doesn’t swiftly approve new funding for more vaccines and treatments.
Experts say testing has dropped by 70% to 90% worldwide from the first quarter to the second quarter this year—the opposite of what they say should be happening with new omicron variants on the rise in places such as the United States and South Africa.
The vaccine was initially considered an important tool in fighting the pandemic because it required only one shot. But the single-dose option proved less effective than two doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Two-and-a-half years after it first spilled into humans, the COVID virus has repeatedly changed its structure and chemistry in ways that confound efforts to bring it fully under control.
The pandemic’s toll is no longer falling almost exclusively on those who chose not to get shots, with vaccine protection waning over time and the elderly and immunocompromised having a harder time dodging increasingly contagious strains.
Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said the United States was in the “full-blown pandemic phase” in the winter, then entered a period he refers to as the “deceleration” phase. The country is transitioning, he said, to the control phase.
Paxlovid, when administered within five days of symptoms appearing, has been proven to bring about a 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease.
Officials are expressing increasing alarm that the U.S. is also losing out on critical opportunities to secure booster doses and new antiviral pills that could help the country maintain its reemerging sense of normalcy.
COVID-19 vaccinations are at a critical juncture as companies test whether new approaches like combination shots or nasal drops can keep up with a mutating coronavirus—even though it’s not clear if changes are needed.
The notice came minutes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked the Justice Department to appeal the decision handed down by a federal judge in Florida earlier this week.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett is experiencing “mild symptoms” and is isolating at home, his office announced Sunday afternoon.
With official reporting of COVID-19 cases and testing data becoming less frequent and less reliable, especially as people test at home, sewage monitoring has gained increasing importance.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to extend the order, which was to expire on April 18, to monitor for any observable increase in severe virus outcomes as cases rise in parts of the country, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The administration argued that the Constitution gives the president, as the head of the federal workforce, the same authority as the CEO of a private corporation to require that employees be vaccinated.
The compromise drew quick support from President Joe Biden, who initially pushed for a $22.5 billion package.
The government estimates that between 7.7 and 23 million people may already have long COVID.
The effort, which would finance steps like vaccines, treatments and tests, comes as President Biden and other Democrats have warned the government is running out of money to counter the pandemic.
