Dr. Anthony Fauci says the COVID-19 vaccination will be a shot Americans get yearly, just like the influenza shot.
As most of us may have expected, the coronavirus isn’t going anywhere. Because it is always changing – like the flu every year – the vaccine will be an annual option for vaccinations. This news comes from Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to Joe Biden and serves as the head of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases.
“In the absence of a dramatically different variant, we likely are moving towards a path with a vaccination cadence similar to that of the annual influenza vaccine, with annual updated COVID-19 shots matched to the currently circulating strains for most of the population,” said Fauci during a Tuesday press conference, CBS News reports.
Dr. Ashish Jha, who serves as the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, says that having the coronavirus vaccine now be a yearly shot is an “important milestone.”
“For a large majority of Americans, we are moving to a point where a single annual COVID shot should provide a high degree of protection against serious illness all year,” said Jha, CBS News reports. “For our highest risk individuals, and here I’m thinking about my elderly parents for instance, who are in their 80s, or one of my close friends who recently had a liver transplantation, individuals like that may need more than annual protection.”
Right now, there are some new Rona boosters, including a vaccine that targets the Omicron variant.
