Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that he “absolutely” recommends that every adult get a booster shot for the coronavirus, now that the Food and Drug Administration has approved COVID-19 vaccine boosters for all adults.

Dr. Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said adults who received the two-shot Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines more than six months ago should get a booster.

The same rule of thumb applies for people who received the single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine more than two months ago.

“Just go out and get boosted,” Dr. Fauci said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We know they are safe and highly effective.”

With the holiday season fast approaching, Dr. Fauci said now is a good time to get a booster shot and families who are fully vaccinated should feel free to celebrate Thanksgiving together.

He also urged people to wear masks when traveling in public places where the vaccinated status of the people around them is unknown.

The FDA on Friday approved booster shots for all adults, opening a new chapter in the vaccine rollout and allowing the Biden administration to catch up to states that advised residents to seek an extra dose regardless of eligibility.

Senior regulators said they want to act quickly to backfill waning immunity and streamline rules that began to splinter across the country.

“Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA has worked to make timely public health decisions as the pandemic evolves,” acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said. “Authorizing the use of a single booster dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for individuals 18 years of age and older helps to provide continued protection against COVID-19, including the serious consequences that can occur, such as hospitalization and death.”

The FDA authorizations arrive as cases are starting to rise on the advent of the holiday shopping and travel season. Scientists are particularly worried that older persons will see bad outcomes from COVID-19 because they tend to be furthest from their initial vaccine series.

Regulators decided to bypass an advisory committee that pumped the brakes on widespread boosters in September.

A separate panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that persons over 18 “may” get the boosters and those over age 50 “should” get a booster.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky accepted those recommendations late Friday, clearing the way for the booster rollout to widen significantly by the weekend.

President Biden has pushed to provide booster shots to all Americans since August, when he saw data from Israel showing the antibody response provided by initial vaccination tends to wane after six months. He is fighting the pandemic on two fronts, using mandates to draw in more than 60 million eligible Americans who haven’t come forward for any doses, while offering extra doses to people who got vaccinated first.

How far the shots have waned varies depending on who is studied, including their age and where they live, and how far out they are from their initial vaccinations. But effectiveness against symptomatic infection has generally dropped to between 40% to 70%, while protection against hospitalization and death is typically at least 80%.

The number of coronavirus cases has been on the rise again in the United States, reaching 100,000 new cases per day and leaving some to conclude the nation is on the verge of winter surge.

Europe also is reeling from a wave of new daily infections.

Dr. Fauci said the uptick in cases is not unexpected, given that people spend more time indoors during the winter and that immunity provided by the vaccines wanes over time.

He said the best way to address the problem is for the roughly 60 million people in the United States who have not been vaccinated to get vaccinated.

“The bottom-line common denominator of all of this is we should get vaccinated if you are not vaccinated and get boosted if you have been vaccinated,” Dr. Fauci said.

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The military’s system of implementing a COVID-19 vaccination order for all those in the ranks is facing unprecedented stress as a historic number of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines say their faith should allow them to skip getting the shot.

The result so far has been a massive logistical headache for Pentagon leaders and an unenviable task for the chaplains who find themselves in the crosshairs. It’s a dilemma that shows no signs of easing as the services’ vaccine deadlines come and go.

With the Defense Department mounting an aggressive push to get service members vaccinated and force out those who refuse, sources across military branches said the sheer volume of faith-related exemption applications is unlike anything seen before in the U.S. armed forces.

Exact figures for most of the military services won’t be released publicly for another several weeks, but the few numbers available so far paint a behind-the-scenes picture of a system not designed to handle such a huge influx of waiver requests in a relatively short period of time.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and senior service heads say the vaccine mandate is a readiness issue, needed to protect those who serve and prevent COVID outbreaks from sidelining troops or cutting short deployments and naval missions. But as in the civilian world, vaccine skeptics are proving hard to win over, even in the face of a direct order.

“They don’t have the resources to handle this in a serious manner,” said Sean Timmons, a Houston attorney who said his firm, Tully Rinckey PLLC, represents more than 100 military personnel seeking COVID-19 exemptions, most of them on religious grounds.

“It’s a giant mess,” Mr. Timmons told The Washington Times. “Nobody knows what’s going on. It’s been a complete and utter disaster every step of the way.”

Pentagon officials vehemently disagree with that characterization and stress that each service member who seeks a religious waiver from the federally mandated coronavirus vaccine is given a fair hearing and ample opportunity to explain their objection.

But it’s clear that the system of tracking, processing and rendering a decision on those exemption requests has never faced a test like this. The frantic push to get military personnel vaccinated, combined with vaccine skepticism and the political questions about how far the federal government can go to force immunizations, has created a record number of service members seeking a way around the mandate.

