For all their promise, the arrival of updated boosters also adds another wrinkle to what is the country’s most complicated vaccine. Vaccine recipients have already had to parse shifting eligibility rules and decide between brands. Now they face a weighty new question: how long to wait after their last vaccine dose or infection before seeking an updated booster.
In authorizing the new boosters, federal regulators said on Wednesday that people needed to wait at least two months since their last Covid vaccine dose to receive an updated booster shot. Several members of a panel of expert advisers to the C.D.C. expressed concern during a meeting on Thursday that two months was too short, but the C.D.C. pushed to endorse the same minimum interval.
Immunologists said in interviews that waiting roughly four to six months after a last vaccine or infection would strengthen people’s response to an updated vaccine, even if those scientists also saw the rationale for giving Americans flexibility in choosing when to seek a new shot.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member