The US vaccine program is crumbling with disagreement at the FDA over boosters given the very low effectiveness and ephemeral protection from the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at 39% and 42% protection against Delta in Israel and the US, respectively, and lasting less than a year, makes this vaccine worst-in-class and non-viable as a commercial product. Hence, trying to boost a loser makes no sense.
Moderna which has more than three times the mRNA than Pfizer–BioNTech per shot is holding up better at 72% protection in a study from Mayo Clinic. The CDC/FDA holds all the data on differential efficacy of the vaccines and at 8 months into the public program, the agency’s vaccine report card to America is long overdue.
Americans are frustrated with the lack of transparency and want to make the most efficacious choice of vaccines and seek to understand how to take a shot and avoid the disastrous safety events of neurologic damage, myocarditis, blood clots, and paralysis all warned by the FDA to hesitant vaccine recipients.
Finally, America needs to drop focus on masking policies in favor of “sick person” protocols which call for staying home or leaving work or school early with a mask if fever and other symptoms develop. Since well individuals do not transmit the virus to one another, they can go about normal activities without being encumbered by masks.
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