CDC Recommends Pfizer Boosters For Elderly, People With Health Risks
INDIANAPOLIS — The Centers For Disease Control has given its recommendations on Pfizer booster shots for COVID. The organization voted in favor of recommendations that people over the age of 65 as well as other Americans with underlying health conditions be eligible for a booster.
Former state health commissioner Dr. Jerome Adams tells WISH-TV that the recommendations are the right ones at this particular time.
“All things considering I was pleased with this recommendation from the CDC,” Adams said. The Food and Drug Administration endorsed a similar recommendation earlier this week.
“The CDC advisory committee on immunization practices, their’s comes along and adds a little more texture to the recommendations,” Adams added.
The advisers said boosters should be offered to people 65 and older, nursing home residents, and those ages 50 to 64 who have risky underlying health problems. The extra dose would be given once they are at least six months past their last Pfizer shot.
Adams said the recommendations have good timing with winter on the way and the surge in the Delta variant of COVID-19 starting to slow down.
“(The Delta variant) likes winter,” he said. “It likes when people are packed inside. There are still parts of this country that haven’t had a Delta surge yet, like the Northeast.”
CDC data show the vaccines still offer strong protection against serious illness for all ages, but there is a slight drop among the oldest adults. And immunity against milder infection appears to be waning months after people’s initial immunization.
