President Joe Biden told reporters Friday that his administration will “likely” recommend that everyone get a new COVID-19 vaccine.
“I signed off this morning on a proposal we have to present to the Congress, a request for additional funding for a new vaccine—that is necessary, that works,” he said while taking questions from reporters outside a pilates facility in South Lake Tahoe, California.
“And tentatively, not decided finally yet, tentatively it is recommended—it is likely to be recommended—that everybody get it, no matter whether they got it before,” he added.
The president’s comments tracked with those of a White House official who advised reporters on Aug. 20 that the administration would be encouraging all Americans to get a COVID-19 booster shot this fall.
Since early July, COVID-19 hospitalizations have been on the rise domestically, with three new variants of the disease spreading across the country.
The uptick has resulted in some businesses and schools reinstating mask mandates, including Morris Brown College in Atlanta and the Atlanta University Center Consortium.
In April, the administration announced that the government was spending more than $5 billion to ramp up the development of new COVID-19 vaccines and treatments through Project NextGen.
“While our vaccines are still very effective at preventing serious illness and death, they are less capable of reducing infections and transmission over time,” a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said in announcing the project on April 10.
“New variants and loss of immunity over time could continue to challenge our healthcare systems in the coming years.”
Moderna has said preliminary data show its vaccine to be effective against the new “Eris” and “Fornax” COVID-19 subvariants in humans.
The company—alongside Novavax, Pfizer, and German partner BioNTech SE—has also created a new version of its vaccine targeted at combating the XBB.1.5 subvariant.
According to CNBC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials told reporters Thursday that the vaccines are expected to become available to the public in mid-September, though they are still pending approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
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