THE EXPERTS ARE SOUNDING MORE SENSIBLE THAN IN THE PAST: Who Should Get a COVID Booster This Fall? Experts aren’t convinced that younger, healthy people need boosters this season.

“Now for adults who are otherwise healthy and younger than 65, and young adults, adolescents, and children, that’s all going to be debated,” Schaffner noted, anticipating how discussions at CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will go when the group meets on September 12opens in a new tab or window. “Whether they receive a routine recommendation or one for shared clinical decision making … I think there will be some brisk discussion about that.”

Aaron Glatt, MD, of Mount Sinai South Nassau in Oceanside, New York, who is also a spokesperson for IDSA, said that people “who have been vaccinated, who are healthy, who are younger, are probably not the first people who should be getting in line to get another COVID booster, especially if they’ve had one.”

In addition, someone who’s recently had COVID probably doesn’t need a booster, he added.

Glatt was a strong advocate for shared decision making when it comes to COVID boosters. He gave the example of a 62-year-old who was boosted 6 months ago and is in good health. “I think for that group, there’s more leeway to say, let’s individualize the decision.”

Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said unlike last year, when CDC recommended bivalent BA.4/5 boosters for all people ages 5 and upopens in a new tab or window (and later expanded the recommendation further), he expects CDC to take a risk-based approach to its recommendations.

They should have taken a “risk-based approach” all along. Plus: “If you’re a healthy 40-year-old, you’re not making a crazy choice not to get boosted.” You never were.