Booster shots should soon be available to people with medical issues who received their initial Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines at least six months ago, a federal advisory committee decided Thursday. It recommended booster shots for anyone 65 and older as well as residents of long-term care facilities and adults under 64 with medical conditions. It stopped short of recommending third shots for health care workers and other healthy people potentially exposed on the job, though it said it may revisit the issue as more data becomes available. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, still needs to sign off on the recommendations before they become federal policy, but she has already indicated a desire to make boosters widely available. People who have gotten two shots and decide not to get a third will still be considered fully vaccinated, the CDC said. No one will need a doctor's note to walk into a pharmacy and request a third dose. They will just have to consider for themselves whether the benefit they will derive from a booster outweighs their personal risk. Several committee members said this will create problems with implementation and worried that it will add to the confusion many people feel about vaccines. The evidence is clear that most vaccinated Americans remain well protected by the shots they already received, committee members and CDC officials said. More than 90% of those currently hospitalized with COVID-19 have not been vaccinated and the best way to combat the current pandemic is to give initial shots to those who have not had any, they said. Lab research and data from Israel, where booster shots were made widely available this summer, suggests protection against COVID-19 infection begins to wane about six months after initial shots, though hospitalization for vaccinated people remains rare. Those over 65 are most at risk for severe disease, which is why the committee, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or ACIP, voted unanimously to recommend they receive boosters. At the moment, only the vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech, which has been fully licensed under the name Comirnaty, will be available for boosters. There are plenty of available doses for whoever needs them, the Biden administration has said. A booster from Pfizer-BioNTech would be the same dose at the same vaccine as the previous two doses. Not enough research has been completed to say that it's safe to get initial doses of one vaccine and then switch to another, Dr. Doran Fink of the Food and Drug Administration told the committee Thursday. The other two available vaccines have not yet been authorized for use as boosters. Moderna has requested authorization for a lower dose of its initial vaccine to be used as a booster, which the FDA is currently considering and which could become available for boosters in coming weeks.


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