Here’s the TL;DR from CNBC:
“Key points:
➡️ The CDC still has to authorize distribution of the booster doses before people can start receiving the shots, which could start this weekend.
➡️ The CDC’s independent panel of vaccine experts is scheduled to meet on Friday to review the new data.
➡️ CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Wednesday said the public health agency would “act swiftly” after the FDA has reviewed the data and provided its authorization.’”
Additional nerdy notes:
Boosters work, as demonstrated in the data viz below. (Note the data come from the U.K., thus the presence of an AstraZeneca group in the chart. Source link below). Similar results have been found in Israel, too, confirming the finding.
Also: we are educators, not ethicists here at Dear Pandemic. We do, however, want to honor the concerns we’ve heard from our community about global vaccine equity – specifically, that many people in other countries are still waiting for their initial shots. Biomedical ethicist Dr. Owen Schaefer at the National University of Singapore weighed in on this issue, offering his expert opinion to Stat News that “What is right or wrong for an individual to do is different from what is right or wrong for a country to do…If you refuse a booster vaccine, that dose is very unlikely to be sent abroad instead. So, it is not unethical to accept a booster shot when offered.”
We’ll stay on the booster beat….
TGIF, Your Nerdy Girls
References:
Data viz from UK’s vaccine surveillance report series. (h/t @PaulMainwood’s Twitter thread.)  Report series available here.
