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Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are meeting Thursday to vote on recommendations about mixing and matching coronavirus booster doses of all three vaccines authorized in the United States. The all-day meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices comes after the Food and Drug Administration authorized boosters doses of the Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines for different populations and on different timelines. (Jeong, Timsit and Sun, 10/21)

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday night authorized booster shots of both Johnson & Johnson’s and Moderna’s Covid vaccines, another critical step in distributing extra doses to tens of millions of people. At the same time, U.S. regulators authorized “mixing and matching” vaccines, allowing Americans to get a booster shot from a different drugmaker than the one that made their initial doses. (Lovelace Jr., 10/20)

In a related decision, the FDA also authorized boosters that differ from the vaccine originally used to immunize a person against COVID-19. So, for instance, a person who got a Johnson & Johnson vaccine could receive one from Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech as a booster. The regulatory moves open the gate for boosters to be used more widely. In September, the FDA authorized a booster dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. "The available data suggest waning immunity in some populations who are fully vaccinated," said the FDA's acting commissioner, Dr. Janet Woodcock, in a statement. "The availability of these authorized boosters is important for continued protection against COVID-19 disease." (Hensley, 10/20)

The U.S. Covid-19 vaccine rollout is about to get a lot more complicated. When the shots arrived late last year, the message from health officials was simple: Get vaccinated when you become eligible, and get whichever jab is offered to you. But with boosters becoming available for select groups of people, and a lower-dose shot for young children expected shortly, the campaign is moving from a simple set of instructions to more of a messy flow chart for people organizing and delivering the jabs. (Joseph and Branswell, 10/21)