Pfizer COVID-19 Booster Shots Now Available for Certain Populations

Source: Santa Barbara County Public Health Department

[On Friday], the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in certain populations and for those in high risk occupational and institutional settings. This announcement follows the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authorization of a booster shot earlier this week.

As of today, Friday, persons that meet the new CDC guidelines are able to access this booster dose in locations throughout Santa Barbara county. This updated interim guidance from CDC allows for people who are at highest risk for COVID-19 to receive a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 booster shot to help increase their protection. Persons who have received a Moderna or Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine are not eligible to receive a booster under this guidance. The Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup has also approved these reccomendations.

The CDC recommends the following populations should receive a booster shot 6 months following their second dose of their Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine:

  • People 65 years and older;
  • Residents in long-term care settings; and
  • People aged 50–64 years with underlying medical conditions

The CDC recommends the following populations may receive a booster shot 6 months following their second dose of their Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine:

  • People aged 18-49 years with underlying medical conditions; and
  • People aged 18-64 years who are at increased risk for COVID-19 exposure and transmission because of occupational or institution

“Booster shots will become an important part of our local strategy to protect our most vulnerable community members and end the pandemic. Local pharmacies and health care providers are prepared to offer booster doses in your community,” shared Van Do-Reynoso, County Public Health Director. “We want to encourage those who have yet to receive a first-dose vaccine to know that vaccines are still available to you.”   

COVID-19 vaccine providers must follow CDC vaccine recommendations according to the federal COVID-19 vaccine distribution program. Vaccine is now readily available and many local health care providers who also offer regular vaccinations should provide eligible patients with COVID-19 booster vaccines when authorized and recommended.

For information about the COVID-19 vaccine and countywide availability, please visit www.publichealthsbc.org/vaccine/ or call 2-1-1.

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  1. Aside from being insulting SBO your also misguided. Them recommending cooking chicken to a certain temperature, etc. are vastly different than them recommending vaccines because cooking chicken to a certain temperature has zero negative consequences. Vaccines are different, as great as they are people do have complications / adverse reactions to them and the CDC/FDA has to weigh the potential benefits with the potential risks. At this time, the consensus at the FDA and CDC is that the potential benefits “for the whole” of a booster shot to those younger without underlying systems isn’t worth the costs/risks for the benefit provided. The director of the cdc, appointed by Biden, overruled her own panel and expanded who should get a booster to align herself with the president. How is it “following the science” when the White House pushed boosters before the FDA / CDC had reviewed the data and made a determination ?

  2. Politics appears to be a big factor in the cdc director’s decision to overrule the advice of the CDC’s panel of experts. Money goes hand in hand with politics, and it looks like this situation is no exception. Here is an article from the AP that explains just how much money is on the line. All of the big pharmaceutical companies that sell the boosters are lobbying with all the force they can muster to get these booster shots into the public’s arms and the billions of dollars of resulting profits into their pockets. https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-science-health-coronavirus-vaccine-5305defac283ac5f352bc47fcb74c82b

  3. It was interesting to see the panels of scientific experts at the fda and cdc both voted against authorizing boosters for the general population. They felt the available data only justified authorizing boosters for the elderly and immune compromised. The EU made a similar decision. However, the director of the cdc overruled the scientific experts and with a carefully worded order has basically authorized boosters for all. Sometimes politics comes before science.

  4. Wrong. They make decisions based on the whole, not the individuals. In the same way the CDC recommends that you cook chicken to 165 and never, ever, ever, ever eat an under cooked egg, they take the most stringent and most applicable position for the whole. In the vaccine debate the needs of the world’s population outweighed the desire to push for the booster for those already vaccinated. For there are billions of people who still need their first shot! Which is far more effective at squashing the pandemic. You see Chip, the world is much more complex than the average simpleton can understand. This is just one example of why you should let these things be decided by experts instead of your chosen advertising sales rep, AKA talk show host…

  5. Sbo, the decision the director of the cdc made contradicts the decision made by the CDC’s own panel of experts. The cdc director’s decision also contradicts the fda’s decision. The fda committee of experts voted overwhelmingly against boosters for the general population due to safety concerns. “We’re being asked to approve this as a three-dose vaccine for people 16 years of age and older, without any clear evidence if the third dose for a younger person when compared to an elderly person is of value,” said committee member Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-advisory-group-rejects-covid-boosters-limits-high-risk-groups-rcna2074
    The cdc panel of experts also voted against boosters for the general population. “I feel like we’re putting lipstick on hogs. This is not going to solve the pandemic,” said Dr. Keipp Talbot, a voting panel member and infectious diseases professor at Vanderbilt University. https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/cdc-advisory-panel-votes-to-recommend-pfizer-boosters-for-people-65-and-older/ar-AAOKOWj

  6. “In a highly unusual decision, the C.D.C. director, Rochelle Walensky, reversed a move by agency advisers and endorsed additional doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for health care workers, teachers and other workers at risk.”
    Q: WHY?
    A: POLITICS “Dr. Walensky’s decision was a boost for President Biden’s campaign to give a broad segment of Americans access to boosters. The White House had come under criticism for getting ahead of the regulatory process.”
    Solution: Get politics out of healthcare!
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/world/covid-boosters-vaccine-cdc-director.html

  7. An FDA advisory committee determined there is not enough evidence to recommend a third booster shot for everyone – but it did recommend the shot for people 65 and older, as well as people at high risk of serious illness. There’s ample evidence the vaccine is safe and effective at preventing death from COVID-19.

  8. Imagine having any ounce of critical thinking and still pushing an anti-vaccine narrative. I suppose in all fairness conservative media and politicians have pushed so many lies (tobacco, oil, climate, voter fraud) over the last 40 years (to benefit their corporate masters and create a pliable, gullible populace that votes against their own self interest to enrich said masters) that these folks live in a an alternate reality. They must continue to believe the propaganda and lies (Trump actually won… vaccines bad) they are spoon fed (no matter how unscientific and stupid) because to acknowledge they are being lied to and manipulated would create cracks in their fake, fabricated reality. Its too painful to acknowledge that perhaps they have been duped so badly for 30-40 years.

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