The US Government Urges Its Citizens To Receive Booster Doses To Anticipate A New Wave Of COVID-19 Infections

Illustration of COVID-19 vaccination in New York, United States. (Wikimedia Commons/Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York)

JAKARTA - The United States government under President Joe Biden plans to urge all citizens to get a new booster dose this fall, to anticipate a new wave of COVID-19 infections, White House officials said Sunday.

The official said that although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported an increase in infections and hospitalized patients due to this virus, the overall rate was still low.

"We will encourage all Americans to get the shot in addition to flu injections and RSV injections," the official said, referring to the Respiratory Syncytial Virus.

On Thursday, vaccine manufacturer Moderna said preliminary data showed the updated COVID-19 vaccine was effective against "Eris" and "Fornax" sub-variants in humans.

Moderna and other COVID-19 vaccine makers, Novavax, Pfizer and BioNTech SE, have made vaccine versions aimed at subvariant XBB.1.5.

While awaiting approval from health regulators in the United States and Europe, the companies hope the updated vaccines will be available in the coming weeks, for the fall vaccination season.

As previously reported, the World Health Organization (WHO) two weeks ago classified the type of coronavirus EG.5 circulating in the United States as an "attractable variant", although it said the variant did not appear to pose more threat to public health than other variants.

This variant is spreading rapidly and is widely found in the United States with an estimate of more than 17 percent of cases, which has been the cause of the increase in the virus across the country, has also been detected in a number of countries, such as China, South Korea, Japan, and Canada.

"Collectively, the available evidence does not indicate that EG.5 has additional public health risks relative to other Omicron lineages currently circulating," WHO said in a risk evaluation.

"A more comprehensive evaluation of the risks posed by EG.5 is needed," he added.

Citing CBS News, the EG.5 or Eris variant dominates COVID-19 cases in the US until the first week of this month with a percentage of 17.3 percent. Behind it are XBB.1.16 (15.6), XBB.2.23 (11.2) and XBB.1.5 (10.3).

Meanwhile, Maria van Kerkhove, WHO's technical leader for COVID-19, said EG.5 had increased transmission capabilities, but were no more severe than other Omicron variants.

"We have not detected any changes in the severity of the EG.5 compared to other Omicron subgiants that have been circulating since late 2021," explains van Kerkhove.

It is known that COVID-19 has killed more than 6.9 million people worldwide, with more than 768 million confirmed cases since the virus emerged. WHO declared the outbreak a pandemic in March 2020 and ended its global emergency status for COVID-19 in May this year.