{O/C} Turning to the United States, officials are doubling down on their push for COVID boosters.
This as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden, delivered his last White House briefing today.
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With raging fears of a tripledemic -- wreaked by RSV, or Respiratory Syncytial Virus, the flu and COVID, many school districts nationwide have been paralysed.
Children's hospitals are also inundated with kids sick with RSV.
The CDC analysed some 360,000 COVID tests administered to people displaying suspected COVID symptoms at drugstores in between September and November.
Researchers concluded the new booster offered an extra 30 to 56 percent protection against symptomatic infection.
Benefiting the most are Americans who had never had a prior booster, with only two original COVID jabs at least eight months earlier.
While the original jabs have offered powerful protection against severe disease and death, protection against mild infection is waning.
So the Biden administration has announced a six-week campaign to have seniors boosted.
This comes as the Christmas holiday season approaches.
The campaign echoes an earlier call from medical organisations urging people to get both their COVID booster and a flu shot.
At his last White House briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci bemoaned the political division that has jeopardised people's health.
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ANTHONY FAUCI, Director of Naitonal Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases:
When I see people in this country because of the divisiveness in our country, not getting vaccinated for reasons that have nothing to do with public health but have to do because of divisiveness and ideological differences, it pains me because I don't want to see anybody get infected.
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Fauci also said he was shocked, COVID has upended lives for three straight years.
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I don't think any of my colleagues imagined that we would see a three-year saga of suffering and death and a million Americans losing their lives.
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Reinvigorating the vaccine drive and capping his half-a-century career, Fauci called on Americans to get vaccinated right now.
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My message and my final message, maybe the final message I give you from this podium is that: Please, for your own safety, for that of your family, get your updated COVID-19 shot as soon as you're eligible to protect yourself, your family, and your community.
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