Over 1 million people received unauthorized Covid-19 booster injections: report

A CDC backgrounder as seen by ABC News estimates that at least one million people have received booster shots of covid-19. The number may be higher, as the document would not account for people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The document is not publicly available, and in an email to Gizmodo, a CDC spokesperson said the agency “does not comment on the information disclosed.”

Currently, a person in the United States is considered fully vaccinated after one dose of a Johnson & Johnson covid-19 vaccine or two doses of a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. But some people have been given extra doses, either on the advice of their doctor or simply by deciding for themselves: Last month, Camille Kotton, a member of the CDC’s advisory committee on vaccination practices, told the Washington post that many have “taken matters into their own hands and that many are proceeding with additional doses of the vaccine as they see fit.”

As an outlet for STAT health policy reported, vaccination sites should decide to check health records for someone receiving an extra dose, and hospitals should set their own policies to determine which patients might be prescribed extra doses. Insurers will have to decide to cover them.

Scientists said that we so far lack adequate data to show that boosters are still needed, including for immunocompromised people, who face the highest health risks from covid-19 infections. While the Delta variant seems more capable than previous strains infect a vaccinated person, the current vaccine dosing schedule still appears to provide strong protection against serious illness and death. Pfizer and Moderna have suggested that additional doses may be needed to boost some people’s immunity by this fall or winter, but the World Health Organization call for a moratorium on recalls until September, stressing that it encourages more rich countries to accumulate vaccines while some countries have not even distributed the first doses. Less than 1% people in 23 countries, mostly in the Middle East and Africa, have been fully immunized. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti, that number is zero.

Meanwhile, Britain, Israel, and Germany have already given the green light for additional injections for some at-risk populations, and the San Francisco Department of Public Health Oh good what they call “extra doses” of mRNA vaccine for people who have received a single dose of Johnson & Johnson.

In one White House Briefing Last week, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said the agency was “just starting to collect data” on physician-approved booster shots. In an email to Gizmodo, an FDA spokesperson said the agency is “closely monitoring data as it becomes available from studies administering an additional dose of COVID-19 vaccines licensed to immunocompromised persons “. They added that the agency, along with the CDC, “is evaluating potential options on this issue and will share information in the near future.”