Coronavirus latest: US booster roll-out gets under way

Los Angeles County began making booster doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine available to eligible population groups on Friday following Centres for Disease Control and Prevention endorsement of a third shot for those who received their second shot at least six months ago.

“Starting today, eligible Los Angeles County residents can begin receiving their booster dose at any of the hundreds of sites offering the Pfizer vaccine,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.

County residents seeking the booster shot must bring proof they received two previous Pfizer doses.

Eligible groups include people who are 65 years or older, residents of long-term care facilities, people 18 to 64 years old with underlying medical conditions and those 18 to 64 years with high institutional or occupational risk.

The latter group includes healthcare workers, first responders, teachers and day care staff, grocery workers and workers in homeless shelters or prisons.

- Associated Press

US booster shots start, even as millions remain unvaccinated

The US launched a campaign to offer boosters of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine to millions of Americans on Friday even as federal health officials stressed the real problem remains getting first shots to the unvaccinated.

“We will not boost our way out of this pandemic,” warned Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention — even though she took the rare step of overruling the advice of her own expert panel to make more people eligible for the booster.

The vast majority of Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, Dr Walensky noted. And all three Covid-19 vaccines in the US offer strong protection against severe illness, hospitalization and death despite the extra-contagious delta variant that caused cases to soar. But immunity against milder infection appears to wane months after initial vaccination.

People anxious for another Pfizer dose lost no time rolling up their sleeves after Dr Walensky ruled late Thursday on who’s eligible: Americans 65 and older and others vulnerable because of underlying health problems or where they work and live — once they’re six months past their last dose.

Jen Peck, 52, of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, qualified because of her job as an education math and science consultant. She was vaccinated back in March but worries about unknowingly picking up and spreading an infection. She travels between rural schools where many students and teachers don’t wear masks and the younger children can’t yet be vaccinated.

She got the extra shot first thing Friday morning.

- Associated Press