AP – The fall COVID-19 vaccine season is starting slowly for Pfizer, with U.S. sales of its Comirnaty shots sinking 25% after federal regulators narrowed recommendations on who should get them.
Approval of updated shots also came several weeks later than usual, and Pfizer said Tuesday that hurt sales as well.
Many Americans get vaccinations in the fall, to protect against any disease surges in the coming winter.
Experts say interest in COVID-19 shots has been declining, and that trend could pick up this fall due to anti-vaccine sentiment and confusion about whether the shots are necessary.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month stopped recommending COVID-19 shots for anyone, instead leaving the choice up to patients.
The government agency said it was adopting recommendations made by advisers picked by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Before this year, U.S. health officials — following the advice of infectious disease experts — recommended annual COVID-19 boosters for all Americans ages 6 months and older. The idea was to update protection as the coronavirus evolves.
But that sentiment started to shift earlier this year when Kennedy, who has questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, said they were no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women.
Dr. Amesh Adalja said vaccine rates have been “suboptimal” in recent years even for people considered a high risk for catching a bad case of COVID-19.
“That’s only going to fall off more this season,” the senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security said recently.
The shifting guidance caused some confusion in September, once updated shots began arriving at drugstores, the main place Americans go to get vaccinated …
