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Investment banks Goldman Sachs and Jeffries are demanding booster vaccinations for their employees. University of Oregon and other institutions requires support from students and staff. New York State he said he was planning Stop counting residents as fully vaccinated unless they are vaccinated.

As the highly contagious Omicron variant spreads from coast to coast, companies, schools, governments and even sports leagues are rethinking what it means to be “fully vaccinated.”

Now federal health officials have also addressed the question. Although senior policymakers want to encourage Americans to take three doses, some want to avoid changing the definition of an expression that has become so important to daily life in much of the country, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the internal negotiations.

CDC director Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky said in an interview Tuesday that she and other paramedics are “working on this question” right now.

“There’s really no discussion here about what people should do,” he added. “The CDC is very clear on what people should do: If they qualify for support, they need to be supported.”

With the sharp rise of Omicron, some experts think the time for change has come. Executive director of the American Public Health Association, Dr. “I think now is the time,” said Georges C. Benjamin. From a medical standpoint, he said, taking the additional booster dose is “really exactly what we should consider getting vaccinated.”

The redefinition of the phrase “fully vaccinated” can pose enormous logistical challenges and will likely provoke political backlash, as even supporters of the idea admit. Tens of millions of Americans who think they have been vaccinated may discover that without supplements, they could lose access to restaurants, offices, concerts, events, meetings—any place where proof of vaccination must be entered.

Also, experts said, after two years of changing recommendations, the change risks undermining confidence in public health officials. Some Americans may feel that the goalposts are moved again and very suddenly.

“While determining what constitutes a complete vaccine is based on science, it has significant political and economic ripple effects,” said Larry Levitt, vice president of KFF, a nonprofit focused on health issues.

CDC currently defines Persons who are “fully vaccinated” as those who received two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna injections, or one dose of Johnson & Johnson injections.

Although experts continue to believe that these regimens protect against hospitalization and death, the effectiveness of vaccines against infection has been declining over time. Considered a complete vaccine, the vaccine is significantly less effective against Omicron infection, which can partially escape the body’s antibodies.

According to emerging research, booster doses are likely to boost the immune system’s defenses against the variant, reducing the chances of breakthrough infections – one reason boosters have become an urgent public health priority. Israel is now testing a fourth dose or a second supplement in healthcare workers.

Head of department Dr. “The existence of a variant that is pretty smart at avoiding the vaccine has changed the game in a way that I didn’t think federal officials had time to commit,” said Robert Wachter. Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

“Guidance must change when science changes,” he added.

(Tracking the exact booster count can be difficult, and the CDC warns about this. some boosters may be misclassified as first doses.)

Changing the definition of “fully vaccinated” could leave the nearly 140 million vaccinated but not boosted Americans in uncertainty about where they stand and what they’re fit to do.

Many schools, businesses, governments, and other agencies relied on the CDC’s definition of “fully vaccinated” to determine entitlements and required people to complete their primary series of vaccinations to attend school, eat out, or stay in employment.

However, Dr. Wachter argued that in the new Omicron-dominated environment, requiring only the first batch of vaccines is no longer sufficient.

“Combining this entitlement with a vaccination situation that we know is significantly less effective than what you can achieve with a completely safe and easy-to-receive supplement is just ridiculous: one more shot,” he said.

He added that redefining the phrase “fully vaccinated” and thus the entitlements based on it would be the most effective way to ensure that the public actually gets the booster vaccines that the authorities are promoting.

The Biden administration has considered removing the term altogether and replacing it with language that states that vaccines must be “up-to-date,” which may offer more flexibility as vaccine requirements change. (Used to describe other vaccine regimens.)

The administration was inclined to take such a step soon, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.

Director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Paul A. Offit said that defining what it means to be fully vaccinated depends on defining the public health target for vaccines in general.

Boosters are likely to provide the best protection against infection with Omicron. However, Dr. For most healthy teenagers, the original two-shot series, or one dose of Johnson and Johnson, should be enough to prevent hospitalization and death, Offit said. Dr. If that’s the purpose of vaccination, “these vaccines continue to hold up,” Offit said.

A former vaccine regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, who retired last month, Dr. Philip R. Krause described efforts to redefine full vaccination as a “distraction” from other public health priorities, describing major vaccine efficacy studies, and CDC’s own data, show two doses that provide strong protection against severe Covid-19.

“Where the risk is highest – the elderly, the immunocompromised, people with comorbidities – these are the people who make up nearly all serious illnesses among those vaccinated,” he said. In addition to getting the first doses for the unvaccinated, we must “focus on finding those people” for booster shots.

KFF’s Mr Levitt said changing the definition of “fully vaccinated” would also intensify legal challenges to vaccination requirements. This Biden administration’s inauguration attempt Large employers’ requirement for employees to be vaccinated is already deadlocked in the courts.

And it may be untenable to want all workers empowered soon in industries that are already struggling with labor shortages, he said.

“At this point, when so few Americans are empowered, there’s suddenly chaos in the workplace where a third shot is required,” said Mr. Levitt, noting that boosters are not recommended for people receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines. until six months after the primary vaccine series. “Even implementing a requirement for boosters will take some time.”

That hasn’t stopped some companies and government officials from pressing for support requirements.

Goldman Sachs, which recalled most workers to the office in June, will hold additional withdrawals for all eligible employees through February 1. Investment bank Jefferies told its employees that there are people returning to the New York office and joining the bank’s office. Events will have to have boosters by the end of January.

“This won’t just be about Jefferies, as we anticipate that health officials will soon consider only empowered individuals ‘fully vaccinated,'” the company’s CEO, Rich Handler, and chairman, Brian Friedman, said in a note to staff.

University of Oregon will Requires students, faculty, and staff Receiving sponsors January 31 or 30 days after they become eligible and join a growing list of organizations with similar requirements. The University of Massachusetts published a similar requirement Wednesday.

Omicron is on the rise in the Northeast, and New York Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul said she plans to change the definition of “fully vaccinated” to include getting a booster vaccine. Connecticut Democrat Governor Ned Lamont said in November that residents should not consider themselves vaccinated unless they are vaccinated.

But as new variants emerge and time passes, supportive recommendations like this may need to be reviewed frequently, and it may not make sense for employers to require every new vaccine recommended, said Dr. Camille Kotton. CDC

While changing the definition might encourage some Americans to take supplements, it could toughen opposition to the vaccine among those who haven’t yet taken any doses, experts agreed.

“People are starting to question the science, question whether we really know what we’re doing – don’t question, you know, do I have to do this every six months?” Supporting the change of definition despite these difficulties, Dr. said Benjamin.

A redefinition would also bring together two very different groups – those who had their primary vaccine and those who never received a dose, Keri Althoff said. an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Putting these groups into a new category of non-vaccinated—partially vaccinated—could make it harder for researchers to monitor important public health data or for authorities to target vaccine messages, he said.

“We can’t miss this group,” he said, noting that 38 percent of Americans who haven’t completed their primary vaccine series should do so, which should remain a top priority.

Emma Goldberg contributing reporting.