The Biden administration on Thursday announced its plans to combat COVID-19 this fall and winter, when cases are expected to rise, with a major focus on ensuring access to and awareness of the newly-updated booster shots.

What You Need To Know

  • The Biden administration on Thursday announced its plans to combat COVID-19 this fall and winter, with a focus on access to the new omicron variant boosters

  • The administration has purchased 170 million doses of the new boosters, and Americans can start finding their nearest location on Vaccines.gov

  • The administration has a plan to increase access to the new booster shots, which includes extra focus on older and immunocompromised Americans

  • That includes outreach to the 16 million people who use Medicare and direct work with nursing homes

The shots target not only the original coronavirus strain but also the BA.4 and BA.5 strains of the omicron variant, and they got final sign-offs last week from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The administration has purchased 170 million doses of the new boosters, and Americans can start finding their nearest vaccination location on Vaccines.gov, as with previous rounds of shots. Most people should still be able to find a vaccination site within five miles of where they live.

Everyone 12 years and older is eligible, a White House fact sheet noted, as long as they’re two months past their first vaccine series or their most recent booster.

“As we head into the fall, we know that there is a potential for an increase in infections, in part due to increased waning of immunity from vaccines and prior infection,” the announcement read. “Additionally, as the weather gets colder and people spend more time indoors, contagious viruses like COVID-19 can spread more easily.”

President Joe Biden was supposed to announce the rollout in a speech on Thursday, but the remarks were canceled after Queen Elizabeth II passed away.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, acknowledged in an interview with Spectrum News that the guidance around the various shots can be confusing. 

“Do I need a booster? When do I get one? What's really important with a new vaccine now is that you get it once a year,” he said. “For a vast majority of people, you get it once a year.”

Jha and the rest of the COVID-19 task force has laid out a plan to increase access to the new booster shots, which includes extra focus on older and immunocompromised Americans.

That includes outreach to the 16 million people who use Medicare and direct work with nursing homes, including efforts to get staff boosted.

More broadly, the Department of Health and Human Services will launch a fall messaging campaign and engage with community organizations such as faith-based groups and the National Parent Teacher Association. 

But, Dr. Jha noted, no matter if you’re at high risk of severe COVID-19, you should still consider one of the new booster shots.

“I was talking to my nephew, who's 22, who said, ‘Why do I want to get this? I'm totally healthy,’” he said. “And the reason he wants to get it, I reminded him, he doesn't want to give COVID to his mother, he doesn’t want to give it to his grandmother, he doesn’t want to give it to friends who may be vulnerable.”

“So you're not just doing it for yourself, you're also doing it for your loved ones.”

The Federal Emergency Management Administration will also reimburse up to 90% of costs for communities that want to set up larger vaccination sites for the new boosters.

The Biden administration also encourages people to get their annual flu shot at the same time.

Dr. Jha also emphasized that funding for the COVID-19 response was still lacking, after the administration had pushed for months for more money from Congress.

By moving money and resources around, the government has reserved hundreds of millions of COVID-19 rapid tests and also recently purchased another 100 million for the stockpile, but Dr. Jha said ultimately difficult decisions will have to be made.

“Because of congressional inaction, the way we were able to get these vaccines out to the American people is we took funding from other critical sources,” he said. 

“We want to make sure we have enough gowns and masks for doctors and nurses —  we're not going to have that, because we had to pull funding from there. We don't have enough tests for this fall and winter. So we've had to make some pretty tough choices.”

He said his message to Congress was that the nation could be caught flat-footed if there’s a major COVID-19 surge.

“When you want to be prepared, you’ve got to spend money early, and you’ve got to make sure that you're buying things not in the middle of a crisis,” he said. “If we find ourselves in a crisis, Congress always then steps up. It’s going to be twice as expensive, half as effective.”