NEW YORK (AP) — With fresh COVID-19 cases bubbling up in some parts of the country, health officials are setting course for a fall vaccination campaign. An influential government advisory panel on Thursday recommended new shots for all Americans this fall. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must endorse the recommendation.
Officials acknowledged the need for vaccinations is not as dire as it was only a few years ago. Most Americans have some degree of immunity , from past vaccinations or both. COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations last month were at about their lowest point since the pandemic first hit the United States in 2020.
But immunity wanes, new coronavirus variants keep emerging and there are still hundreds of COVID-19-associated deaths and thousands of hospitalizations reported each week. What’s more, health officials have reported upticks this month in COVID-19-associated emergency room visits and hospitalizations, and a in positive test results in the southwestern U.S.
It’s not clear whether that’s a sign of a coming summer wave — which has happened before — or just a blip, said Lauren Ancel Meyers of the University of Texas, who leads a research team that tracks COVID-19. “We’ll have to see what happens in the coming weeks,” she said. At a Thursday meeting at the CDC in Atlanta, infectious disease experts voted to recommend updated COVID-19 vaccines for Americans age 6 months and older.
Health officials have told Americ.