COVID boosters: CDC Director Walensky lays out guidance for additional vaccine doses

In a White House COVID-19 response team briefing on Friday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky walked through the latest guidance on booster shots for all three of the approved COVID-19 vaccines.

Video Transcript

- I want to say clearly our current recommendations for COVID-19 booster doses. For those who received an mRNA vaccine-- Pfizer or Moderna-- there are several groups of people who are eligible for a booster shot six months or more after their primary series, including those who are 65 and older, those who are 18 and older and live in long-term care settings, have underlying medical conditions, or live or work in high-risk settings. For those who received a Johnson & Johnson vaccine, all people 18 or older who were vaccinated two or more months ago are eligible for a booster shot.

Now that there are recommendations for booster doses for all vaccine primary series, the next question is, with what? Some people may have a preference for the vaccine type that they originally received because they did very well with their initial series. For all three vaccines, this is perfectly fine. And now with 10 months of vaccine experience, some may have an expressed preference for one booster type over another.

FDA's authorizations and CDC's recommendations now allow for this type of mix and match. The recommendations made yesterday are yet another demonstration of our fundamental commitment to all of you to never lose sight of our collective goal to protect as many people as possible from COVID-19. All three COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the United States are extraordinarily safe, as demonstrated by the over 410 million vaccine doses already given. And they are highly effective in reducing the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death, even in the midst of the widely-circulating Delta variant.