The White House Says Boosters for All: Here’s What You Need to Know: “Stick to the advice from the CDC and the FDA, because they are doing their very best to ensure maximum protection and safety”

4. Could a booster harm a healthy, fully vaccinated person?

It’s unclear. Offit said he believes a booster is safe and may well become important — but “it’s just not where we should be in this country right now.” The best defense against delta and other variants, he said, is to first vaccinate as many people as possible.

Others, though, said the available research signaled that caution is warranted. During a media briefing reported by Reuters last month, Jay Butler, the CDC’s deputy director for infectious diseases, said the agency was “keenly interested in knowing whether or not a third dose may be associated with any higher risk of adverse reactions, particularly some of those more severe — although very rare — side effects.”

The CDC did not respond to questions this week about its stance on potential risks. There have been reports of blood clots and allergic reactions after regular dosing. Khan, at Northwestern, said she is also concerned about reports of myocarditis, inflammation of the heart — which is more common after the second shot than the first. She said it’s not clear that the benefit of taking a booster would outweigh the risk for young, healthy people.

5. Would a booster limit a vaccinated person’s ability to spread the virus?

Dr. William Moss, a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, explained that the immune protection conferred by vaccines operates along a spectrum, from severely limiting initial virus replication to preventing widespread virus dissemination and replication within our bodies.

“Booster doses, by increasing antibody levels and enhancing other components of our immune responses, make it more likely virus replication will be rapidly prevented,” Moss said. “This then makes it less likely a vaccinated individual will be able to transmit the virus.”

Moss also said there are potential benefits to combinations of vaccines like those being administered in San Francisco and some European countries. German Chancellor Angela Merkel boosted her adenovirus-vectored AstraZeneca shot with Moderna in June.

Another possible step for pharmaceutical companies is to reformulate their covid vaccines to more closely match newer variants. Pfizer has announced it could do so within 100 days of the discovery of a variant.

Hopefully, the regulatory process could be expedited for such reformulated vaccines, said Moss, who works within Johns Hopkins’ International Vaccine Access Center.

6. Would we have to pay for the booster dose, or would it be free, like the previous shots?

It will be free regardless of immigration or health insurance status, according to White House officials. No identification or insurance will be required.

In July, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced that the federal government bought an additional 200 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for inoculating children under 12 and for possible boosters.

7. Is there a future in which we take an annual covid shot?

Dr. Vincent Rajkumar, a hematologist at the Mayo Clinic who studies cancers involving the immune system, said a year ago he believed immune responses to covid may be similar to those of the measles, which create “a very long memory that protects us.”

Then covid mutated. “India changed everything for me,” he said, referring to its massive second wave after delta was discovered. Many of those who were infected had already had covid, he said.

Rajkumar now believes “we might need annual boosters — and it would be nice if such boosters can be combined with the flu vaccine.”

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The White House Says Boosters for All: Here’s What You Need to Know: “Stick to the advice from the CDC and the FDA, because they are doing their very best to ensure maximum protection and safety”

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