Booster rollout begins

Following days of lengthy debate among vaccine experts, booster shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine can now be officially administered to some adults in the United States.

 

As of early Friday morning, those eligible for a third shot include: older adults, long-term care facility residents, some people with underlying health conditions, and people ages 18 to 64 who are at increased risk of Covid-19 because of their workplaces or institutional settings. This can include health care workers, caregivers for frail or immunocompromised people, people in homeless shelters and people in correctional facilities.

 

The CDC’s independent advisers had voted against additional shots for younger people at increased exposure risk, but US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky aligned her recommendation with the FDA. Earlier in the week, the FDA authorized the booster dose for people 65 and older, people at high risk of severe disease, as well as people whose jobs put them at risk of infection.

 

"I believe we can best serve the nation's public health needs by providing booster doses for the elderly, those in long-term care facilities, people with underlying medical conditions, and for adults at high risk of disease from occupational and institutional exposures to COVID-19,” Walensky said in a statement. She added, “We will address, with the same sense of urgency, recommendations for the Moderna and J&J vaccines as soon as those data are available.”

 

Moderna has asked the FDA to authorize booster shots of its vaccine, but so far, the agency has only considered Pfizer's bid. Johnson & Johnson released partial data last week that it said showed a booster dose greatly raised immunity, but the company has not yet submitted that data to regulators.