Local Charlotte News — It’s big news from the Food and Drug Administration, booster shots approved for Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. That means all three vaccines have been approved for booster doses.
In the case of Pfizer and Moderna, those boosters are approved for people 65 and older, people at a high risk of contracting COVID, or people with jobs that put them at increased exposure to the virus. Those people can get the booster if it has been six months from full vaccination.
As for the J&J, anyone 18 and older can get the booster if they received the initial dose of the vaccine two months or later.
“Allowing for booster doses in the populations that need them most at this time marks another important step in our collective effort to bring the COVID-19 pandemic to a close,” says Dr. Peter Marks with the FDA.
When it comes to mixing the vaccines, the FDA believes most people will get the same booster as their original vaccine dose. The agency also knows there may be availability problems, or people who had a reaction to the initial vaccine dose.
So, the advice is to speak with your doctor or another provider to know which booster is best.
“We wanted to provide a lot of flexibility because some people don’t know what vaccine they got in certain circumstances,” added acting FDA commissioner, Janet Woodcock. “There’s people who don’t know, there’s people who do not want to get the same vaccine that they got before because they had some sort of reaction.”
The agency continues to monitor hot spots across the nation, new variants, and the possibility of lowering the age requirement of people eligible for the booster vaccines
“Watching this very, very closely and will take action as appropriate to make sure that the maximal protection is provided to the population,” says Marks.
The FDA guidance is the first step for booster vaccines, the officials at the CDC will release their findings on Thursday.
