The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved booster shots of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for all Americans 18 and older. The authorization won’t become official federal policy until the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signs off, but a CDC committee of independent experts is meeting later Friday to discuss the issue. If the panel approves – and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky concurs – the new booster policy could rollout this weekend.

BREAKING: FDA has just authorized Pfizer and Moderna boosters for all adults, 6 months after initial doses, regardless of age or risk factors. (All J&J recipients should receive boosters 2 months after first dose.) This is really important as #covid19 infections are on the rise.

— Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) November 19, 2021

The Washington Post reports on the FDA’s decision:

The move reflects an urgent effort to spur the uptake of boosters to counter waning vaccine protection heading into the winter holiday season when millions of people travel to see friends and family. It’s also an attempt to put in place a coherent federal approach as about a dozen states move ahead on their own to grant broad access to boosters.

“Streamlining the eligibility criteria and making booster doses available to all individuals 18 years of age and older will also help to eliminate confusion about who may receive a booster dose and ensure booster doses are available to all who may need one,” said Peter Marks, the acting director of the FDA’s vaccine office.

Our rules about boosters are far too complicated

The winter is coming

Every adult (6 months out) should go get that third shot

Now

My latest in @TheAtlantic https://t.co/YOn1bpUNS1

— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@ashishkjha) November 18, 2021

The United States has more than enough vaccine supply to provide boosters to the entire nation. Thirty-one million Americans have already gotten an extra shot – they were eligible because they were 65 or older, were immunocompromised, lived or worked in settings with increased risk of transmission, or originally received the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The New York Times adds:

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert, has argued relentlessly over the past month for booster shots for all adults, a position shared by most of Mr. Biden’s other health advisers. Dr. Fauci has said that a dip in antibody levels in fully vaccinated people was a clear sign that booster shots were needed. Public health experts who argue that healthy younger adults do not need them, he has said, are ignoring the risks of symptomatic Covid-19.

“Enough is enough. Let’s get moving on here,” he said at an event Wednesday night. “We know what the data are.”

The Wall Street Journal adds:

Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, Calif., pointed to data from Israel and other recent studies indicating that boosters reduced the risk of hospitalization and death in people at least 40 years old and symptomatic infections among younger people.

“This booster has a big bang for blocking infections, and that’s the whole point, that’s how you break the transmission chain,” he said.

As a medical consensus has emerged on the necessity of boosters, some states are thinking about changing the definition of “fully vaccinated” to include the extra dose.

“We are analyzing what we can do to create those incentives — and potentially mandates — for making sure that people are fully vaccinated, which means three vaccines,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Wednesday, according to Axios.