Anyone who got a COVID-19 vaccine more than six months ago should not consider themselves fully vaccinated, Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday as he urged Connecticut residents to get a booster shot.
Lamont spoke along with the state's health commissioner and other health officials in Vernon, where he said he would not wait for official word from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before telling all adults to get a booster vaccine and urging providers to make them available.
“CDC speaks Latin,” Lamont said. “I can't figure out who is eligible, who's not eligible.”
The governor said the state is working to make sure the most vulnerable, including those in nursing homes have access to the shot.
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“If you were vaccinated more than six months ago, now is the time to get that booster,” he said. “Get it before Thanksgiving, before Christmas, before all those holidays.
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He noted his guidance comes as Connecticut and surrounding states are seeing a rise in infection rates. The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Connecticut has risen over the past two weeks from 357 new cases per day on Nov. 2 to 651 cases per day on Nov. 16, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The rolling daily case average has been rising in New York as well. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a stern warning on the numbers Tuesday, warning stricter protocol may come if the trend doesn't revert, and urged people to get boosters.
The federal government has yet to authorize COVID-19 booster shots for all American adults, though an official decision could come in a matter of days.
New York City leapfrogged the feds earlier this week in making all adults in the five boroughs booster-eligible effective immediately. The health commissioner told providers not to deny a booster to any adults who want one, citing the density of New York City, the one-time epicenter of the pandemic, and upcoming holiday seasons as key exposure risk factors. Exposure risk is one component of eligibility.
