Covid-19 Live Updates: News on Boosters, Vaccinations and Variants

Some F.D.A. experts said that the data from Pfizer and elsewhere still seemed to show that two shots protected against severe disease or hospitalization for months afterward, and that there was not enough evidence that a third shot would stem the spread of infection. Some also criticized a lack of data that an additional injection would be safe for younger people.

The panel’s final recommendations left some room for the White House to argue that the core of its booster strategy remained intact. Depending on how “at high risk” is defined, tens of millions of Americans could conceivably be deemed eligible for additional shots of the Pfizer vaccine. And a small but growing number of people have stopped waiting for federal authorization and are finding ways to receive booster shots.

Before the panel met on Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data indicating that, for some people, the level of protection against Covid hospitalizations afforded by the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine dropped significantly four months after full inoculation.

The C.D.C. study supported some others that suggest the Pfizer vaccine may offer less protection from hospitalization over time. The available data is far from unanimous, though so far it suggests that only older adults will need boosters. Participants in the C.D.C. study skewed older and it was unclear if the same waning of vaccine effectiveness happened among younger vaccinated people.

Other studies have shown that Pfizer’s effectiveness against hospitalization has remained above 90 percent, despite the rapid spread of the Delta variant and the passage of time. Pfizer has said that data from Israel suggests a falling effectiveness against severe disease, though it appears that Israel and the United States define “severe disease” differently.

The debate is playing out as the Delta variant continues ravaging less-vaccinated areas of the country. New coronavirus cases and Covid hospitalizations across the United States have started to show signs of decline, although they remain far higher than they were earlier in the summer. And the average number of daily deaths has been increasing since early July, from this year’s low of 175 to nearly 2,000 by the end of this week, according to a New York Times database. About one in every 500 Americans has died from the disease.

The pace of vaccinations remains relatively sluggish. Providers are administering about 775,000 doses per day on average, according to federal data, a fraction of the April peak but still more than 250,000 higher than the low point in July. About 54 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times database, the second lowest proportion among the Group of 7 wealthy nations — but Japan’s now aggressive vaccination campaign is likely to leave the United States last among the G-7 shortly.

The F.D.A. has the final word on vaccine approvals, and while it is not obliged to follow the advisory committee’s recommendations, it typically does. The agency will likely issue a decision on boosters by early next week.

But Dr. Jha also noted in a separate tweet that boosters would benefit those 60 and above.

Dr. Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif., called the F.D.A. panel’s decision “a very good outcome.” The decision, he wrote on Twitter, recognized “the need for high-risk individuals, due to co-existing conditions or occupational exposures, such as the heathcare workforce, essential workers, and teachers.”

However, Dr. Topol also questioned why the cutoff point for third-shot eligibility was set at 65, rather than including people 60 or older. He also said the updated F.D.A. advisory “didn’t address the vulnerability of people who received J&J shots.”

Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Associated Press that he supported a third dose for older adults but that “I really have trouble” when it comes to getting behind the idea of administering the shot to anyone closer to the age of 16. “The question becomes what will be the impact of that on the arc of the pandemic, which may not be all that much,” Dr. Offit said.

For some Americans outside the medical or scientific fields, the F.D.A. panel’s recommendations seemed opaque, or even contradictory.

For instance, Jen Macy, a wedding and event floral designer in Orange County, Calif., tweeted and also discussed with a Times reporter what she felt was an urgent question: “Can you explain why boosters are being recommended for high risk people but the general population needs to wait for further testing? This makes no sense.”

Michael Knowles, a conservative media figure with a large following on social media and via The Daily Wire, a site that publishes commentary and podcasts, took a comic dig at the F.D.A. panel’s actions. “The vaccines are so effective that you need a booster and so safe that the FDA won’t approve the booster,” he wrote on Twitter. “Do I have that right?”

But the relative lack of flu cases over the last 18 months could also mean that population-level immunity to the flu is lower this season, said Lynnette Brammer, the leader of the C.D.C.’s domestic influenza surveillance team.

And while it is still uncertain how the season will play out, she added, relaxed pandemic measures in some places will “likely result in the resumption of seasonal flu virus circulation.”

“This all could set us up for a potentially severe flu season,” she added.

The C.D.C. advises that everyone over the age of 6 months old receive a flu shot, with a few exceptions. It takes about two weeks for protection to develop after vaccination, so experts recommend getting vaccinated from September through the end of October, but even after that it is better to get the vaccine than not.

Here’s what else happened this week:

• A scientific advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration on Friday recommended booster shots for recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine who are 65 or older or are at high risk of severe Covid-19, at least six months after the second shot. The panel also overwhelmingly recommended against approving a Pfizer booster for people 16 and older. The Biden administration had been hoping the F.D.A. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would approve a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine in time to begin rolling out boosters for Pfizer recipients next week.

