In Brief

Mix or Match?

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reviewing new data on whether or not recipients of the Johnson & Johnson (J & J) one shot COVID-19 vaccine should get a booster shot with the same vaccine or switch to the Moderna or Pfizer mRNA vaccines. Preliminary data from a National Institutes of Health study reported in the New York Times suggested that J & J vaccine recipients who received a Moderna booster shot had antibody responses two weeks later that were almost 20-fold higher than those who got a second J & J booster. The FDA announced on October 20th that mixing booster shots is approved. The next step will be for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide advice on who will be eligible for the booster shots and how long after the previous vaccine dose they should be administered. The CDC did approve booster shots on October 21st, but the guidance for who should receive the shots is still pending. (This is a rapidly evolving story and new information will be available on the Sandpiper website.)