The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday said it was not changing its definition of “full vaccination” against the coronavirus. But the agency changed its emphasis on the appropriate regimen, tweaking how it referred to the shots.
The agency said that three doses of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna’s vaccines should be considered “up-to-date” inoculations, and that Johnson & Johnson recipients should receive a second dose, preferably of Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech, to also be considered up to date.
The move amounted to a recommendation from federal health officials that Americans should change how they talk about vaccination schedules. People 16 years and older are eligible for boosters.
“Consistent with how public health has historically viewed or even talked about how we recommend vaccines, we are now recommending that individuals stay up to date with additional doses that they are eligible for,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the C.D.C. director, said at a White House news briefing on Wednesday.
The C.D.C. did not change the definition of what qualifies as full vaccination — a subject of intense interest to corporations, schools, state health departments and professional sports leagues, which have themselves been reconsidering what it means to be fully vaccinated.
“The technical definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ — two doses of an mRNA vaccine or one dose of the J & J vaccine — has not changed,” Kristen Nordlund, a C.D.C. spokeswoman, said in a statement. “Individuals are considered fully vaccinated once they have received their primary series.”
She added that the agency recommend that people “stay ‘up to date’ by receiving any additional doses they are eligible for, according to C.D.C.’s recommendations, to ensure they have optimal protection.”
