In a press briefing Tuesday morning, White House COVID-19 coordinator Ashish Jha outlined a battle plan against BA.5, which, as of today, is estimated to account for 65 percent of U.S. cases . Tza highlighted the efforts and tools to prevent another towering wave of contamination, as seen with the initial micron in January. The plan includes a stronger push to vaccinate and immunize Americans, as well as renewed encouragement to test, treat, cover and improve indoor ventilation.
US COVID-19 cases are currently at a high of about 117,000 new cases per day — but that’s likely a significant underestimate given that many Americans are testing at home and not reporting their cases. Hospital admissions and intensive care admissions, meanwhile, are rising, up 17 percent and 21 percent over the past two weeks, respectively, according to New York Times tracking. Overall, the daily average of hospitalizations has more than doubled since late May, with today’s average approaching 38,000.
Transmission levels of SARS-CoV-2 are considered high in about 90% of US counties, according to a red-soaked map from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency recommends everyone wear masks in public indoor spaces in about 21 percent of counties, based on the agency’s milder community-level measure of COVID-19.
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Current vaccines have been shown to be highly effective in preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death. But to date, only 67 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated against the pandemic virus. Of those fully vaccinated, only 48 percent have received a booster. That means just 32 percent of Americans have received a souvenir, which is available to everyone age 5 and older. In addition, people age 50 and older or at high risk (such as immunocompromised) are currently eligible for a second booster. But only 18.7 million people have received this second booster. That’s about 28 percent of people over 50 who are fully vaccinated and boosted.
On Monday night, the Washington Post broke the news that the Biden administration is considering expanding the eligibility of second boosters to include all adults. The report cited five unnamed officials with knowledge of the matter who said Jha and top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci support the idea of expanding second boosters to all adults.
At the press briefing Tuesday morning, Fauci and Jha stressed that only the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC have the ability to ultimately expand booster eligibility. The Washington Post noted that administration officials hoped to have the regulatory signature on the expansion within the next two weeks. The quick schedule could prevent the expansion of boosters for the summer from complicating the launch of next-generation boosters this fall.
Boost now and later
Currently, the administration and FDA anticipate the release of next-generation bivalent enhancers this fall that will target both the ancestral strain and the BA.4/5 omicron subvariants. That rollout is expected to start around October or November, or about three to four months from now. In the past, recall intervals were about four to six months, Jha noted.
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Jha and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said repeatedly Tuesday that getting a booster now — or in about two weeks — would not preclude getting a bivalent booster this fall. Their thinking is simply based on the time frame and expected interval for boosters.
“As we’ve looked at the pace where we’ve needed to get a boost in the past, it’s been four, five months,” Walensky said. “We predict it will be a similar pace. We also really want to stress that there are a lot of people who are high risk right now and waiting until October/November for their push – when, in fact, the risk is moment – is not a good plan ” he added. “Well, we really want to say ‘Now get your push. We have every expectation that the data will indicate that you will be eligible for [bivalent] boost in autumn. Of course, we will continue to evaluate this data.”
At present, there are no clinical data on the effectiveness of a second booster in healthy subjects under the age of 50. It is also unclear whether a fourth dose with current vaccines — which target the ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2 — could alter immune responses to future boosters targeting variants back to the ancestral strain. But this was not a major concern for people already eligible for second aid. Furthermore, the majority of Americans have already been exposed to variants.
As such, many experts, such as Jha and Fauci, have embraced the idea of extending second booster access amid the BA.5 spike. That includes virologist and vaccine expert Peter Hotez, who is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
“We’ve already seen the benefits in 50 and over,” he told the Post. “Eventually what’s true for the old turns out to be true for the young – it just takes longer to reveal itself.”
