Fauci says it’s recommended to get same vaccine for COVID-19 boosters

by Caroline Vakil - 10/22/21 5:15 PM ET

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — Greg Nash

President Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said on Friday that it is recommended that people receiving COVID-19 boosters stick to the same vaccine they previously received.

“It’s generally recommended that you get the booster, that is the original regimen that you got in the first place. But for one reason or other – and there may be different circumstances for people – availability or just different personal choices – you can, as we say, mix and match,” Fauci said on CNN’s “New Day.”

“And those are the data that were discussed and were acted upon yesterday, that you can now mix and match one with the other, but in general it just makes sense to go with what your original regimen was,” Fauci added.

Dr. Anthony Fauci discusses the CDC’s decision to endorse the mix-and-match approach to boosters shots.https://t.co/bwyV4INqif pic.twitter.com/Ibhoyni6Dw

— New Day (@NewDay) October 22, 2021

Those comments were also echoed by Surgeon General Vivek Murthy during a CNBC interview on Friday.

“If you’ve gotten Pfizer or Moderna and if you did well with your primary series, I think it’s quite reasonable to stick with what you’ve got originally,” Murthy said, according to the network.

The comments from Fauci and Murthy come after the director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rochelle Walensky, signed off on the recommendations of a CDC advisory panel to allow certain Americans to become eligible for Johnson & Johnson and Moderna booster shots.

The CDC now allows for those vaccines to be mixed, meaning that someone who received the Pfizer vaccine previously could receive a Moderna booster shot. However, the panel asked for more guidance from the CDC on this.

Walensky praised all three vaccines — Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — as “effective” and “extraordinarily safe.” However, she said on Friday that the CDC would not “articulate a preference” over which brand of booster shot someone should receive, though she noted the majority of people would likely stick to the same vaccine brand they previously received for their booster.