RELATED: Dr. Fauci Warns Vaccinated People Not to Do This as Omicron Spreads. On Dec. 9, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) chose to recommend expanding booster eligibility in the U.S. once again, now allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to get an additional shot of the Pfizer vaccine. According to the agency, this was done as a precaution against the new variant. “Although we don’t have all the answers on the Omicron variant, initial data suggests that COVID-19 boosters help broaden and strengthen the protection against Omicron and other variants,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, said in a statement. The CDC’s endorsement came just hours after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded Pfizer’s emergency-use authorization to include anyone 16 and older for a booster shot. In a statement, Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, MD, said that vaccination and getting a booster when eligible remain some of the “most effective methods for fighting COVID-19” right now. “As people gather indoors with family and friends for the holidays, we can’t let up on all the preventive public health measures that we have been taking during the pandemic,” Woodcock added. “With both the Delta and Omicron variants continuing to spread, vaccination remains the best protection against COVID-19.” One day before the CDC and FDA decided to expand booster eligibility, Pfizer and BioNTech released an update on how their vaccine reacts against the new variant. According to the companies’ Dec. 8 announcement, preliminary lab data found that blood samples taken from patients who had only received two shots had a 25-fold reduction in antibodies, which “may not be sufficient to protect against infection” from Omicron. But samples taken from those with three shots saw antibody levels that were similar in strength to two-dose antibody levels recorded against previous variants.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb “To make it clear for your audience, three doses against Omicron are almost equivalent to the [two] doses effectiveness we had against … the original variant,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said during a Dec. 8 interview on NBC’s Today. RELATED: For more up-to-date information, sign up for our daily newsletter. Some health officials have been hesitant to endorse additional COVID vaccine doses for younger adults, however. This is because younger individuals, particularly teenage and young adolescent males, have been at a somewhat heightened risk of developing heart inflammation, known as myocarditis, after receiving more than one dose of an mRNA COVID vaccine. But in a statement, Peter Marks, MD, the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said that with the initial two-dose Pfizer vaccine series having been available to individuals 16 and older for nearly a year now, it’s become clear that the benefits far outweigh any potential risks, including the remote possibility of myocarditis. “Since we first authorized the vaccine, new evidence indicates that vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 is waning after the second dose of the vaccine for all adults and for those in the 16- and 17-year-old age group. A single booster dose of the vaccine for those vaccinated at least six months prior will help provide continued protection against COVID-19 in this and older age groups,” Marks said. RELATED: The CDC Head Just Made This Dire Prediction About Omicron in the U.S..
