Booster Shot Update: FDA Determines That More Groups Are Eligible for Boosters
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The Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration released updated guidance on COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, allowing for millions of Americans to receive a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine amid widespread concern over Delta breakthrough infections.
Currently, those eligible for booster shots include adults aged 65 and older, adults 18 and over with underlying health conditions, and adults 18 and over working or living in high risk settings, according to CDC guidance.
“After considering the totality of the available scientific evidence and the deliberations of our advisory committee of independent, external experts, the FDA amended the EUA for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to allow for a booster dose in certain populations such as health care workers, teachers and day care staff, grocery workers and those in homeless shelters or prisons, among others," said acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock in a statement.
There is plenty of confusion surrounding who constitutes high risk or high exposure, and the CDC and FDA are currently working together to answer those questions.
In approving booster shots for people whose jobs put them at risk of infection, the FDA emergency authorization will allow for front-line healthcare workers, teachers or people who work in prisons or homeless shelters to receive their third dose six months after completing their initial vaccine series. However, because the FDA used vague language in authorizing booster shots for those in “high-exposure” professions, the CDC has the potential to allow booster shots for other occupations like restaurant workers, service employees and other essential workers in the coming weeks.
The FDA advisory panel also voted against the recommendation of booster shots for individuals age 16 and older. “We’re being asked to approve this as a three-dose vaccine for people 16 years of age and older, without any clear evidence if the third dose for a younger person when compared to an elderly person is of value,” said Dr. Paul Offit, panel member and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The Biden administration had previously stated that their goal was to have booster shots available for “virtually all Americans” by mid-September, but many advisory panel members have argued that it would be more effective to target booster shots towards specific, compromised groups, while continuing the process of getting everyone vaccinated with the first two doses.
“At this moment it is clear that the unvaccinated are driving transmission in the United States,” said Dr. Amanda Cohn of the CDC.
According to a recent Marist Poll, 81% of fully vaccinated Americans say they will, or have already gotten, a booster shot, and the majority of Americans (53%) believe that getting vaccinated is “everyone’s responsibility to protect the health of others.”
On Monday, Biden received his booster shot on camera in the White House, only days after becoming eligible.
“Let me be clear,” President Biden said before getting his shot. “Boosters are important. But the most important thing we need to do is get more people vaccinated. The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing.”