as we’ve been reporting early today, the CbC director expanded the list of americans who are now eligible to receive a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine here to answer your questions is Dr Emily Heil, an infectious disease specialist at massachusetts General Hospital. Dr Kyle. Thanks for being here. All right. There’s a lot to unpack doctor Heil with the C. D. C. Decision. So let’s look again at this list. We’re gonna put it up on the screen. It’s a lot of people but it may leave everybody else a little anxious about having less protection from the delta variants. So what do you want them? The people who are excluded from this booster recommendation to know, I really want to underscore how incredibly effective these vaccines are. All three of the vaccines that are approved in the United States against covid are incredibly effective at reducing infection and even more so at reducing hospitalizations and deaths from covid. So the best thing you can do for yourself and for your loved ones around you is to get vaccinated with those initial doses of either Advisor Moderna or J and J. Okay, so Dr Hill. Now let’s look at the large group now qualifying the CDC says people who are 65 older or 50 and older with an underlying medical condition should get the shot. People who are 18 to 50 may want to get it if they have a medical condition or if they’re at high risk for exposure to covid because of the job that they have or where they reside. Do you think the CDC made that distinction? The wording should verse may want specifically. And do you agree with it? I do think so. And I think this was incredibly important from the C. D. C. For those first two groups of people. These are folks who are at higher risk for really severe infection and death. So people who are 65 older who are long term care facility residents or who are 50 and older with a serious medical co morbidity. And so those are folks where we’d be really worried that if their vaccines started to wane in terms of its effectiveness they could be at really high risk for severe infection. Go ahead. I’m sorry it makes sense to give them an extra dose and the C. D. C. Recommends this the second two groups of people are at high risk for exposure um but may actually not be as high as at high risk for severe infection. And so now the recommendation is that they can consider a third dose and can go ahead and get one but they may not choose to go ahead and get that third dose. Alright Doctor Heil I want you to listen to this surprising seen it happened on the view earlier today to hosts tested positive for covid just a couple of minutes before they were set to interview Vice President Kamala Harris in the studio. Listen the two of you to step off for a second. Okay and and and we’re going to be some weeks later. Okay, Alright. Both those hosts, Ana Navarro and Sunny Hostin say they are vaccinated, they have had no symptoms. So without that precautionary test again, because they were about to sit down with the vice president, nobody would have known they were infected. So given that there are no symptoms who is at risk or was at risk in that studio, could they have infected the vice president? And this is the one thing that I think we’re all still perplexed by is how concerned should we be, Especially those of us who are vaccinated with these asymptomatic breakthrough cases. It’s a great question and I think it’s an area that needs a lot more steady. We really don’t know entirely what this means in terms of vaccinated people who have zero symptoms, but do test positive. A lot of it depends on the type of test that’s used and I think we’re learning more all the time about this. I do not think that the vice president was at risk as they were never in contact. Um and I think this really underscores why we’re still using public health precautions around masking and indoor spaces where there are lots of people you’ll see in that shot when they panned out all of the audience was masked, the camera crew, et cetera. And I think it’s really in instances like this where we’re still learning what this all means. Um that makes sense to maintain masking in indoor spaces like this does make sense. Okay. And Dr hill finally we get lots of emails from viewers about the vaccine. So here’s a question from one of them. His name is Donald and he asks should there be a gap between the Covid booster and the flu shot? Great question. So the Covid vaccines and the flu shots can be given at the same time. This is actually a changing guidance from last year where the Covid vaccines were new and they did recommend separating them in time. Now the current recommendations are that you can give them at the same time, it hasn’t been explicitly studied. So if you’re more comfortable separating them in time you can do so. But it is we think safe to give them at the same time. And I definitely encourage people to have a flu vaccine this year, preferably before the end of october Erica already got her. She said her arm was only a little more but that’s it. All right, dr Emily. Heil with mass. General thanks so much for your time. Have a great weekend. Thank you. Thank you

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Not eligible for a booster shot? Here’s what a doctor wants you to know

Updated: 6:52 PM EDT Sep 24, 2021

“I really want to underscore how incredibly effective these vaccines are,” said Dr. Emily Hyle of Massachusetts General Hospital.

BOSTON —

“I really want to underscore how incredibly effective these vaccines are,” said Dr. Emily Hyle of Massachusetts General Hospital.

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