On Friday morning, the FDA announced that it was expanding the availability of booster shots to cover all adults 18 and older. This move, which many had forecast, came at the end of a week in which new cases of COVID-19 were again increasing across the United States, with the daily average up by 24% since the end of October.  Over the last few weeks, increasing case numbers generated fears that the next few months could bring on a surge like the one at the end of 2020. From Nov. 1 last year to the peak in the first two weeks of January 2021, cases of COVID-19 more than tripled. So did deaths. At their worst point, more than a quarter-million Americans were testing positive for COVID-19 each day, accompanied by 3,500 deaths.  The potential for renewed disaster exists. Just 58.9% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and record surges of new cases in Germany, where vaccination rates are 10% higher, show that this isn’t nearly enough to ward off a wave that could once again fill hospitals—and morgues. But with the new ruling, the FDA seeks to end confusion between different authorizations issued over the last month and the handful of states which had already moved to offer boosters for all adults.  Read more