Former Food and Drug Administration head Dr. Scott Gottlieb said on Wednesday that people may not need to get regular COVID-19 booster shots “forever” if people “get a much more durable response” from the vaccine.
“It’s not clear that we’re going to need boosters forever,” Gottlieb said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in an interview.
“It could be the case that after you give a third dose to people they get a much more durable response and it’s a multi-year response and you’re not boosting constantly. We just don’t know yet.”
He also said the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would make the final decision about the need for booster shots.
“I do think we end up with some complement of the population getting boosted,” Gottlieb said.
The former FDA chief said the Delta variant of COVID-19 will likely "move its way through the country over the course of August and September maybe into October,” based on modeling.
"We expect the peak to be sometime near the end of September," he said.
"Unfortunately it's going to get worse before it gets better in terms of the spread of this infection right now," Gottlieb said.
Gottlieb previously told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the United States “probably missed a window” for booster shots that protect against the Delta variant.
"If you go out and get vaccinated right now, that vaccine's going to carry you through the fall and the winter. What we're really talking about is people who were vaccinated a while ago, where there may be some declining efficacy," Gottlieb said. He also noted that the Delta variant has the potential to "overwhelm their residual antibodies."
He went on to say that whether or not a booster is approved, the application for one would have to be made immediately in order for it to be prepared before the next Covid-19 season is expected.
"I think, quite frankly, we've probably missed a window in terms of providing boosters for the delta variant. The delta variant's likely to play out really over the months of August and September, maybe in October. This wave of infection will have passed us," Gottlieb said. "But you still want to consider boosters for people going forward, particularly vulnerable elderly people in nursing homes, people who we know are more vulnerable to the infection."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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