Covid booster shots are coming: here’s how you can get one

The US will begin offering third Covid-19 booster shots to every American starting in September, top health officials announced Wednesday.

“Based on our latest assessment, the current protection against severe disease, hospitalisation, and death could diminish in the months ahead,” according to a joint statement from the heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.

Federal health officials said the shots will become available from September 20 as long as they receive emergency approval from the CDC and FDA, which is expected in the coming weeks.

The statement said it was now “very clear” that immunity begins to wane after the initial two doses.

Health officials including the CDC’s Dr Rochelle Walensky, acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock and White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci warned the effectiveness of the vaccine was diminishing in both mild and severe cases.

“We are starting to see evidence of reduced protection against mild and moderate disease,” they said.

The danger was greatest for those who are at higher risk or were vaccinated during the earlier phases of the vaccination rollout, the statement said.

Every American will be eligible to receive an additional dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines eight months after their second shot.

Health officials are investigating the need for booster shots for the more than 14 million Americans who received the Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine.

More data is expected to emerge on the suitability of extra J&J doses in the coming weeks.

Residents of long-term care facilities will be first in line, “given the distribution of vaccines to this population early in the vaccine rollout and the continued increased risk that Covid-19 poses to them,” health officials said.

Emergency workers and medical professionals will also be at the front of the queue to receive the booster shot.

President Joe Biden is due to speak about the booster shots in an address on Wednesday afternoon.

Cases of Covid-19 are surging to levels not seen since the height of the pandemic in winter, with more than 150,000 new cases being recorded daily in the US due to the hyper-transmissable Delta variant.

The decision to offer a third dose to Americans goes against pleas from the World Health Organisation to deliver shots to developing countries first.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this month that the wealthiest countries had received more than 80 percent of the world’s vaccine supply, even though they make up less than half of the global population.

“We cannot accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it, while the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected,” Dr Tedros said.

Prior to the US announcement on Wednesday, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan, said more data was needed before booster shots should be given.

“We believe clearly that the data today does not indicate that boosters are needed.”

WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward said two doses should be given to the most vulnerable worldwide before boosters are administered to those fully-vaccinated.

“We are a long, long way from that,” he said.

“There is enough vaccine around the world, but it is not going to the right places in the right order.”

The US has been closely monitoring the rollout of booster shots in Israel, where more than one million people have already received a third dose.

Last week, the FDA authorised additional vaccine doses for immunocompromised people who received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.