To Boost or Not to Boost?

With several recent studies suggesting a decline in the real-world effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines over time, the Biden administration unveiled a plan in August to begin providing a third dose of the two mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to eligible healthy people beginning later this month.

But, as Science Editor Jessica McDonald explained, many scientists believe that it has not been demonstrated that a so-called "booster" shot to increase potentially waning immunity is needed at this point -- considering other evidence shows the two dose vaccines still provide strong protection against severe disease.

Some experts also say the booster shots may not do much to change the trajectory of the pandemic, and argue that available doses should instead be used to immunize people in other countries who have yet to get their first or second shot.

To learn more about what the studies say, and why some scientists are not convinced of an immediate need for boosters, read "Biden’s Controversial COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Plan."

Reader: Someone sent me a video that claims the Red Cross won’t accept blood from vaccinated people. This seems ridiculous to me. What are the facts?

FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: We wrote about misleading social media posts that claimed the Red Cross in Japan refused to accept blood from vaccinated people -- but that was only temporary until it could write guidelines that would give donors time to get over any side effects from a vaccine.

In our story, we said this about the Red Cross in the United States: "In the U.S., there is no wait time, or deferral as it is known, to donate blood under Food and Drug Administration guidelines for those who have received a COVID-19 vaccine."

On its website, the American Red Cross says, "There is no deferral time for eligible blood donors who are vaccinated with an inactivated or RNA based COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by AstraZeneca, Janssen/J&J, Moderna, Novavax, or Pfizer."

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:
 

• "CDC: No Warning Issued for Acute Flaccid Myelitis in 2021 ": The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been tracking outbreaks of acute flaccid myelitis — a serious condition mainly affecting children — since 2014. The CDC hasn’t seen a reason for concern this year, but Facebook posts have wrongly claimed that the agency has issued a “warning of polio-like outbreak” this fall. The false claim originated in an online article that has since been deleted.
   
• "Schumer Falsely Claims ‘All’ Americans Got Out of Afghanistan": A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has conceded that the New York Democrat falsely claimed that “all” Americans who wanted to leave Afghanistan “have come out.” Government officials say that fewer than 100 U.S. citizens, and an unknown number of U.S. legal permanent residents, who want to leave Afghanistan are still in the country.
   
• "Meme Misattributes Quote on Afghanistan to Trump": A viral meme falsely claims that former President Donald Trump suggested that the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was an orchestrated distraction by Democrats. A spokesperson for Trump has denied he made that remark. A very similar statement, not attributed to the former president, previously went viral on Facebook.
   
• "Republicans Inflate Cost of Taliban-Seized U.S. Military Equipment": The Taliban seized an arsenal of U.S.-made military equipment when it overran the Afghan army, but not nearly as much as numerous Republicans have claimed.

• "La afirmación falsa del vicegobernador de Texas, Dan Patrick, sobre las personas negras sin vacunas ": La mayoría de los residentes de los Estados Unidos que no han sido vacunados contra el COVID-19 son blancos, según la información disponible en cada estado y las encuestas. Eso contradice la afirmación del vicegobernador de Texas, Dan Patrick, de que, “en la mayoría de los estados” los residentes negros son “el grupo más grande” de personas no vacunadas.
   
• "Video distorsiona consejos sobre la vacunación y la variante delta": Un epidemiólogo recomendó vacunarse contra el COVID-19 porque la evidencia sugiere que si una persona no vacunada contrae la variante delta tiene el “doble de probabilidades de requerir tratamiento en un hospital” en comparación con alguien con la variante alfa. Pero un video publicado en Facebook tergiversa el consejo para afirmar que lo que el experto dijo fue que las personas vacunadas tienen el doble de probabilidades de ser hospitalizadas.
   
• "Desinformación sobre mascarillas": Desde el comienzo de la pandemia, ha habido un debate intenso, y a veces mal informado, sobre la efectividad de las mascarillas como protección contra el SARS-CoV-2, el virus causante del COVID-19.