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That said, don't panic if you can't book an appointment right away -- particularly as demand surges with the new recommendation, experts say.

\"I would not view it as an emergency that people need to line up on the day of approval and get their boosters necessarily that weekend,\" said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

It's still far more important for unvaccinated people to get vaccinated, Barouch said, particularly ahead of the holidays.

\"The most important thing is for everybody who will be celebrating to be vaccinated, if they're eligible to be vaccinated. Now, additional boosts may be useful. But the most important thing is that people be vaccinated primarily,\" he said.

Why has it been so confusing?

To put it simply: \"The reason why there is some confusion is because it has been confusing,\" Barouch said.

\"Guidelines are changing,\" Barouch said. \"And in some cases, the guidelines are changing for good reasons: They're changing because what we're seeing is a changing pandemic.\"

Last week, a patchwork of booster guidance emerged as governors in over a dozen states called for all adults to get a booster before the federal agencies weighed in, acting to combat spiking cases and overwhelmed hospitals.

\"PHOTO:
Ramon Van Flymen/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
PHOTO: A health employee injects a booster shot in the XL vaccination location of the Public Health Service GGD in the Jaarbeurs exhibition and convention centre in Utrecht, the Netherlands, Nov. 19, 2021.
>

Hotez commended the states for making the \"medically correct\" decision and being \"more nimble\" than the original decision from the CDC and FDA, but acknowledged the schism it created in the public health guidance.

\"Not as elegant as you'd like -- to have the states be out front by a week or so, but you know, when you're in the middle of a pandemic, sometimes things don't go smoothly as you'd like,\" Hotez said.

Some, like Hotez, have always believed boosters would be necessary, even before data started to trickle in on waning immunity, and think confusion could've been avoided if the public was always told to expect a booster.

\"It should have been messaged to the American people from the beginning that, by the way, don't be surprised when the call comes out to get a third immunization,\" he said.

Still, there's a fine line to walk in urging booster shots for those vaccinated six months ago while also encouraging the most impactful group, unvaccinated people, to get their primary vaccinations. The vaccines continue to protect well against hospitalization and death for many months.

\"We can give all the booster doses we want and until we get people vaccinated, or they all get infected, we're going to continue to see transmission of COVID,\" Durbin said.

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