Coronavirus August 11, 2021

FDA Expected To Approve Booster For Those Who Are Immunocompromised

VALLEY STREAM, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 21: Arlene Ramirez, RN, director of patient care, receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at Northwell Health's Long Island Jewish Valley Stream hospital on December 21, 2020 in Valley Stream, New York. The first set of COVID-19 vaccines were made available to healthcare workers last week. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz-Pool/Getty Images)

Those with compromised immune systems are expected to be eligible for a third COVID vaccine as early as Friday. NBC News says this would apply to those who received Pfizer and Moderna vaccines

The move would come after a panel of advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met in July and urged action on extra doses for immunocompromised adults.
Doctors say it is increasingly clear that many such patients are still vulnerable to Covid following vaccination because they may not mount an effective immune response to the shots.

Surgeon General Murthy tells @wolfblitzer he won’t get ahead of the FDA. FDA spox says they are “closely monitoring data as it becomes available from studies administering an additional dose of the authorized COVID-19 vaccines to immunocompromised individuals.”
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 11, 2021

Doctors and health experts believe the move will save lives. One hospital in Miami, Florida reports that the majority of those who are vaccinated and hospitalized due to COVID are immunocompromised.

Across the Jackson Health System hospitals, we currently have 369 patients who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Of those, 88 percent are unvaccinated. Of the 45 patients who are vaccinated, 25 of them are immunocompromised transplant patients.
— Jackson Health System (@JacksonHealth) August 11, 2021