Thread by @IHME_UW

📊⚖️ @AliHMokdad & @DrEricDing write for @ThinkGlobalHlth about the data pointing to the need for COVID-19 vaccine boosters & how the U.S. government needs to put the groups who can benefit most from these boosters at the front of the line. #VaccineEquity📄thinkglobalhealth.org/article/time-s…

🇺🇸📝💉The US government should begin rolling out COVID-19 booster shots for:

▪️people who are immunocompromised
▪️adults aged 60 and older
▪️racial and ethnic minority groups
▪️health care workers
▪️other essential workers
▪️people experiencing homelessness
▪️incarcerated people

📣 Boosters should be prioritized in the United States only for individuals who are at greatest risk of dying from the disease or have a high risk of spreading COVID-19 infection. #COVID19 #VaccineEquity #DeltaVariant

🔎📊⚕️Early data indicates that boosters are a vital tool to control COVID-19—@pfizer found that a third vaccine dose increases a person’s virus-fighting antibodies up to 100 times higher than pre-vaccination levels. abc7chicago.com/pfizer-booster…

🔎📊⚕️The Israeli government’s research shows that @pfizer vaccine’s ability to prevent #COVID19 infection lowered to 16% among those who were vaccinated in Jan. 2021 yet remains highly effective at preventing people from being hospitalized or dying. gov.il/BlobFolder/rep…

The data from Israel indicates that breakthrough infections are happening among vaccinated people of all ages—older adults do not appear to have a greater risk of a breakthrough infection than a younger person. #COVID19 #DeltaVariant

Older adults & immunocompromised people should get access to boosters at the same time instead of older adults going first. #COVID19 #Booster #DeltaVariant

As @RheaBoydMD Boyd noted in a recent @NPR interview “availability and accessibility [to vaccines] are not the same thing.” #VaccineEquity #COVID19 npr.org/2021/08/01/102…

For example, the U.S. government is incentivizing, but not requiring employers to give employees paid time off to get vaccinated—falling ill from vaccine side effects for one or two days can cost people their livelihood. #COVID19

The United States must double efforts to break down barriers to COVID-19 vaccination for Black, Latino, and Indigenous Americans, and at the same time prioritize these communities for boosters.

Systemic racism continues to increase the risk of getting infected with and dying from COVID-19. (h/t @RCReinerJr via @ThinkGlobalHlth) thinkglobalhealth.org/article/reduci…

💉In the initial COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the United States erred when it failed to prioritize vaccines for people in racial and ethnic minority communities. We must get it right with boosters. #COVID19 #DeltaVariant

🏫🎒🚍✏️Prioritizing school employees and childcare workers for boosters is also urgent because they received priority access to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in many states amid the push to reopen schools quickly last spring. #COVID19 #DeltaVariant

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is less effective than the Pfizer & Moderna vaccines at preventing infection, so it's likely that people who received this vaccine will have even lower immunity 6 months post-vaccine compared to people who were vaccinated with @pfizer or @moderna_tx.

⚕️🩺 Health care workers, many of whom received their 1st dose in December/January, could transmit #COVID19 to patients amid this surge. While masks can substantially lower transmission, we need to employ every useful tool against the highly transmissible #DeltaVariant.

⚖️🌎🌍🌏⚖️We can’t limit our thinking about #VaccineEquity to our national borders. To free up additional vaccines for low- & middle-income countries, the U.S. should stop throwing away vaccines, instead offering these jabs as boosters to anyone who wants them before they expire.

Just 1% of people in low-income countries have received 1 dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to date and every shot ordered for use in the U.S. translates to more death & economic devastation in these countries + multiplies opportunities for the virus to mutate.

💉⚖️ Unfortunately, doses that are about to expire can’t be donated to other countries given logistical constraints, but they can be used to reduce the demand for booster doses nationwide so that future vaccine supplies are freed up for donations.

But donations alone will not suffice to vaccinate the world. Wealthy countries, including the United States, should develop a global Operation Warp Speed to help low- and middle-income countries produce mRNA vaccines. 💉🌎🌍🌏🤝

As the U.S. enters the 8th month of its vaccination campaign, some Americans are seeking out unauthorized booster shots. As cases surge, it’s time for the government to make sure that boosters reach the people who need them most instead of the people who are cheating the system.

The Delta variant will take advantage of every extra day that we give it to spread.