Officials Admit Vaccine Shortcomings, Say Vaccinated May Have to Mask and 3rd Shot May Be Needed

With daily COVID infections in the U.S. reportedly up more than 300 percent since mid-June, there is new evidence the vaccines may not protect as well as some have claimed they would. 
  
The CEO for a company that helped develop the Pfizer vaccine, Ugar Sahin of BioNTech reportedly told the Wall Street Journal that “antibody levels are dropping seven months after immunization among some vaccine recipients.” 

Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN a booster shot may be needed for people with weaker immune systems. “Those are the kind of individuals that if there’s going to be a third booster, which might likely happen, would be among the first, the vulnerable,” Fauci said.

The former head of the FDA, Scott Gottlieb, blasted the Centers for Disease Control’s latest attempt at modeling the trajectory of the COVID-19 Delta variant, basically saying the CDC doesn’t know what it is doing, and said even the vaccinated should now wear masks. 

The wide dispersion in models forecasting the Delta wave, released by CDC, are deeply disappointing and not actionable. The huge variance in the estimates shows CDC doesn’t know how to model this wave, and has little practical idea whether we’re at beginning, middle, or end 1/n pic.twitter.com/FJvcjw6hVO

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) July 24, 2021

“Whether you’re vaccinated or unvaccinated, you want to add an additional measure of protecting,” Gottlieb said. “If you’re in a high prevalence environment where there’s a lot of infection, a mask can still be helpful against this new variant.” 

With only 49% of the population fully vaccinated, top Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are urging Americans to get vaccinated. 

But DeSantis says badgering and fear-mongering by the government will never persuade some to get the jab.

DeSantis said, “You’re in a situation now where a lot of the folks who are not taking it, it’s accessible to everyone. They have different reasons for why they don’t take it. And I think that the more they’re hectored by government officials or some of these folks, that is not going to get them to ‘yes’, I can tell you that right now.”

And while vaccinations are reported to be up over the weekend, health officials remain worried, with Fauci saying, “we’re going in the wrong direction.”