UCHealth: Everything You Need to Know About Covid-19 Booster Shots!

02 Oct UCHealth: Everything You Need to Know About Covid-19 Booster Shots!

The following article is titled “Millions of Americans now can get COVID-19 booster shots. Everything you need to know.” The in-depth story was written by Katie Kerwin McCrimmon  from UCHealth Today. 

Go here for more on Covid in San Miguel County.

Go here for more on Covid from the Telluride Med Center.

Calvin Burnett bumped elbows with Dr. Sunita Sharma after she gave him his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Shorter Community AME Church in Denver. Now health experts at the FDA and CDC are recommending booster shots for older adults and many others. Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon for UCHealth.

Millions of people across the U.S. now may get COVID-19 booster vaccine doses after leaders of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) authorized additional doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for a vast swath of U.S. adults.

Who should get booster shots?

The new guidance recommends COVID-19 booster shots for all adults ages 65 and older and authorizes boosters for many others ages 18 and older including health care workers, teachers and people who live or work in high-risk settings like homeless shelters or prisons. Individuals who are at high risk for severe illness if they get COVID-19 — people who are obese, pregnant or suffer from diabetes — also may choose to get booster vaccine doses.

The new recommendations for COVID-19 booster shots come as the highly contagious delta variant has sparked a dangerous new wave of infections and deaths across the U.S. Cases of COVID-19 are rampant now among unvaccinated people, giving the pandemic an extended opportunity to spread around the world.

In Colorado, COVID-19 hospitalizations in September have rivaled peak hospitalizations in the earliest days of the pandemic in the spring of 2020.

And, the overall toll from COVID-19 has been devastating:

• In recent days, deaths in the U.S. have surpassed 681,000, spiking higher than the estimated 675,000 Americans who died during the 1918-1919 flu pandemic.
• More than 7,600 people have died so far from COVID-19 in Colorado.
• About 100 people every hour are dying from COVID-19 now, according to Dr. Matthew Daley, a pediatrician and researcher for Kaiser Permanente in Colorado and chair of the CDC’s working group on COVID-19 vaccines for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
• Fatalities now from COVID-19 are almost entirely preventable since highly effective vaccines are easy to get and free throughout the U.S.

While COVID-19 infections in unvaccinated people are common this fall, research shows the effectiveness of vaccines wanes over time and booster doses six months or longer after initial doses can jumpstart vaccine efficacy, bringing it back up to remarkably-protective levels of about 95%…

Continue reading here to get answers to the following:

What is a booster shot?

Why do we need boosters?

What is the specific CDC advice about who should get a booster shot?

When should I get a booster?

What’s the difference between a booster dose and a third shot for immunocompromised people?

Do I have to have a doctor’s order to get a booster shot?

How can I get a booster vaccine? How much do booster doses cost?

Can I get a flu shot at the same time I get my booster shot?

Is it true that the Moderna vaccine is staying effective longer than the Pfizer vaccine?

What should people who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine do?

Are there enough vaccines available in the U.S. for people to get both their initial doses of vaccines and their booster doses? Who is considered immunocompromised?

Are boosters recommended because of breakthrough cases, COVID-19 infections in fully-vaccinated people?

How long are coronavirus vaccines effective?

Should I stick with the same vaccine brand that I initially received when I get my booster shot?

What are the side effects of the third dose?

Who should skip booster doses? Are people in other countries getting booster doses?

Is there a test to determine how strong your immunity is against COVID-19?

If I had COVID-19 already, do I still need vaccines?

Are antibodies from vaccines or previous infections the only mechanisms in our body that are fighting COVID-19 infections?