The strain on the system seems clear.

In the Air Force, for example, sources told The Washington Times that service members and civilians are working longer hours and some are being pulled from other duties in order to assist with the organization and review of thousands of religious waiver requests. At least 4,933 airmen have filed waiver applications from COVID-19 vaccines on religious grounds — a figure that one official described as “by far” the most in history. 

As of Nov. 3, none had been approved. The deadline to approve or deny those requests is Dec. 2, just over a week away.

The Navy hasn’t yet released data on how many sailors are seeking religious exemptions, but officials concede the number is higher than in years past when few requests were filed and even fewer were approved. 

Over the past four years, for example, Navy officials said just 24 sailors sought religious exemptions from required immunizations. None of those exemption applications were approved.

The coronavirus-related figure in the Navy is expected to be much higher. The service will release the official number once its Nov. 28 mandatory vaccine deadline passes.

Ahead of its own Dec. 15 vaccination deadline for active-duty soldiers, the Army also is dealing with an influx of requests, though officials wouldn’t discuss specific figures.

“The Army’s religious accommodation process related to medical care is not new. While the scale of religious exemption requests related to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate may become higher in volume than previous requests, the Army will continue to handle all religious accommodation requests pursuant to established Department of Defense and Army policy,” Army spokesperson Heather J. Hagan told The Times.

And refusal has real consequences: Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, in a memorandum signed last week, said active-duty soldiers and those in the Army reserves and National Guard who don’t get the vaccine and don’t get a religious or medical exemption will be “flagged,” meaning they can’t be promoted, can’t re-enlist and can’t even get new payments on their promised enlistment bonuses.

The Marine Corps vaccination deadline is Nov. 28. After that date, the service will release figures on how many Marines sought religious exemptions.

“The Marine Corps’ process for evaluating requests for religious accommodation that require an exception to policy — grooming standards or vaccines — follows a rigorous approach to ensure Marines receive due consideration,” a Marine Corps spokesperson told The Times. “The process begins with an interview at Marine’s unit with the chaplain and an endorsement by the first general officer in the chain of command. The request is forwarded to Manpower and Reserve Affairs where it is evaluated by a three-member Religious Accommodation Review Board as well as by health services and legal.”

Personal questions 

While the specific process for handling requests differs across each service, they all rely on a similar format. Service members consult with their commanders and make an official request before moving on to the key step in the process: sit-down conversations with military chaplains. Those chaplains are a key cog in the process, though the sensitive and potentially intimate matters of faith they discuss behind closed doors with service members remain private.

The Arlington-based Military Chaplains Association, whose membership includes current and former armed forces chaplains, did not respond to requests for comment from The Times seeking information on the interview process.

While the specifics vary depending on an individual service member’s faith and specific objection to a vaccine, chaplains have general guidelines to follow.

In the Navy, for example, the service’s 2020 guidance for handling exemption requests includes a “chaplain interview checklist template” to help with the determination of whether a sailor’s religious beliefs “seemed honestly and sincerely held.”

Among the factors chaplains are to consider: If the requestor was credible; whether their “demeanor and pattern of conduct” are consistent; if they attend a house of worship or otherwise participate in “activities” associated with their belief; whether there are other persons who support their claims; and letters or other documentation from an organization espousing their beliefs.

If a chaplain signs off on the request — an outcome that appears to be rare, based on past figures and interviews with officials across military services — it then moves up the chain to uniformed leaders.

Officials stressed, however, that just because a chaplain endorses a faith-based exemption request does not necessarily mean it is approved. Military commanders then must weigh that request against other factors, such as whether granting the waiver could harm good order and discipline in the unit or, in the case of COVID-19, could lead directly to potential health risks for fellow service members.

Mr. Timmons, the Houston attorney, said his clients have described the process as “invasive” and “uncomfortable.” Chaplains, he added,  understand the Pentagon is looking to grant as few waivers as possible.

Again, defense officials push back hard against that argument and say that every service member is given a full and fair hearing.

But there’s little doubt that deeply personal questions are at play.

“How often do you go to church? How often do you pray? How long have you been practicing your religion?” Mr. Timmons said, citing the questions he says clients have been asked. “That’s private. That’s something you keep to yourself unless you’re talking to someone you know on an intimate level.”

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Republicans fighting President Joe Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandates are wielding a new weapon against the White House rules: natural immunity.

They contend that people who have recovered from the virus have enough immunity and antibodies to not need COVID-19 vaccines, and the concept has been invoked by Republicans as a sort of stand-in for vaccines.

