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Urgency seems to be lacking for an ongoing pandemic. COVID won't stay under the rug.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/healt...eg5/index.htmlVaccine manufacturers have said they expect to have the updated shots ready in a few weeks, but CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen has projected that the updated vaccine will be available in October, since it will need sign-off from the US Food and Drug Administration and a recommendation from the CDC.
That would be full month later than boosters were available last fall.
“Why is this taking so long?” Topol said. “The whole idea of mRNA is that it would you could pivot quickly and within a couple of months, you’d have it ready.”
Topol said the vaccine is particularly important for those who are elderly and who have weakened immune systems because they no longer have effective monoclonal antibodies to help if a Covid-19 case becomes severe.
It’s not clear why the process seems to be slower than it was last year. The FDA did not immediately respond to a question about its timeline for reviewing the fall vaccines.
Topol says the US can’t afford to delay its Covid-19 vaccine rollout. Coming up behind EG.5 are a crop of variants with tweaks that enable them to bind more tightly to cells, he says, making them even more infectious.
He is worried that those might have the potential to be more consequential.
“It should be out now, because things are building up,” he said. “We need it now.”
