Bring on the Covid Vaccine Boosters - The Wall Street Journal

Most of the media and political class are absorbed by the mask debate, but the Food and Drug Administration is keeping the focus where it should be: vaccines. On Thursday the agency was close to approving Covid-19 booster shots for immuno-compromised patients, and more people will need them soon.

Vulnerable patients, such as those with cancer or who have received organ transplants, produce a weaker response to Covid vaccines. A recent study found that immuno-compromised patients who received an mRNA vaccine are only 59% protected against hospitalization. Studies have found that a third shot can substantially increase antibodies.

Neutralizing antibodies are the immune system’s front-line defense. Vaccines also elicit a B- and T-cell response that can help fight infections, but these immune cells can take longer to kick in for older people as well as when people get rundown. As antibodies naturally wear off over time from vaccination, people will become more likely to get sick with Covid.

A study from Israel found that fully vaccinated health-care workers with lower antibody levels were more likely to get Covid. Most such breakthrough infections were mild but 19% had persistent symptoms after six weeks. A recent United Kingdom study estimated that vaccines were only 59% effective against symptomatic illness during late June and early July.

A new Mayo Clinic study found that Moderna’s vaccine was 76% protective against infection and Pfizer’s 42% in July, versus the 94% to 95% against symptomatic illness in their clinical trials. While both remained 75% to 80% protective against hospitalizations, that still means some who get infected could become seriously ill. The vaccine makers have said they believe people will soon need boosters to juice their antibodies.

Vaccine makers are working on booster shots to determine a formula that will confer the broadest and most robust immune response—again showing how private industry is leading the way. The FDA says it hopes to outline a strategy for administering booster shots for broader use next month. Great. The Biden Administration should let anyone who wants a booster get one.

While vaccines will likely remain highly protective against severe illness, no one wants to get symptoms resembling a bad flu as some breakthrough cases have experienced. Covid is never going away, and the best way to manage the virus is vaccinations. That has become even more clear as hospitalizations in parts of the U.S. return to levels at last summer’s peak.

The media are hammering Florida and Texas Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott for their recent Covid surges and because the White House is using both Republicans as convenient political foils. Both states are experiencing bad hospital surges, which Mr. Abbott implicitly acknowledged by asking hospitals to suspend elective surgeries and requesting out-of-state health workers to help.

Florida’s hospitalizations have exceeded its peak last summer by some 50%, and the Biden Administration has sent it 200 ventilators. But Texas and Florida are hardly alone. The virus has been rampaging through communities across the South that have lower vaccination rates and more underlying health conditions. Delta variant infections are spreading across the country, so expect more hospitalizations in the Northeast and Midwest too.

The political media fight over masks is mostly a phony war. The evidence is that N-95 medical-grade masks can help reduce transmission at the margin, though the costs of masking young children seem higher than the benefits. In any case the Delta variant is still going to spread. The Administration should be working with Messrs. Abbott and DeSantis to increase vaccination rates rather than bicker over mask mandates. The two governors should let private companies impose mask and vaccine mandates if they want, and picking fights with localities over masks seems pointless.

The governors and Mr. Biden are both playing to their political bases, but politicizing the virus isn’t helping the American people. Vaccines are the only way through the pandemic.

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