The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stick by its recommendation for everyone including babies to get vaccinated against Covid.
In fresh guidance issued today, the health agency said that all Americans aged six months and up should get the new updated booster shot this fall.
The CDC said healthy children and adults ‘still experience severe COVID-19 illness’ and that ‘antibodies from vaccination, previous infection, or both weaken over time’.
The new booster rollout began last month and includes vaccines that have been updated to protect against sub-variants that have been driving a rise in cases.
The vaccines have been shown to be highly safe, carrying a vanishingly small risk of serious side effects, but questions about their efficacy have grown over time.
The CDC’s recommendation means the vaccine is safe for even very young children, but some health officials have questioned if a shot for babies is necessary
This graph shows the uptake for the fall 2022 booster in America across different age groups. The dark purple line represents those aged 65 and older, the dotted pink line is for 50-64-year-olds, the solid green line for 25-49-year-olds, dotted green for 18-24, solid yellow for 12-17, thickest dotted yellow for 5-11 and dotted yellow line at the bottom for 2-4 years.
America is an international outlier in recommending Covid boosters for younger age groups, with other countries previously only offering them to older adults.
But doctors in the US say the recommendation is because of the country’s healthcare model, with the blanket recommendation needed to ensure health insurance companies cover the costs.
The UK, for comparison, is rolling out the updated Covid booster only to adults aged 65 years and older — saying they are the group most at risk for severe disease.
Dr Ashish Jha, the former White House Covid coordinator, said the UK’s decision was not based on calculations about who would benefit the most, but because the government cannot effectively afford to offer the shots to everyone.
Last year, the CDC also recommended the Covid bivalent booster for everyone aged six months and over.
Dr Paul Offit, who advises the FDA on a range of shots for infectious diseases, previously told DailyMail.com that middle-aged and younger Americans without chronic diseases don’t need another Covid booster shot because they already have strong enough immunity through previous Covid vaccines and infections to prevent severe illness this winter.
Since September last year, bivalent mRNA Covid boosters have been recommended in the US, but they were designed to protect against variants that are no longer widely circulating.
Over the past couple of months, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the newest booster, made by Pfizer and Moderna, which protects against the Omicron variant XBB.1.5.
Also approved is biotech company Novavax’s protein-based shot.
New variants EG.5 and BA.2.86 sparked alarm in recent months over evidence they were the most infectious yet, with EG.5 currently being dominant in the US.
The updated vaccines are targeted at variants XBB.1.5 — which are now only behind a small proportion of cases — but tests show they should still provide protection against the currently circulating strains.
Official data showed there were 18,139 Covid hospital admissions nationwide over the week ending September 30, down six percent from the previous week.
The number was well-below this year’s peak of 44,400 admissions recorded in January.
Content source – www.soundhealthandlastingwealth.com