The Biden administration will be giving elderly Americans a second COVID-19 booster shot, multiple people familiar with the plan
told The New York Times.
Those above the age of 50 will be able to get a second booster of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines.
However, multiple issues complicate the plan as the administration has to calculate when the next COVID-19 wave could hit the U.S., sources told the Times. The administration will want to get the second booster to the elderly before another wave hits, but not too far before that protection could wane.
Other complications include how to explain the plan to the public and how long the second booster's protection will remain strong, the Times noted.
White House adviser
Anthony Fauci said last week that COVID-19 cases could begin increasing in the coming weeks.
"I would not be surprised if in the next few weeks we see somewhat of either a flattening of our diminution or maybe even an increase," Fauci said on the ABC News podcast "Start Here."
However, it is unclear how dangerous this wave could be compared to past increases as the BA.2 variant begins to become the dominant strand in the U.S.
"It's got a transmission advantage over BA.1 which is the classic original Omicron, not a multi-fold advantage, but a percentage advantage which means that over time, it likely will be the dominant variant," the infectious disease expert told
Fox News host Neil Cavuto.
The World Health Organization (
WHO)
confirmed Wednesday that the BA.2 subvariant, also called the "stealth Omicron," is leading the spread of the coronavirus variant worldwide. The subvariant now makes the majority of cases sequenced by experts.
When Fauci was asked, "should we worry about it?" he responded that BA.2 is already highly recognizable and that its characteristics need to be further examined to make that determination. But, he confirmed that BA.2 "does not appear to be any more serious when it comes to complications like the need for hospitalization."
"And it doesn't appear that it escapes immune protection any more or less than the original Omicron," he added.
"So the only distinguishing feature is that it's more transmissible, which is accounting for the spikes that we're seeing throughout the world, including in the
European Union and the U.K.," he added.
Meanwhile, the technical lead for WHO's COVID response team, Maria Van Kerkhove, said during a press conference on Wednesday that "about 86 percent of the sequences that are available from the last four weeks are this BA.2 sublineage the rest are BA.1. So we are seeing an increasing proportion of BA.2 being detected."
Echoing Fauci's remarks, Kerkhove said that BA.2 is already spreading across the world.
"Omicron is a highly transmissible variant of concern. BA.2 is more transmissible than BA.1 and what we are starting to see in some regions of the world in some countries is an uptick in cases again," she added.
The assessment of
BA.2 transmissibility and severity comes as COVID-related restrictions began relaxing nationwide in the United States. This week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams
ended the city's vaccine mandate for athletes and performers. Earlier this month, the city lifted school mask mandates and proof of COVID vaccine requirements for some indoor settings.
COVID cases increased 7 percent worldwide during the period between March 14 and March 20 compared to the week before. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the original BA.1 Omicron variant is still predominant in the U.S., but BA.2 is on the rise.
I'm worried on this and this fall and winter 2022-2023 soon as the wave will getting worse by each new variants as mask mandates will keep returning FOREVER. Is the pandemic will go ever longer for years?
Plus you want a sob story ask me about my aunt the last year of her life. Lock downs harmed us emotionally with that.
