How to Get a Booster Dose of COVID Vaccine, Now That You Can

When the White House announced that the booster doses would be available in late September, there was a huge star on the plan – the FDA and CDC will have to go through their usual process of reviewing data and making recommendations. This process has been completed and boosters are now available for some people who have received Pfizer vaccines.

Who can get the booster?

Right now, COVID-19 boosters are legal and only recommended for people who used Pfizer for their original series . If that’s you, the CDC says you should get a booster if you fall into one of the following categories:

• People over 65
• People living in long-term care facilities such as nursing homes.
• People over the age of 50 who have underlying medical conditions , meaning they are at greater risk of severe illness if they contract COVID.

This is what you need. In addition, there are groups of people who, according to the CDC, “may” choose a booster if they believe the benefits outweigh the risks:

• People between the ages of 18 and 49 with underlying medical conditions
• People between the ages of 18 and 64 who are susceptible to COVID, often “due to occupational or institutional conditions”

When can I get the booster?

Boosters should be given six months or more after the second dose. So if, say, three months have passed since you received that dose, it is too early for you. But if more time has passed, for example, eight months, you can go and get a booster as soon as you are ready.

Pfizer boosters have the same formulation and dosage as the parent vaccine, so any place where normal doses can be administered should be able to deliver the booster.

What are the main diseases?

The CDC has a list of conditions in which people are at risk of developing serious illness if they become infected with COVID. These include pregnancy (including people who have been pregnant in the past 42 days), people with heart disease, current and former smokers, people with a BMI over 25 (which is for many of us), diabetes, lung disease, and cancer. Just to name a few.

You don’t need a doctor’s note or any other documentation to get a booster shot at most pharmacies or clinics. Just let them know that you have one of the conditions.

But who really needs a booster?

Ok, this is a more difficult question. Advisory groups from the FDA and CDC reviewed data that showed that immunity is weakened in older people (65 years and older), which could put them at greater risk of severe illness. Both groups agreed that boosters make sense for people over 65 .

The CDC also previously recommended that people who have weakened immune systems due to reasons such as cancer or taking medication for autoimmune diseases receive a third dose as part of their initial Moderna or Pfizer vaccination . This is based on data showing that two doses are not always sufficient to induce a sustained immune response.

(If you have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the data for these commissions is not yet sufficient to discuss revaccination, but it may be coming soon .)

What about everyone else? This is where the mess comes in. The vaccine’s protection against serious illness appears to be unrelenting in young and middle-aged adults. The only thing that is disappearing, according to (albeit limited) data, is protection against mild disease, including asymptomatic disease that can lead to transmission. And this defense has never been perfect, so even if we can strengthen this defense a little, we get very little benefit from it.

The CDC advisory group actually voted 9-6 against recommending boosters for people 18-64 in occupational settings at risk of exposure, and the vote for people 18-49 with underlying medical conditions was narrow, 9-6 again.

The CDC reversed the decision of its advisory group to make the recommendations we reported above. For me, as an observer, it smacks of political pressure. The White House has been trying for months to create accelerators for everyone , but it looks like there is simply no science to support such a wide network. As a reminder, an FDA advisory group that met last week voted no to allow boosters for everyone aged 18 and over. They narrowed the clearance to people over 65 and high-risk people before turning the matter over to the CDC.

All of this tells me that the decision to recommend boosters to young people may be ahead of science, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get boosters. You decide. There just isn’t much data to make this decision. We don’t know if the side effects of the third dose will be different from the side effects of the first two (although they seem to be okay). And we don’t know how much the amplifier will actually increase your defense. If you have a doctor you can talk to, you can discuss it with him or her.