Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that he “absolutely” recommends that every adult get a booster shot for the coronavirus.
Dr. Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said adults who received the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines more than six months ago should get a booster.
The same rule of thumb applies for people who received the single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine more than two months ago.
“Just got out and get boosted,” Dr. Fauci said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We know they are safe and highly effective.”
With the holiday season fast approaching, Dr. Fauci said now is a good time to get a booster shot and families who are fully vaccinated should feel free to celebrate Thanksgiving together.
He urged people to wear masks when traveling in public places where the vaccinated status of the people around them is unknown.
The number of coronavirus cases has been on the rise again in the United States, reaching 100,000 new cases per day and leaving some to conclude the nation is on the verge of winter surge.
Europe also is reeling from a wave of new daily infections.
Dr. Fauci said the uptick in cases is not unexpected, given that people spend more time indoors during the winter and that immunity provided by the vaccines wanes over time.
Dr. Fauci said the best way to address the problem is for the roughly 60 million people in the United States who have not been vaccinated to get vaccinated.
“The bottom-line common denominator of all of this is we should get vaccinated if you are not vaccinated and get boosted if you have been vaccinated,” he said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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