The White House said Thursday it will make an all-out push to get Americans to roll up their sleeves for another COVID-19 shot, framing a reformulated booster shot as the start of a fall tradition alongside the yearly flu shot.
The administration has secured over 170 million doses of the new bivalent vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which target both the original strain discovered in China and the fast-moving BA.4 and BA.5 variants that are dominant in the U.S. Regulators worked with drugmakers to update the boosters because they wanted the best antibody response to what is circulating now. “As the first nation in the world with updated vaccines that target the strain of omicron that is dominant in the U.S. and around the world, we have a new, powerful tool to prevent serious illness and death, keep businesses and schools open, and get back to our more normal routines,” the White House said Thursday.By the end of the week, over 90% of Americans should live within 5 miles of a vaccination site, including pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens. The shots will be available to Americans for free. Mr. Biden had planned to extol the new boosters in a White House speech but canceled his remarks after Queen Elizabeth II’s death.
Source: This news is originally published by washingtontimes