• Both elation and caution were palpable in New York City on Monday when the country’s largest public school system resumed full in-person classes for the first time since March 2020. But with the virus tearing through unvaccinated populations in the city and much of New York’s school-age population still ineligible for vaccination, disruptions are likely.

• The longest shutdown in Broadway history is over. Some of the biggest shows in musical theater, including “The Lion King,” “Wicked” and “Hamilton,” resumed performances on Tuesday night, 18 months after the coronavirus pandemic forced them to close.

• President Biden met on Wednesday with top executives from Microsoft, the Walt Disney Company, Kaiser Permanente and other companies that have endorsed vaccine mandates, days after he announced a federal effort to require employees of large companies to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or be tested regularly. Vaccinations have divided the work force and many businesses fear the requirements may cause labor shortages.

• In the Australian city of Melbourne on Saturday, 235 people were arrested and six police officers were injured during a violent protest against the country’s pandemic lockdown rules, the police said. An additional 193 people at the protest were fined, according to Acting Sergeant Melissa Seach, a spokeswoman for the Victoria Police. One video shared widely on Twitter shows hundreds of protesters running down a street after breaking past a handful of police officers, several of whom were knocked to the ground.

“We were one of the first health care centers to get vaccines in New Jersey, and she was administering the shots, and then a little while later then she got sick,” Ms. Rivera said. “She got Covid and passed away. Her husband also passed away, and her kids were left without a mom and a dad.”

Other names and messages on flags paid tribute to loved ones: Marshall J. Ciccone, a dedicated husband; Bruce Allen Hutcheson, a health care hero; Betty L. Fox, whose daughter aches for her.

The artist behind the installation, Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, planted 267,000 flags in Washington last fall to recognize what was then the death toll of the coronavirus in the United States.

However, anyone testing positive will be required to isolate and receive negative results from a PCR test, which will be free to the traveler. The samples will be “genomically sequenced to help identify new variants,” the government’s statement said.

A negative test ahead of arrival will still be required for unvaccinated passengers, and they will also still be required to have PCR tests two and eight days later. Unvaccinated people arriving in England from red list countries will have to quarantine in a government-approved hotel for a mandatory 10 nights at their own cost.

And next week, eight countries will be removed from England’s red list: Turkey, Pakistan, the Maldives, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Oman, Bangladesh and Kenya.

Sixty-six percent of the population of the United Kingdom is fully vaccinated, and an additional 6 percent have received a first dose. But average daily deaths have risen 24 percent over the last two weeks.

And the pandemic is playing out differently across the four U.K. nations — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — which operate independently on pandemic travel restrictions, as in many other areas of governance.

On Friday, the BBC reported that the government of Wales, where average daily cases are up 19 percent over the last two weeks, said it would follow England’s lead in adjusting its red list, and that it would “carefully consider” the proposed changes on testing.

Scotland, where average daily cases have fallen by 30 percent over the last two weeks, said that it was also easing travel restrictions, but would maintain the requirements for Day 2 and Day 8 PCR tests for vaccinated arrivals to minimize “the risk of importing variants of concern.”

The government of Northern Ireland website did not offer new guidance on its travel restrictions; cases are flat there. England’s cases are dropping off from a recent spike.

So far, 73 percent of people in Britain have received a single dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while 66 percent have received two doses, according to data collated by The New York Times.

In a survey of 1,400 couples last month, 22 percent said they were requiring guests to be vaccinated, according to The Knot, a wedding planning site. That was a jump from the spring, when only 3 percent of couples surveyed said they would make vaccinations a requirement, said Lauren Kay, executive editor at The Knot.

Many couples are taking measures like setting up mobile testing sites the day before their weddings; informing guests that they will need to wear masks throughout the reception; and providing color-coded bracelets that indicate which guests are fine with hugging and which want to keep their distance, according to wedding planners.

“The people you love, you trust, nobody said anything negative about it,” Mr. Jones said of the antibody treatment. “And I’ve heard nothing but negative things about the side effects of the vaccine and how quickly it was developed.”

But the treatment’s popularity is straining the U.S. healthcare system.

The infusions take about an hour and a half, including monitoring afterward, and require constant attention from nurses at a time when hard-hit states often cannot spare them.

“It’s clogging up resources, it’s hard to give, and a vaccine is $20 and could prevent almost all of that,” said Dr. Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist and the chief of population health at Family Health Centers of San Diego, a community-based provider. Pushing antibodies while playing down vaccines, he said, was “like investing in car insurance without investing in brakes.”