As COVID-19 surges in some places, US advisers recommend fall vaccination campaign

NEW YORK — With new cases of COVID-19 emerging in some parts of the country, health officials are setting the course for a fall vaccination campaign.

An influential government advisory panel on Thursday recommended new vaccines for all Americans this fall. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must endorse the recommendation.

Authorities have recognized that the need for vaccination is not as dire as it was just a few years ago. Most Americans have some degree of immunity of being infected, from previous vaccinations or both. COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations last month hit their lowest point since the pandemic first hit the United States in 2020.

But immunity wanes, new variants of the coronavirus continue to emerge, and there are still hundreds of deaths associated with COVID-19 and thousands of hospitalizations reported every week.

What’s more, health officials reported increases this month in emergency room visits and hospitalizations associated with COVID-19, and a pronounced increase on positive test results in the southwestern US

It’s unclear whether this is a sign of a coming summer wave — which has happened before — or just a blip, said Lauren Ancel Meyers of the University of Texas, who leads a research team tracking COVID-19. .

“We’ll have to see what happens over the next few weeks,” she said.

At a Thursday meeting at the CDC in Atlanta, infectious disease experts voted to recommend updated COVID-19 vaccines for Americans ages 6 months and older.

Health officials have told Americans to expect an annual update on COVID-19 vaccines, just as they are recommended to get a new dose each fall to protect against the latest flu strains.

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration – following the guidance from its own panel of expert advisors – told vaccine makers to target the JN.1 version of the virus. But a week later, the FDA told manufacturers that if they could still change, a better target might be a derived subtype called KP.2.

On Thursday, the CDC’s advisory panel voted 11-0 for a new round of shots, which officials say should be available in August and September.

Many Americans are not heeding the CDC’s advice.

As of last month, less than a quarter of U.S. adults and 14% of children were up to date on their COVID vaccinations. Polls show that increasingly smaller percentages of Americans consider COVID-19 to be a major threat to the health of the U.S. population and indicate that fewer doctors are asking patients to get up-to-date vaccinations.

CDC officials on Thursday presented information from recent surveys in which about 23% of respondents said they would definitely get an updated COVID-19 vaccine this fall, but 33% said they definitely would not.

Meanwhile, the CDC’s Bridge Access Program — which has paid for shots for uninsured U.S. adults — is expected to close in August due to funding disruptions. The program paid for almost 1.5 million doses from September to last month.

“It’s a challenge that this program is going away,” said the CDC’s Shannon Stokley.

About 1.2 million COVID-associated deaths in the U.S. have been reported since the beginning of 2020, according to the CDC. The death toll was highest in the winter of 2020-2021, when weekly deaths exceeded 20,000. About 1 in 100 Americans ages 75 and older have been hospitalized with COVID over the past four years, CDC officials said Thursday.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. AP is solely responsible for all content.