President Biden delivers remarks on COVID-19 cases in the East Room at the White House on Aug. 18. Photo: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images
President Biden told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he and first lady Jill Biden will get COVID-19 booster shots.
Driving the news: "It's something that I think, you know, because we got our shots all the way back in, I think, December, so it's past time," Biden said in an interview that aired Thursday.
The big picture: The administration on Wednesday announced that Americans who received a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine should expect to be offered a booster shot eight months after their second dose.
- The move seeks to curb declining vaccine effectiveness over time as the Delta variant continues to spread nationwide.
- Officials are planning to offer the booster shots to eligible Americans starting the week of Sept. 20.
- A booster shot for individuals who received the single-dose J&J vaccine is also likely to be recommended, but officials are waiting for more data to come out over the coming weeks.
But some experts criticized the administration's guidelines for booster shots, saying COVID vulnerability can return as soon as five months after a second dose.
- The WHO argued that it's more important to give the doses to countries with lower vaccination rates.
Go deeper: Biden administration unveils plan for vaccine boosters starting in September