Some Americans fudging vaccine records to get unauthorized 3rd shot

Some Americans, eager to get a booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, have started to muddle their vaccine records to claim they are eligible for a shot.

A 26-year-old graduate student with a liver condition and asthma, told The Associated Press in an interview that she went to a clinic to get a third shot of the COVID-19 vaccine but lied and told them it was her first.

The student told the AP that she has been following the latest COVID-19 research and several scientists who are recommending booster shots, arguing that she was not going to wait to get a booster shot.

The wire service also analyzed a database run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that logged more than 900 reports of people receiving a booster shot, including one instance in which a man went to get a third shot, claiming he had not received a dose yet, but when the pharmacy contacted his insurance, it was told that he had already received two doses.

Despite the fact that a booster shot has not yet been approved by the U.S., health officials have started to signal that that tide may change. 

President Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said during a White House press briefing on Thursday that the administration is looking to provide immunocompromised individuals with booster shots “as quickly as possible.”

“It is extremely important for us to move to get those individuals their boosters, and we are now working on that and will make that be implemented as quickly as possible, because for us and for the individuals involved it is a very high priority,” Fauci said during the briefing.

While Fauci did not specify a timeline for when the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would make their recommendation regarding a booster shot for immunocompromised people, several news outlets have reported that the FDA is looking to have a national COVID-19 booster strategy available by early next month. It would provide an outline of which vaccinated groups of Americans should get the booster and when. 

Israel has already issued booster shots to its older residents, including its president.

Despite this, the World Health Organization (WHO) earlier this week called for a COVID-19 booster shot moratorium for wealthier nations that would extend at least until the end of September, with the WHO director-general pointing to the fact that residents in lower-income nations are still waiting to receive their first doses.

“I understand the concern of all governments to protect their people from the delta variant,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “But we cannot, and we should not, accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it while the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected.”