October 5, 2021
It’s not a one-dose Covid19 vaccine anymore – J&J has officially asked the FDA to authorize a booster dose under emergency use authorization.
Right now, J&J’s Covid19 vaccine is authorized for emergency use for those 18 and up. The company submitted its data to the FDA that shows when the booster is administered at least six months after the initial shot, antibody levels increased nine-fold one week after the booster and 12-fold –four weeks after the booster.
Of course, all this information will be verified and studied by the FDA before any decisions are made.
The FDA’s independent advisory panel is scheduled to meet in mid-October to not only discuss authorizing the J&J booster under emergency use, but also whether or not to the Moderna booster under emergency use.
The panel will also consider whether you can mix and match vaccines brands with different brand boosters.
As always – once the FDA advisory panel makes a recommendation, the FDA will either approve or deny it. Then the CDC director will decide whether or not to approve the FDA recommendation.
Read the press release from J & J here.
PLUS
The Senate is expected to take up the debt ceiling issue in a vote tomorrow – but we’re pretty sure it’s going to fail.
Here’s why.
The Senate Majority Leader is going to bring up the House bill I told you about in this video to suspend the debt ceiling until December of 2022. It’s a twofold process – the first vote he’s going to bring up is what‘s called a “cloture vote” and it would – if passed — allow another vote to happen so the bill could pass with only Democrat support. Here’s the thing – they need 60 votes to invoke cloture and allow the Democrats to pass the house bill with a simple majority. And as of now – Senate Republican leadership has said absolutely not they won’t allow it.
The Senate Majority Leader says he’s not ruling out using the budget reconciliation process to suspend the debt ceiling…but as I’ve been reporting – that is timely and will take us dangerously close to the default deadline.
Speaking of the deadline – the words I’ve been using are important. I keep saying “on or around” October 18th because the Treasury secretary says that date is *not* set in stone. She says it’s hard to nail down a specific date because the government’s financial situation is fluid right now and the default could even happen before October 18. Why – we’ll as I’ve been reporting – we actually hit the debt ceiling in august and the treasury department has been using “extortionary measures” to float the government since then – hence the fluidity.
There are a lot of other options being floated around to deal with the debt ceiling. You’re probably hearing about the nuclear option, possibly, the white house finding a way to raise the debt ceiling without congress. Things are getting wild. Tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day.
Here’s one other thing for you to keep in the back of your mind. Nothing seems to motivate lawmakers to get things done quite like an impending recess. And as of right now – the senate is scheduled to go on its October recess next week. But the senate majority leader says no one is going home until a debt ceiling bill is on the president’s desk.
