Biden says he and the first lady will get COVID-19 booster shots amid Delta surge
Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images
- Following his administration's announcement on booster shots, President Biden said he'll get one.
- If granted FDA approval, COVID-19 booster shots will become available starting on September 20.
- While COVID-19 shots are effective, vaccinated people's immunity wanes over time, per the CDC.
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President Joe Biden told ABC News in a one-on-one interview that he and first lady Jill Biden plan on getting COVID-19 booster shots once they're available.
"We're gonna get the booster shots," Biden told George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired Thursday morning. "And it's something that I think - you know, because we got our shots all the way back in December. So I think it's past time."
Biden received his second dose on January 11.
-ABC News (@ABC) August 19, 2021
On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced that booster shots will be available starting in September for those who were vaccinated at least eight months prior.
CDC officials said on Wednesday that while the vaccines have proven effective against severe illness and death caused by COVID-19, the immunity they provide wanes over time.
Amid the surging Delta variant - which now accounts for more than 90% of cases in the United States and has brought several states with low vaccination rates over their previous peaks for hospitalizations - booster shots could ensure that fully-vaccinated Americans maintain their immunity as the hypertransmissible variant continues to spread.
The booster news applies to those, like the Bidens, who took a two-dose regimen for the jabs.
If the Food and Drug Administration authorizes booster shots in the coming weeks, the US booster campaign will begin on September 20 for people who received Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, government officials announced. Those who took the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine will likely need boosters as well, though officials are still evaluating data on that vaccine.
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