The Biden administration is recommending that all Americans — regardless of their ages — receive COVID booster shots eight months after their initial vaccine shots. The additional shots — which are needed to combat the Delta variant, according to administration officials cited by the New York Times and the Associated Press — could begin as early as next month. This is a complete reversal of the administration’s position from just weeks ago, when both the CDC and FDA rebuked Pfizer for even broaching the subject of boosters.
According to the officials cited by the Times and AP, the Biden administration has announced that those who got the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines will be eligible for a booster shot to provide additional protection against the Delta variant. Those officials also said they expect those who got the Johnson and Johnson shot — which was given as a one-dose vaccine — to require an additional shot as well.
This new change in the message of the efficacy of experimental COVID vaccines is problematic for the Biden administration. Even the liberal media reporting on this is not favorable. The New York Times reported:
The decision comes as the Biden administration is struggling to regain control of a pandemic that it had claimed to have tamed little more than a month ago. President Biden had declared the nation reopened for normal life for the July 4 holiday, but the wildfire spread of the Delta variant has thwarted that. Covid-19 patients are again overwhelming hospitals in some states, and federal officials are worried about an increase in the number of children hospitalized just as the school year is set to begin.
For weeks, Biden administration officials have been analyzing the rise in Covid-19 cases, trying to figure out if the Delta variant is better able to evade the vaccines or if the vaccines have waned in strength over time. According to some administration experts, both could be true, a distressing combination that is re-energizing a pandemic that the nation fervently hoped had been curbed.
Biden had promised Americans the vaccines would protect them and allow them to return to life as normal. Now his administration is indicating that the effectiveness of the vaccines “may wane over time” and that boosters may be required every few months. Coming almost hand-in-hand with the catastrophic results of Biden’s slapdash withdrawal from Afghanistan, this confusing message about the need for boosters is likely to hurt Biden’s approval rating — even among many of his supporters.
This message is particularly confusing given that in early July (less than six weeks ago), when Pfizer said it was seeing waning immunity in those vaccinated with the Pfizer shots and was beginning development of a booster, the CDC and FDA released a joint statement within hours, saying, “Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time.”
That statement went on to say, “The United States is fortunate to have highly effective vaccines that are widely available for those aged 12 and up. People who are fully vaccinated are protected from severe disease and death, including from the variants currently circulating in the country such as Delta,” and “We continue to review any new data as it becomes available and will keep the public informed. We are prepared for booster doses if and when the science demonstrates that they are needed.”
The statement then shifts focus and takes aim at the unvaccinated, saying, “People who are not vaccinated remain at risk. Virtually all COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are among those who are unvaccinated. We encourage Americans who have not yet been vaccinated to get vaccinated as soon as possible to protect themselves and their community.”
The implication is clear: Anything that sows seeds of doubt in the efficacy of the vaccines is dangerous. After all, people may read that the effectiveness of the vaccines wanes over time and may conclude that not getting the vaccine at all is preferable to accepting them as a lifetime drug to be taken every few months for the rest of their lives. The Biden administration has already been shown to openly manipulate mainstream liberal media on the “optics” of COVID reporting. For the CDC and FDA to do the same about the obvious fact that COVID vaccines are less effective than promised is not a stretch.
Now, just weeks after saying it is too soon, the Biden administration is preparing to push the boosters with all the vigor with which it pushed the vaccines in the first place.
The only real “competition” the vaccine manufacturers have is natural immunity caused by prior infection. But while the effectiveness of the vaccines is shown to “wane over time” and now require boosters to remain effective, the same does not appear to be true of the protection offered by immunity from previous infection. As Paul Kengor — who has some experience in the field of immunology — clarifies the matter in an article he wrote for Crisis Magazine:
But I need not consider a vaccine, given that I have natural immunity created by the real virus itself rather than the always-inferior artificial immunity generated (assuming it works) by the still-experimental vaccines. (There’s a saying among immunologists: when it comes to immunity, “infection over injection.”)
As I noted here previously, citing merely two current major studies, COVID-19 survivors have long-lasting immunity. To quote one of the studies, a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature, patients who have recovered from COVID-19 develop “long-lasting immunity,” namely with “antibody-producing cells” that “live and produce antibodies for the rest of people’s lives.” Or consider the major study by Cleveland Clinic, conducted on 52,238 employees, which concluded categorically that individuals who had COVID-19 “do not get additional benefits from vaccination.” (See this analysis for a nice roundup of current research on the superiority of natural immunity over artificial immunity.)
Given the body of evidence that (1) natural immunity from infection is both superior to and of longer-lasting duration than whatever protection may (or may not) be afforded by vaccines, and that (2) COVID survivors “do not get additional benefits from vaccination,” one could perhaps be forgiven for asking the question, “Why, then the push for not only the vaccines, but now for the boosters?”
The old adage, “Follow the money” comes to mind. The Wall Street Journal reports that Pfizer and Moderna are expected to rake in billions of dollars in sales from the boosters. This is, of course, in addition to the billions those companies have already made from the initial vaccines that are already petering out and leaving the vaccinated susceptible to infection
