The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is tracking toward recommending that Americans get an annual COVID-19 vaccine, the agency’s new director says.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, who recently replaced Dr. Rochelle Walensky, says that the new CDC recommendation is expected to be finalized and announced in September.
“We’re just on the precipice of that, so I don’t want to get ahead of where our scientists are here and doing that evaluation work, but yes we anticipate that COVID will become similar to flu shots, where it is going to be you get your annual flu shot and you get your annual COVID shot,” Dr. Cohen told Spectrum News.
“We’re not quite there yet, but stay tuned. I think within the next couple of weeks, month we’re going to hear more from our experts on COVID shots.”
The director, a strong proponent of the vaccines, didn’t offer any safety or efficacy data or any other details but said she worries “about parents not vaccinating kids” against COVID-19 and other viruses.
The CDC didn’t respond to emailed questions, including what it would say to critics who note that there’s a lack of clinical trial data supporting the shots.
Without that data, “you can’t really say what the potential benefit to people is,” Dr. David McCune, an oncologist, told The Epoch Times.
He noted that instead of efficacy data from trials, officials have been relying on antibody measurements, animal experiments, and observational studies to see whether the vaccines are effective. Observational data indicate the protection—against both infection and severe illness—wanes considerably within months, some papers have found that the more doses one receives, the more likely they are to be infected.
Scaling Back Recommendations
The CDC recommended people of all ages receive a primary series and that they all get at least one booster, too. The agency finally scaled back those recommendations in April, saying that some vaccinated people should not get an additional dose if they’ve already received one of the newer vaccines.
