The Food and Drug Administration is proposing a major shift in the country's COVID-19 vaccination process. As Christinafantv found out on Monday, the booster system could soon become an annual shot.
To simplify the process, the FDA is considering changing the nation's COVID strategy to mirror the annual flu shot, meaning the agency will determine each spring which strains to select for the fall season."I think that this is a positive signal from the FDA because I think the direction that scientists are thinking is that COVID is going from a pandemic to being endemic," said Dr. Nidhi Kumar, a cardiovascular disease specialist.
Kumar, who is also a CBS2 contributor, said she believes the proposal is an appropriate one, especially as boosters have become a hard sell -- with only 15.3% of the U.S. population receiving the latest bivalent shot. "Chasing boosters is not working. We don't have patient compliance. We don't have the health care dollars and the resources to support it and, frankly, this disease mutates faster than we can keep up with," Kumar said.Former Long Island teacher Laura Parker Russo pleads guilty to lesser charges for injecting teen with COVID vaccine
Kumar said the new approach will increase vaccination rates, which in turn will lead to a healthier population. "It's streamline things, instead of just, hey, something new is going on, take a new shot," Jackson said.Under the agency's proposal, two doses may still be needed for young children and those who are elderly or immuno-compromised.
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