The new mandate will apply to more than 160,000 employees, including police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers, whose vaccination rates have lagged. …
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Filling out a coronavirus vaccination card in Jackson, Ala., earlier this month.Credit…Charity Rachelle for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized booster shots for tens of millions of recipients of Moderna’s two-dose coronavirus vaccine and the roughly 15 million who got Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose shot, significantly expanding the nation’s campaign to bolster protection for vulnerable people.
The agency also updated its authorizations for all three vaccines — Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer-BioNTech — to allow medical providers to boost people with a different Covid-19 vaccine than the one they initially received, a strategy known as “mix and match.”
That update may dampen interest in Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, which studies have found provides less protection than the other two. Providers will have the option of offering a Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech booster, which could trigger a more substantial jump in protective antibodies.
The regulators, who already authorized boosters for high-risk Pfizer-BioNTech recipients last month, did not recommend any one vaccine over another as a
