Here’s who can get a 3rd vaccine dose now—and who may be next
Pfizer and BioNTech submitted new COVID-19 vaccine-booster data to the Food and Drug Administration Monday as US officials continue to consider whether to recommend third doses for more Americans.
For now, officials have only recommended that some people with weakened immune systems get a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. While officials continue to say that there is not enough evidence to support third-dose boosters for other vaccinated groups at this point, many officials say boosters will likely be in our futures. The lingering questions are when exactly shots will be needed and who will be next in line.
On Sunday, Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins told the Associated Press that, with the delta variant raging and immune responses possibly waning, officials could be making decisions on boosters for this fall or winter within the coming weeks.
"There is a concern that the vaccine may start to wane in its effectiveness," Dr. Collins said. "And delta is a nasty one for us to try to deal with. The combination of those two means we may need boosters, maybe beginning first with health care providers, as well as people in nursing homes, and then gradually moving forward" with older people and so on, essentially replicating the order of the initial vaccine rollout.
