The World Health Organization’s top scientist said during a media briefing on Tuesday that there is no evidence that healthy children and adolescents need booster shots and that the goal needs to be protecting specific vulnerable populations.
“The aim is to protect the most vulnerable, to protect those at highest risk of severe disease and dying,” the W.H.O.’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said. “Those are our elderly populations, the immunocompromised, people with underlying conditions, but also health care workers because if a lot of health care workers get infected as we see now, they can be out sick and we don’t want them getting severely ill.”
“There’s no evidence right now that healthy children or healthy adolescents need boosters,” she added. “No evidence at all.”
Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director for the W.H.O.’s health emergencies program, said they have not determined how many doses of the vaccine that they will say people need or how often people will need to get shots.
“I think people do have a certain fear out there that this booster thing is going to be like every two or three months and everyone’s going to have to go and get a booster,” Ryan said. “And I don’t think we have the answer to that yet.”
CNBC reported:
He said scientists may eventually redefine how many doses are required in the primary series of Covid shots. While most healthy people may need just two shots, he said the elderly or immunocompromised may need three or four.
Swaminathan’s and Ryan’s comments come roughly two weeks after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved booster shots for adolescents aged 12 to 17 amid the current surge in coronavirus cases due to the highly contagious omicron variant.
The remarks come as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has rapidly spread across the world, leading to a surge in cases while also appearing to not be as deadly as previous strains.
Democrat President Joe Biden promised on the campaign trail that he would “shut down the virus,” yet under his leadership cases have skyrocketed to new highs and more Americans have now died from the coronavirus under his leadership than died under former President Donald Trump.
Biden’s approval rating in a left-of-center mainstream poll cratered to 33% last week as Americans grapple with the continuing pandemic, supply chain issues, inflation, and other issues.
“Americans give President Joe Biden a negative 33 – 53 percent job approval rating, while 13 percent did not offer an opinion,” Quinnipiac University reported. “In November 2021, Americans gave Biden a negative 36 – 53 percent job approval rating with 10 percent not offering an opinion.”
Biden’s approval rating from Democrats sank by double digits from 87% in November to 75% in the new poll. The percentage of Democrats who now disapprove of him doubled from 7% to 14%. Only 1 in 4 Independents approved of Biden’s job performance while only 2% (not a typo) of Republicans approved of Biden’s job performance.
Biden earned bad scores on major issues, including:
- the economy: 34 percent approve, while 57 percent disapprove;
- foreign policy: 35 percent approve, while 54 percent disapprove;
- the response to the coronavirus: 39 percent approve, while 55 percent disapprove.