Pfizer Vaccine Still Effective, FDA Says Days Before Review Of Booster Proposal

The Biden administration has planned to launch a booster shot campaign for the general public as early as next week.

The Food and Drug Administration released a review of Pfizer’s application for a COVID-19 booster shot on Wednesday, saying that although the third shots increased immune responses in study participants, the company’s vaccine was holding up strongly against severe forms of the virus without an additional shot.

The agency released the company’s application just days before the FDA will convene an outside committee of experts to recommend whether to approve the booster proposal. President Joe Biden announced last month that the government would begin offering third shots next week to people eight months after they got their second jab of the Pfizer-BioNTech inoculations, contingent on FDA approval and a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But that timeline has come under scrutiny this week amid a series of studies into the need for booster shots amid the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant of the virus. All three of the vaccines being used in the U.S. provide strong protection against COVID-19, including the delta variant, although studies show that some vaccines’ effectiveness does decline about six months after a second jab.