Declining Vaccine Efficacy—Particularly Among Older Individuals—Prompting Pfizer’s Emergency Booster Request, Former FDA Chief Says

Speaking to CBS News’ Face the Nation, Gottlieb said the declining efficacy in Israel seems to be clustered among people who are older and who were vaccinated in December and pointed out many nursing-home residents and physicians in the U.S. were also vaccinated around that time.

Gottlieb also said the declining efficacy has likely been compounded by the rapidly spreading Delta variant, which has higher viral loads than originally seen with the virus.

Discussing Pfizer’s Thursday announcement regarding a booster emergency authorization, Gottlieb, who sits on the company’s board, said the process needs to start immediately in order to have the boosters available in the fall and said the nation has likely “missed the window” to provide the follow-up doses before a summer wave of variant-spurred infections.

“We’re a little bit behind here in the United States,” he said, noting that countries like the United Kingdom and Israel have already decided to provide boosters to people above the age of 70 and those who are immunocompromised.

Gottlieb also suggested President Joe Biden’s administration may not want to start recommending boosters yet because doing so could discourage those who are vaccine-hesitant from going out and seeking vaccination, notably in light of the Biden Administration’s unmet goal of vaccinating 70% of Americans by July 4.

Gottlieb’s comments came hours after Israel’s health ministry on Sunday published limited data showing that vaccine protection starts to fade after six months of inoculation and a “growing correlation” between the recently infected and those who were vaccinated early, but experts working with the ministry said it’s still too early to draw conclusions from the data.