your questions about COVID booster shots answered

While you may have thought you were done having to worry about the severe effects of COVID-19 after getting vaccinated, unfortunately, it’s not quite that easy.

Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shown the vaccine to be remarkably effective against developing symptoms of the virus in both adults and the adolescents aged 12-18 that are eligible to get the shot. However, research is also showing that your immunity against COVID-19 may slip a bit as time passes after your vaccine, which is common with many vaccinations.

This has led the topic of COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to become a hot one in recent months, especially as the Delta variant has spurred another wave of outbreaks across the nation. Many people who’ve already gotten the shot and parents who’ve gotten their teens protected are now wondering whether they will need a booster.

As always, the best information on important health questions like this won’t come from the random, untrained voices across social media, it will come from verified experts in medical science.

Thankfully, those experts are mostly in agreement on which people should be thinking about getting a COVID-19 booster shot right now.

What do we know about booster shots?

• Currently, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (typically just referred to as the Pfizer vaccine), is the only one for which boosters have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
• People who got the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine are not eligible for boosters at the moment but the CDC says that people who got those shots will also “likely need a booster shot” and that more research is currently being done on the effectiveness and safety of those boosters.

Who should get a booster?

The highest-priority groups (those who should receive a booster) include:  

• People over the age of 65 regardless of their living situation or overall health condition.
• Residents of long-term care settings who are at least 18 years old  
• Anyone aged 50-64 with underlying medical conditions. Those conditions include cancer, chronic lung diseases, diabetes and heart disease — you can check the full list of those conditions online from the CDC.

Second priority groups: In its recommendations, the CDC also suggests two other groups of people “may” want to get a booster but aren’t in the top-priority list. Those people include:

• Anyone aged 18-49 with an underlying medical condition
• Anyone aged 18-64 whose risk of exposure to COVID-19 is high because of where they work or an institution they regularly attend.

What about teenagers?

Adolescents under the age of 18 are not recommended to get a booster right now. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), pediatrician members of the FDA’s research panel were not satisfied that enough research has been done specifically on the effects of a booster in children.

When would I need a booster if I’m a member of one of the groups listed above?

As far as those people who got the Pfizer vaccine are concerned, the CDC and FDA each recently put out recommendations regarding boosters. Both organizations say nobody should get a booster until at least six months have passed since the second dose of their initial Pfizer vaccine series was delivered.

What will the side effects of a booster be?

Meanwhile, for those who are recommended to get another dose, Pfizer cites independent research in saying that you can expect the short-term reactions that accompany a booster to be “similar to or lower than” the reactions that followed your second dose.

If you have any questions about whether or not you should sign up for a booster shot, check with your primary care doctor.