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The government is pleading for Americans to get another COVID-19 shot this fall, but President Biden’s messaging has shifted.
No longer is the shot called a “booster.” Now it’s an “updated” vaccine, similar to the annual flu shots the government recommends each year, and which are supposed to be tuned to the more worrying influenza variants expected to be floating around that winter.
It reflects a realization that the coronavirus has shifted to its endemic phase, similar to the flu, and also marks an attempt to overcome pandemic ennui and deep-seated concerns among much of the public about the shots’ safety and efficacy.
The new terminology is coming from the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where Director Mandy Cohen characterizes this year’s shot as a routine fall immunization alongside the flu vaccine and shots against RSV, which is recommended for seniors and pregnant women.
“They’d like to analogize this with the ho-hum updating of the flu vaccine each year — don’t think about it, just get it,” said William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University. “They’re trying to routine-ize it and not focus on the number of shots and all that.”
Mr. Biden led the way by getting his flu shot and COVID-19 shot behind closed doors this year instead of making a show of it on camera, as he’d done in prior years.
The White House said he had a busy schedule and wanted to get it done as soon as possible, though the decision not to publicize it coincides with the 2024 campaign and Mr. Biden’s declaration that the pandemic is over. --->READ MORE HERE
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In a settlement agreement submitted on Oct. 3, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro agreed to settle the pair of lawsuits—known as U.S. Navy SEALs 1-26 v. Biden and Colonel Financial Management Officer, et al. v. Austin—which challenged the legal basis of the military-wide vaccine mandate.
The two cases were brought by servicemembers from all U.S. military branches, including numerous officers and several members of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs. The Navy SEAL plaintiffs initially filed their lawsuit nearly two years ago in October 2021 after President Joe Biden ordered that all U.S. troops and other executive branch employees be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Military servicemembers have raised numerous objections to the military COVID-19 vaccine mandate, including claims that the various military branches routinely rejected requests for religious accommodations to the mandates. Plaintiffs have also raised health concerns over the relatively condensed timeline under which the various COVID-19 vaccines were developed and then granted approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
While the various COVID-19 vaccines were originally made available to the general public under emergency use authorizations, the FDA eventually granted full approval to the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine version, later marketed as Comirnaty. President Biden introduced the vaccine mandate shortly after the FDA granted full approval for Comirnaty, but the lawsuits argued that the FDA-approved vaccine often wasn't actually available to servicemembers, meaning that the military vaccine mandate effectively required service members to take versions of the COVID-19 vaccines that didn't have full FDA approval.
Last year, Republican lawmakers introduced a provision in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that repealed the military's vaccine mandate. President Biden ultimately signed the 2022 NDAA into law, despite objecting to the provision reversing his military vaccine mandate. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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