WHO says COVID-19 boosters needed, reversing previous call
LA TimesAn expert group convened by the World Health Organization said Tuesday that it “strongly supports urgent and broad access” to booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines amid the global spread of Omicron, capping a reversal of the U.N. agency’s repeated insistence last year that boosters weren’t necessary for healthy people and contributed to vaccine inequity. In a statement, WHO said its expert group concluded that immunization with authorized COVID-19 vaccines provide high levels of protection against severe disease and death amid the continuing spread of the hugely contagious Omicron variant. Last year, WHO’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for a moratorium on booster doses while dozens of countries embarked on administering them, saying rich countries should immediately donate those doses to poor countries instead. The updated recommendations came from an 18-member advisory group that focuses on the impact of “variants of concern” — the most worrying variants, like Omicron — and assesses the vaccines’ effectiveness against them.