Biden’s chaotic messaging on Covid-19 boosters is pitting the White House against the government’s scientific advisers
WASHINGTON — The White House’s chaotic, contradictory messaging on Covid-19 vaccine booster shots has given Americans whiplash. But more concerning, experts say, is that it risks undermining President Biden’s campaign pledge that he would listen to the scientists — and that it is undermining the normal approval processes.
The administration’s latest move — a midnight Thursday decision to expand booster eligibility — puts the spotlight on Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who overruled her own advisory panel of scientists to make the call. Now, she finds herself caught between the White House, which had been pushing for the expanded eligibility for months, and an advisory body of experts that recommended booster shots only to a smaller part of the adult population — and that the CDC has almost never overruled.
