U.S. could announce COVID-19 vaccine booster plan in early September

In response to the largest coronavirus spike in infections in months, the FDA is prepping a plan for COVID-19 vaccine boosters.

The plan will likely follow other guidelines by prioritizing boosters for immunocompromised and elderly individuals, according to a report from WSJ.

The U.K., Germany and Israel have recommended providing boosters to high-risk populations.

The growing support of COVID-19 boosters in several countries comes as the WHO has called to suspend the use of boosters until late September to make more vaccine doses available to the developing world.

The White House has disputed the WHO recommendation as a false dichotomy, explaining the U.S. could continue donating more COVID-19 vaccines doses while providing booster doses to vulnerable populations, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki. While the U.S. doesn’t yet have an official booster plan, officials have stated that the country would have sufficient doses should they be required.

To date, healthcare workers have administered more than 193 million COVID-19 doses — enough to cover 58.2% of the population, according to the CDC.

Executives at Pfizer and Moderna have predicted that COVID-19 boosters will be an effective tool to continue beating back the novel coronavirus.

Pfizer and Moderna plan to ask the FDA to extend their emergency use authorization for their respective COVID-19 vaccines to support the use of boosters.

Both companies are also developing boosters based on circulating variants.