Nursing home residents and health care workers will most likely be the first to get booster shots, as soon as September, followed by other older people who were vaccinated last winter.
By Sharon LaFraniere
The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, and could begin offering third shots as early as the third week of September, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions.
Officials are planning to announce the decision on Wednesday at the White House. Their goal is to let Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know now that they will need additional protection against the Delta variant, which is causing caseloads to surge across much of the nation. But the new policy will depend on the Food and Drug Administration authorizing additional shots.
Recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was authorized as a one-dose regimen, will also most likely require an additional dose, the officials said. But they are waiting for results, expected this month, from a clinical trial that provided participants with two doses. So far, only about 14 million people in the United States have gotten the Johnson & Johnson shot, which the government began offering in March. The first Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were given in December.
The first boosters would probably go to nursing home residents, health care workers and emergency workers, who were the first to be vaccinated last winter. They would likely be followed by other older people, then by the general population. Officials envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received.
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