Who is eligible for a COVID-19 booster now?

Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends COVID-19 vaccine boosters only for people who are moderately to severely immunocompromised.

This includes people who have had an organ or stem cell transplant, people with advanced HIV infection, people receiving treatment for blood cancers, and people taking high-dose corticosteroids or other immunosuppressive drugs. .

People who are immunocompromised may be given a booster injection if they are at least four weeks after their second dose of Pfizer or Moderna. They can receive the third dose wherever vaccines are available. About a million booster doses have already been given, according to information from the New York Times.

The deployment of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine began in March – several months after the two-dose mRNA vaccines.

Johnson & Johnson last week said they had preliminary results from a small clinical trial. In the trial, people received a second dose of the vaccine six months after their first dose. The data indicated some benefit for the booster but has yet to be peer reviewed or published in a study.

Deepta Bhattacharya, professor of immunobiology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, said most immunologists think it’s likely that people who received this injection need some form of booster.