CDC Director Recommends COVID-19 Booster for Anyone with "Occupational Exposure," Including Teachers (and Faculty)

Patrick Moore (School of Law and Public Service, Richland Campus), shared the following information:

The Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has recommended that anyone with "occupational exposure" to the COVID-19 virus should receive a booster shot of the vaccine, six months after receiving the initial vaccination. Those covered by "occupational exposure" include teachers (and by extension faculty).

The FDA had recommended booster shots for people age 65 or older, for age 18-64 with high risk because of underlying health conditions, and for 18-64 because of potential occupational exposure, including health-care workers, grocery store employees, and teachers.

A CDC advisory panel agreed, except for the recommendation regarding people with high potential of occupational exposure, for whom it did not recommend the booster.

 

Today, though, the Director of the CDC overrode the CDC advisory panel and recommended boosters for all three groups: 65 and over, underlying health conditions, and occupational exposure.

 

Here is a link to the CDC release: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0924-booster-recommendations-.html.

 

Here is a link to the CDC’s main vaccine booster shot page: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/booster-shot.html. The main text of this page recommends an 8-month time gap between initial vaccination and booster, but the final recommendation says 6 months.

 

This recommendation relates to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The Washington Post reports that “the vaccine advisory panel reviewed data only for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the CDC ‘will address, with the same sense of urgency, recommendations for the Moderna and J & J vaccines as soon as those data are available.’ “  https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/23/covid-booster-shots-cdc/