The CDC’s new director, Dr. Mandy Cohen, teased incoming guidance recommending annual COVID-19 booster shots in a Thursday interview with Spectrum News.
Dr. Mandy Cohen alluded to annual COVID-19 vaccination recommendations to be announced in early September by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
New CDC Director Mandy Cohen: “We anticipate that COVID will become similar to flu shots, where it is going to be you get your annual flu shot and you get your annual COVID shot.”
I was literally suspended from Twitter for predicting this back in 2021.https://t.co/WeeECeh3ym
— Michael P Senger (@michaelpsenger) July 29, 2023
“We’re just on the precipice of that, so I don’t want to get ahead of where our scientists are here and doing that evaluation work, but yes we anticipate that COVID will become similar to flu shots, where it is going to be you get your annual flu shot and you get your annual COVID shot,” Cohen said. “We’re not quite there yet, but stay tuned. I think within the next couple of weeks, month we’re going to hear more from our experts on COVID shots.”
Cohen was appointed as CDC director in June by President Biden following the departure of Dr. Rochelle Walensky. She has a background in internal medicine and led the North Carolina Department of Human Health and Services. (RELATED: POLL: Almost Half Of Adults Believe COVID-19 Vaccines May Have Caused ‘Unexplained’ Deaths)
The CDC lost public trust among many Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Roughly 10% of Americans do not trust the institution at all, according to a March survey by Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health.
“Folks have been very clear that the CDC did lose trust,” Cohen said. “There were some early places where the CDC didn’t perform and execute the way they needed to.”
Cohen claims she is concerned about distrust in vaccines. She says she has already met with individual members of Congress as she plans to focus on her relationships with the public, health leaders and both Democratic and Republican politicians.
This comes after emails released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus revealed that Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was aware of gain-of-function research occurring in Wuhan, China during the pandemic.