Illinois urges everyone 18 and older to get booster
CDC officially authorizes shots for all adults
The Illinois Department of Public Health on Friday announced that all adults statewide should get COVID-19 booster shots, a few hours before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially authorized boosters for all adults nationwide.
State officials said early data indicates vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infections wanes over time, in part due to the greater infectiousness of the delta variant of the virus.
All adults are eligible for booster shots six months after their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or two months after the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot, according to state health officials.
Before, the boosters were only open to Moderna and Pfizer vaccine recipients age 65 and older, as well as some adults with higher-risk health concerns, living conditions or occupations. Boosters were already authorized for all adult recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
“Scientific and medical experts have reviewed the data and found booster doses are beneficial,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike in a written statement Friday. “While we need more people who are completely unvaccinated to get their first doses, we cannot risk losing some of the protection the vaccines have already provided due to waning immunity.”
She pointed out that needing a booster shot is not uncommon — one example is the flu vaccine, which needs to be re-administered seasonally.
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday cleared all adults for Pfizer and Moderna booster shots, in a major expansion to who
can get the additional dose. Hours later, the CDC officially signed off on booster shots for everyone 18 and older, allowing shots to go into arms nationwide.
Roughly a dozen states had already opened boosters to all adults due to climbing local COVID rates, even before the federal government had officially authorized the shots for the general public.
Earlier this month, the governor of Colorado defied federal guidance by allowing anyone in the state aged 18 or older to get a booster shot, “because disease spread is so significant across Colorado,” he had said. Many other states followed suit, citing regional surges.
Some Chicago physicians had criticized the U.S. government for being slow to open boosters for the general population, saying all adults should have been
eligible months ago.
They argued the complicated and ever-changing rhetoric on who should be able to get the additional dose proved confusing for patients — and even health care providers.
“It is convoluted, confusing and a missed opportunity on public messaging during a pandemic,” said infectious disease expert Dr. Robert Murphy, who had called for the government to open booster shots to the general public months earlier. “The messaging couldn’t be worse.”
He was also concerned that the back-and-forth on who gets a booster could be fodder for anti-vaccination campaigns or discourage those who are already vaccine hesitant.
“The anti-vaccine proponents use this confusing information to support their cause, which is much deadlier,”
said Murphy, executive director of Northwestern University’s Institute for Global Health and a professor of infectious diseases at the Feinberg School of Medicine. “We need one clear message as the data become available.”
Earlier this year, the Biden administration had announced plans for booster shots for all adult Americans starting as early as September.
But experts from the Food and Drug Administration and CDC went back and forth on which categories of adults most needed the additional dose for the Pfizer vaccine in September, ultimately limiting boosters to adults 65 and older as well as those with high-risk health concerns, living conditions or jobs.
A similar process followed for boosters for recipients of the Moderna and Johnson
& Johnson vaccines, though boosters were already authorized for all adult recipients of the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Dr. Elizabeth McNally, director of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Center for Genetic Medicine, wished the nation had opened up boosters to the general public much earlier.
She said a patient of hers was recently flummoxed because doctors were offering differing opinions on whether the patient should get boosters.
“So yes, the message was very confusing,” McNally said. “It just became really difficult for anyone to know what to do — even patients with medical conditions and their caregivers. The age recommendation is also fairly arbitrary since the risk for someone 64 is not fundamentally different than for someone 65.”
She added that some of her family members and friends have said they need to “wait their turn,” just as they did during the first vaccine rollout.
“The situation right now is very different,” McNally said. “There is no need to wait. The U.S. has ample supply and there are plenty of appointments to get boosters. The smart move is to get a booster before gathering for the holidays.”
COVID-19 cases have been steadily increasing locally.
Chicago was reporting a positivity rate of 2.7%, up from 2.2% last week; there were 514 new cases a day as of Friday, up from 435 the prior week, according to city health department data.
The statewide positivity rate was 3.8% on Friday, according to Illinois health department data.
In Illinois, 1,759 patients were in the hospital with COVID-19: Of those patients, 350 were in the intensive care unit and 152 were on ventilators. More than 26,000 people have died of the virus statewide since the start of the pandemic.
Dr. June McKoy, professor of medicine in geriatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said getting booster shots in the arms of all adults will help keep everyone safer as the holidays approach.
“Expanding the booster will be a boon for older adults, especially with Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah on the horizon,” she said. “These holidays bring young and old people together and place the elderly at risk, even those who are fully vaccinated. Why? Because we know that the vaccines’ protection wanes over time, with reports of fully vaccinated adults getting breakthrough COVID-19 infection. So, having all adults at a gathering who have received the booster will reduce the risk to older guests.”