The administration has begun rolling out the first updated COVID boosters, which fight the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants as well as the original strain of the virus.
"By the end of this week, over 90% of Americans will live within five miles of these new, updated vaccines," said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra."We will be ramping up our education and outreach efforts this month, as we head into October, when we expect more people to get their updated shots potentially together with their flu shots."
Health officials believe the new booster formula will also offer protection against other strains should another variant arise, said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. "One of the very reasons for this bivalent vaccine is not just because it keeps the great protection of the original strain and because it improves the protection against the BA.5 variant, as laboratory data suggests, but also that the laboratory data suggests it will improve protection against other variants as well," Walensky said."So it gives us that breadth of protection that we might anticipate should another variant come through.
However, officials expressed concern that vaccines and treatments for coronavirus may no longer be free in the near future as federalJha emphasized that Congress needs to support the ongoing pandemic response in order for the U.S. to be prepared if a new"curveball" variant were to emerge. "Congress is aware that if we don't continue to fund response, we can easily go backwards," he said."We had planned on having an adequate stock pile of PPE, personal protective equipment. Should there be another surge, we will not have that stockpile. We will not have enough tests in our Strategic National Stockpile should we see another Omicron-like event."
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