UPMC: Get covid booster shot if you’re eligible
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Older Americans and adults with high-risk medical conditions should get a covid booster shot if they are eligible, UPMC doctors said Friday.
“We want you to have the best possible immune response,” said Dr. Donald Yealy, UPMC’s chief medical officer and chair of emergency medicine. “We want you to be ready in case you come in contact with the virus.”
The vaccine remains highly effective for most people, UPMC doctors said as new recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urge a booster dose for some vulnerable populations who received the Pfizer vaccine.
Health officials said boosters should be offered to individuals ages 65 and older, nursing home residents and those ages 50 to 65 who have underlying health problems that put them at risk of severe complications from the disease. The CDC also endorsed the extra dose for health care workers and some others whose jobs put them at increased risk of exposure to the disease.
Certain individuals with compromised immune systems are also eligible for a third dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, though less than 3% of the United States population fall into that category, Yealy said.
For everyone else who already received the initial two-dose regimen of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson jab, Yealy said, “you are well protected.”
Vaccines remain “one of the strongest tools that we have to change this pandemic,” Yealy said, and “offer excellent protection against serious illness.”
“They also offer some protection against transmission,” Yealy said, though that was not their intended purpose, and even fully vaccinated individuals can spread the virus.
There will likely be more information forthcoming regarding who may be eligible for additional doses of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, said Dr. Graham Snyder, UPMC’s medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology. Health officials may also recommend booster doses for additional groups in the future, he said.
For those who are eligible for a third dose, Yealy recommended getting it.
Certain individuals, particularly those with severely compromised immune systems, may not have responded to the initial vaccine sequence, Snyder said, which is why they’re giving additional doses to those individuals.
Others now eligible for another dose — including adults 65 or over and those ages 50 to 65 with certain health issues — still see the vaccine working “very well,” Snyder said. But health experts are beginning to see that their immune system “needs a reminder,” he said.
“It’s essentially a review lesson for your immune system,” Yealy said of the booster dose.
Despite the recommendation for an extra dose for some individuals, Yealy and Snyder said what’s most important is that unvaccinated individuals get the shots.
Breakthrough cases, hospitalizations and deaths — those that occur in individuals who received their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson option at least 14 days prior — remain rare, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Breakthrough cases have risen recently in Allegheny County, though serious complications and deaths were still uncommon.