Why You Can’t Get the Omicron Booster If You’ve Never Been Vaccinated Against COVID-19
But, while the
is designed to protect against the dominant variants, you can’t actually get it unless you’ve already been vaccinated against COVID-19. Confused? Here’s the deal.The CDC currentlythat people stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines by getting your primary COVID-19 vaccine . Booster shots are not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for children aged six months through four years. However, those aged five and up should get aanywhere from eight weeks to five months after their first vaccination series, depending on their age and which vaccine they originally received.
Protection from your original COVID-19 series wanes over time, and a booster can help restore that protection, along with provide broader protection against newer variants, theRelated Story“It’s very simple: The studies were not done on the Omicron booster as a primary vaccination series,” says William Schaffner, M.D., an infectious disease specialist and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
The dosage is also different for the booster vs. original vaccination series, points out Amesh A. Adalja, M.D., a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “The booster is of a lower dose and designed to augment protection after the primary vaccine series,” he says. “It builds on prior immunity and was not designed to be stand-alone.