I think there's a valid choice here between innoculating a protected population, which would cut down local transmission and boost immunity, but perhaps at the cost of wasted doses which could be shipped abroad -- which can help prevent the spread of variants. It's a difficult decision IMO. I'm ready for a third shot whenever it's recommended.
I also know a handful of people who got their 2 dose shot in the spring who are hesitant at getting a third. My nextdoor neighbors got severe side effects, although ... IMO ... I dunno, they seem like people who are very prone to every sort of illness ... But the wife was knocked out for like a week, and the husband was sick for 3-4 days too, and their teenage son was sick for days as well. WHen 3 people get severe side effects in one house hold I start to think about how much is social vs. physiological. But, he told me they won't get another shot because the symptoms were bad. My father in law is needle averse and sucked it up for the first vaccine but doesn't want to go back and get another shot, he basically dreads it. I think we'll end up reserving more vaccines than will be used especially when compared to the spring/summer, where states like mine have about a 90% vaccine usage shortly after shipment, I suspect for follow-ups that number will drop.
There's an ethical question around that, and then also a practical issue of if you're risking the development of new variants developing.
The counter though is that we're seeing out of control spread in places in the US with 40-50% vaccination rate, and there are certainly variants developing in these parts of the US... so even with comparatively high vaccination rate (compared globally) you can still have high spread.
Are booster shots the same contents as the first 2 shots?
Yes, as far as I know, it's the same vaccine currently approved. I'd imagine you'd only need one shot, though, not two for most healthy people.
The FDA recently authorized boosters for people on immunosuppressant drugs (cancer patients, organ receivers, etc) and that's the same dose/vaccine.
How about getting kids under 12 authorized ASAP?
Trial data is expected to be in for 5-11 around September. Assuming the data is good similar to the trials for adults and teens, I'd assume we'd have emergency authorization within days of that being requested. There's another group of 0-5 that my understanding is that they're still performing trials.
Pfizer seems to have already had enough participants for their 5-11 group, but they're still recruiting for 0-5. Moderna seems to be recruiting for both groups still.
Can't authorize any vaccine without stage 3 trials.
