COVID-19 Updates

J&J asks for booster authorization
Johnson & Johnson has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow booster shots of its COVID-19 vaccine. The company wants the agency to authorize a second dose for people age 18 and older who have received J&J's one-shot vaccine. J&J officials have provided data to the FDA showing the effectiveness of a booster at several points after the initial shot — from two months to six months. In September, the FDA authorized booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for those over age 65 and other groups six months after the initial two-shot series. Moderna has also asked the FDA to authorize a booster shot for the same groups. The FDA's outside advisory panel is scheduled to meet on Oct. 14 and 15 to review booster data from both J&J and Moderna. If the FDA amends the emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for those products to include booster shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would have to sign off and recommend how the booster shots should be administered, and who should get them.

Breakthrough infections are less likely to lead to long COVID
Vaccinated people who get a breakthrough coronavirus infection are about half as likely to experience the persisting symptoms of COVID-19, or long COVID, compared with unvaccinated people who get infected with the virus, a new study shows. The report, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, is based on data from the COVID Symptom Study app. It found that fully vaccinated adults who had a breakthrough infection were 49 percent less likely to have symptoms lasting at least four weeks after infection. Long COVID has affected millions of people since the start of the pandemic, and many have reported debilitating symptoms. As a result, clinics have popped up all over the country to study the phenomenon and to help these so-called long-haulers get back to normal.

Merck says its antiviral pill can reduce serious illness in individuals with COVID-19
The drugmaker announced that its experimental antiviral medication, a pill called molnupiravir, reduced hospitalizations and deaths by about 50 percent in non-hospitalized adult patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who were at higher risk for severe outcomes. Merck says it plans to seek emergency use authorization from the FDA for the medication. If cleared, it would be the first pill to treat COVID-19; other FDA approved or authorized treatments require an injection or infusion. In a press briefing on Friday, top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci welcomed the news and said government scientists will review the data as quickly as possible. Still, health officials say effective treatments are just one tool in the toolbox to protect people from COVID-19. "Vaccination remains far and away our best tool against COVID-19,"  White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff  Zients said. "It can prevent you from getting COVID in the first place. And we want to prevent infections, not just wait to treat them once they happen."