California Offering COVID Booster Shots To All Adults

Tuolumne County COVID-19 vaccine clinic

Sacramento, CA – Want a COVID booster shot now but do not meet the federal guidelines, no problem, all adults are now eligible in California.

The state is one of three to make this move, even though federal health officials recommend limiting doses to those over 65 and younger people with certain underlying health conditions or whose jobs are high risk for the virus. In an attempt to head off a surge around the end-of-year holidays when more people are gathering inside, California has instituted this new policy along with Colorado and New Mexico. The latter two states have among the nation’s highest rates of new infections. California now joins them in the “high” tier for transmission after being lowest in the nation earlier this fall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In a letter to local health officials and providers, California Public Health Officer Tomás Aragón instructed that they should “allow patients to self-determine their risk of exposure.”  He added that if they are age 18 and up and it has been six months since they had their second Moderna and Pfizer vaccine, or the Johnson & Johnson single shot, those providers should “not turn a patient away who is requesting a booster.”

Stating that this move is not a conflict with federal guidelines, California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly noted, “Because of your work-related risk or even you live with people who have underlying conditions (and) are at higher risk themselves, or you’re a member of a community that’s been ravished and hard-hit by COVID … it’s permissive by the CDC and the FDA to go ahead and get the booster.”