whether or not you're immunocompromised we now have answers to when you can get a covid
booster shot so if you had either the pfizer or the moderna vaccine there are about
9 million people in the u.s who are considered to be at least moderately immunocompromised
these are mostly people who are taking powerful immunosuppressive medications like transplant
recipients cancer patients and those with severe autoimmune conditions their immune system's
ability to respond to the vaccine is blunted with a decreased antibody response so vaccine
effectiveness is estimated to be around 60 to 70 percent in immunocompromised people and that's
compared to around 94 percent overall for those who are not immunocompromised according to the cdc data
shows that vaccinated immunocompromised people have accounted for a large portion of covid
hospitalizations they're 485 times more likely to end up in the hospital or die from covid
compared to non-immunocompromised vaccinated people also immunocompromised are more likely
to spread the virus despite making up only three percent of the population but can we actually
expect a booster shot to help them there's currently an observational study at johns hopkins
that's yet to be published they were looking at people who received a third dose the booster shot
now based on that the booster shot did help some of them to achieve higher antibody levels
last week the fda gave eua emergency use authorization for the booster shot for some immunocompromised
people now that's in conjunction with the cdc's recommendation so this is for both the moderna and
the pfizer vaccines but not yet for the johnson and johnson vaccine because there's not enough
data for that according to the cdc this eua is intended for people who have moderate to severe
immunosuppression and not people with chronic conditions that might be mildly associated with immunosuppression
for example this would be people with diabetes chronic kidney disease chronic liver disease
copd these patients have some degree of immunosuppression but it's not in the same level
as those with the other conditions that i mentioned before but then you have people that
fit into a category that's really a great area for example someone with rheumatoid arthritis that's
an autoimmune condition they're typically taken drugs such as methotrexate or hydroxychloroquine
or leflunomide or sulfoxylazine or drugs that are biological agents like humera and other ones as
well now according to the cdc someone considered to be moderately to severely immunocompromised
in general that's going to be someone who is receiving active cancer treatment so chemotherapy
someone with an organ or a stem cell transplant having advanced or untreated hiv infection
someone getting high dose steroids for prolonged time but there's no
specifications when it comes to that then you have some people who have moderate or severe
primary immunodeficiency syndromes like the digeorge syndrome or wiskott aldrich syndrome
basically the cdc is leaving it up to patients and their doctors to decide who needs an extra dose
and when they should get it and apparently there won't be a requirement for a doctor's note or a
prescription and so if that's the case basically anyone can say that they're immunocompromised
in order to get a booster shot unless those administering the vaccine require proof of a
qualifying immunocompromised condition so that's a messy situation that the cdc should further
clarify otherwise pretty much anyone can lie and get a third shot and so what about those who are
not considered to be moderately to severely immunocompromised the biden administration is
working on a plan for getting most americans the booster shots within eight months after
becoming fully vaccinated so based on the initial vaccines given to healthcare workers in high-risk
elderly groups back in december that means the booster shots will be distributed in september
now pfizer submitted initial booster shot data to the fda which showed that when compared to
two shots of the vaccine their booster shot triggered a much higher antibody response against
the initial strain of sars cov2 in addition to the delta and beta variants presumably the same thing
is going on with moderna and recently there's a study that looked at pfizer comparing moderna
against the delta variant and the pfizer doesn't seem to be holding up as well
compared to the delta which means there's all the more need for these booster shots