As Omicron Spreads, Officials Ponder What It Means to Be ‘Fully Vaccinated’

Omicron is surging in the Northeast, and Gov. Kathy Hochul, Democrat of New York, has said she plans to alter the definition of “fully vaccinated” to include having a booster shot. Gov. Ned Lamont, Democrat of Connecticut, said in November that residents should not consider themselves vaccinated unless they’d had boosters.

But booster recommendations like those may need frequent revision as new variants appear and time passes, and it may not make sense for employers to require each new recommended shot, said Dr. Camille Kotton, an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an adviser to the C.D.C.

And although changing the definition could encourage some Americans to get boosters, it could also harden opposition to vaccination among those who have not yet received any doses, experts acknowledged.

“People start questioning the science, questioning whether or not we really know what we’re doing — questioning, you know, am I gonna have to do this every six months?” said Dr. Benjamin, who supports changing the definition despite these challenges.

A redefinition would also lump together two very different groups — those who have received their primary shots and those who have received no doses at all, said Keri Althoff, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Collapsing these groups into a new unvaccinated-partially-vaccinated category could make it more difficult for researchers to track important public health data or for officials to target their vaccine messaging, she said.

Ensuring that 38 percent of Americans who have not completed their primary vaccine series do so should remain the top priority, she said: “We cannot lose sight of that group.”

Emma Goldberg contributed reporting.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/health/covid-vaccinations-boosters.html