Study finds vaccine booster shots effective, Federal panel endorses vaccine for 16 year olds

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Mon, 2021-08-30 18:44 — mike kraft

Study finds vaccine booster shots effective as WHO Europe head says they’re ‘not a luxury’ Booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are highly effective against both coronavirus infection and severe covid-19 disease, Israeli scientists reported in a new paper. Washington Post

Booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are highly effective against both coronavirus infection and severe covid-19, Israeli scientists reported in a new paper that supports the idea of administering a third dose as protection against the virus wanes.

Researchers at a variety of Israeli institutions looked at data from the nation’s Health Ministry for 1.1 million people 60 or older this month. On July 30, Israel became the first country to make booster shots available to people in that age range who had been fully vaccinated with two shots of the Pfizer vaccine at least five months earlier. The United States plans to start offering booster shots to most people Sept. 20 if the plan is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. ...

--- A federal advisory panel voted unanimously Monday to recommend the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which was fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration last week for people 16 and over.

The vote by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was essentially a formality, but it reflected further expert endorsement of the vaccine’s safety and efficacy. The vote comes amid hope that full approval of the vaccines will encourage more individuals to make the decision to get the shots — and more employers to mandate them amid another pandemic surge.

In the week ending Sunday, infections increased by 11.3 percent to more than 156,000 daily cases on average, while deaths increased by 31 percent to more than 1,200 daily on average, according to Washington Post data. Since Dec. 14, more than 369 million doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered in the United States — with 210 million of those being Pfizer-BioNTech, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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