Top health officials’ had a clear message for Americans on Friday after omicron variant cases were detected in more states and experts worked to figure out how dangerous the latest version of COVID-19 could be: “Get vaccinated, and get boosted.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, laid out the science behind why experts think a booster could help even with the omicron variant's mutations, citing recent studies that show an increase in antibodies post-booster that can help fight a number of variants.
About 43 million Americans have received a booster dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracker, including one million on Thursday out of 2.2 million in total, the highest single day since May. Roughly 100 million are eligible.
Health officials say they still need more time to test how effective the current vaccines are against omicron, but they said the best course of action is to protect yourself with vaccination and a booster, if eligible.
The data “strongly suggest that boosters will give you cross protection against a number of variants,” Dr. Fauci said Friday in a White House COVID-19 briefing.
“There's every reason to believe that if you get vaccinated and boosted, that you would have at least some degree of cross-protection, very likely against severe disease, even against the Omicron variant,” he added. “Get vaccinated, and get boosted.”
In the meantime, Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson are working to develop booster shots specific to the variant, though it’s unclear if they’ll need to use them.
“They are now assuming they may have to do that and are being prepared for that,” Fauci said.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Friday said her agency was working with public health departments across the country to continue tracking omicron cases, support contact tracing and urge testing.
But, she said, the CDC recommendations for fighting this variant are ultimately the same as they were for the delta variant, which still makes up the majority of cases in the United States.
“We are urging providers to get all l double Americans boosted right away,” she said. “Our best protection against COVID-19 is our proven, layered prevention strategies.”
President Joe Biden on Thursday laid out his administration’s plan to fight COVID-19 in over the next winter months, a strategy that includes tightening international travel restrictions, distributing rapid tests to health clinics and community centers, launching more booster sites and eventually covering the cost of rapid tests for Americans with insurance.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy also said Friday that a new information campaign to promote boosters would reach communities of color and native communities and flow through “all channels where people get information” such as webinars, town halls, email, phone, banking, text, social media, postcards and newspaper ads, “just about everything short of carrier pigeons.”
The administration’s health team on Friday also stressed that the nation was much more prepared to deal with omicron than it was a year ago, mostly due to lessons from delta.
“I remain immensely encouraged by the extraordinary strides that we've made in the past year,” Murthy said. “We are on the right track and we're learning more about how to stay on the right track.”