The St. Mary’s County Health Department is reaching out to provide key information about the eligibility for additional or booster doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
We encourage eligible persons to get additional or booster doses of Moderna, Pfizer, or Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has now authorized this for a range of individuals. Below is information on who is eligible for additional doses or for booster doses of each vaccine type.
Additional Dose/Primary Series:
If you are immune-compromised and received Moderna or Pfizer, please get an additional third dose as soon as 28 days after the second dose. More information on immune-compromise conditions is available at our website: www.smchd.org/covid-19-vaccine.
Booster Doses after Primary Series:
For Moderna and Pfizer recipients, you are eligible for a booster if you had your second dose more than 6 months ago and fall into one of the following categories:
– All persons age 65 and older
– Age 18 and older with an underlying health condition (includes being overweight, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other conditions)
– Age 18 and older with a higher risk of COVID-19 exposure due to your occupation or institutional setting (includes workers in health care, retail, grocery, food service, law enforcement, emergency medical services, fire rescue, and others)
For Johnson & Johnson recipients, anyone who got their initial vaccine more than 2 months ago is now eligible for another dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
Persons getting a booster dose can select a different COVID-19 vaccine than what they had for their primary vaccine series. For example, an individual who received Johnson & Johnson can choose to get their booster dose with Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, or an individual who received their first series through Pfizer could now get their booster dose with Moderna.
To learn more and to register for your additional/booster dose appointment, please go to https://smchd.org/covid-19-vaccine/ or call our SMCHD COVID-19 community hotline at 301-475-4330.
In addition, SMCHD will begin offering COVID-19 vaccine to children ages 5-11 late next week once they have been authorized for use by the FDA and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The vaccine for age 5 – 11 will be Pfizer vaccine at ⅓ of the dose currently used for those age 12 and older. To be notified when appointments open for these special vaccine clinics for age 5 – 11, please :
-Pre-register your child for a vaccine here: https://smchd.org/covid-19-vaccine/
(Pre-registration form in the blue box in the ‘Who Is Eligible’ section)
-Or sign up for press releases from SMCHD: https://tinyurl.com/fcvkkpct
(This will subscribe you to the general email list for health department notices)
Thank you for continuing to do your part to protect yourselves, your families, and our community from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have any questions about COVID-19 vaccines, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected].