Florida wrote natural immunity into state law this week as GOP lawmakers elsewhere are pushing similar measures to sidestep vaccine mandates. Lawsuits over the mandates have also begun leaning on the idea. Conservative federal lawmakers have implored regulators to consider it when formulating mandates.

Scientists acknowledge that people previously infected with COVID-19 have some level of immunity but that vaccines offer a more consistent level of protection. Natural immunity is also far from a one-size-fits-all scenario, making it complicated to enact sweeping exemptions to vaccines.

That’s because how much immunity COVID-19 survivors have depends on how long ago they were infected, how sick they were, and if the virus variant they had is different from mutants circulating now. For example, a person who had a minor case one year ago is much different than a person who had a severe case over the summer when the delta variant was raging through the country. It’s also difficult to reliably test whether someone is protected from future infections.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in August that COVID-19 survivors who ignored advice to get vaccinated were more than twice as likely to get infected again. A more recent study from the CDC, looking at data from nearly 190 hospitals in nine states, determined that unvaccinated people who had been infected months earlier were five times more likely to get COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people who didn’t have a prior infection.

“Infection with this virus, if you survive, you do have some level of protection against getting infected in the future and particularly against getting serious infection in the future,” said Dr. David Dowdy of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It’s important to note though that even those who have been infected in the past get additional protection from being vaccinated.”

Studies also show that COVID-19 survivors who get vaccinated develop extra-strong protection, what’s called “hybrid immunity.” When previously infected person gets a coronavirus vaccine, the shot acts like a booster and revs virus-fighting antibodies to high levels. The combination also strengthens another defensive layer of the immune system, helping create new antibodies that are more likely to withstand future variants.

The immunity debate comes as the country is experiencing another surge in infections and hospitalizations and 60 million people remain unvaccinated in a pandemic that has killed more than 770,000 Americans. Biden is hoping more people will get vaccinated because of workplace mandates set to take effect early next year but which face many challenges in the courts.

And many Republicans eager to buck Biden have embraced the argument that immunity from earlier infections should be enough to earn an exemption from the mandates.

“We recognize, unlike what you see going on with the federal proposed mandates and other states, we’re actually doing a science-based approach. For example, we recognize people that have natural immunity,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who has been a chief critic of virus rules, said at a signing ceremony for sweeping legislation to hobble vaccine mandates this week.

The new Florida law forces private businesses to let workers opt out of COVID-19 mandates if they can prove immunity through a prior infection, as well as exemptions based on medical reasons, religious beliefs, regular testing or an agreement to wear protective gear. The state health department, which is led by Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who opposes mandates and has drawn national attention over a refusal to wear a face mask during a meeting, will have authority to define exemption standards.

The Republican-led New Hampshire Legislature plans to take up a similar measure when it meets in January. Lawmakers in Idaho and Wyoming, both statehouses under GOP-control, recently debated similar measures but did not pass them. In Utah, a newly signed law creating exemptions from Biden’s vaccine mandates for private employers allows people to duck the requirement if they have already had COVID.

And the debate is not unique to the U.S. Russia has seen huge numbers of people seeking out antibody tests to prove they had an earlier infection and therefore don’t need vaccines.

Some politicians use the science behind natural immunity to advance narratives suggesting vaccines aren’t the best way to end the pandemic.

“The shot is not by any means the only or proven way out of the pandemic. I’m not willing to give blind faith to the pharmaceutical narrative,” said Idaho Republican Rep. Greg Ferch.

U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican and physician, along with 14 other GOP doctors, dentists and pharmacists in Congress, sent a letter in late September to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urging the agency, when setting vaccination policies, to consider natural immunity.

The White House has recently unveiled a host of vaccine mandates, sparking a flurry of lawsuits from GOP states, setting the stage for pitched legal battles. Among the rules are vaccine requirements for federal contractors, businesses with more than 100 employees and health care workers.

In separate lawsuits, others are challenging local vaccine rules using an immunity defense.

A 19-year-old student who refuses to be tested but claims he contracted and quickly recovered from COVID-19 is suing the University of Nevada, Reno, the governor and others over the state’s requirement that everyone, with few exceptions, show proof of vaccination in order to register for classes in the upcoming spring semester. The case alleges that “COVID-19 vaccination mandates are an unconstitutional intrusion on normal immunity and bodily integrity.”

Another case, filed by workers of Los Alamos National Laboratory, challenges their workplace vaccine mandate for civil rights and constitutional violations, arguing the lab has refused requests for medical accommodations for those workers who have fully recovered from COVID-19.

A similar lawsuit from Chicago firefighters and other city employees hit a bump last month when a judge said their case lacked scientific evidence to support the contention that the natural immunity for people who have had the virus is superior to the protection from the vaccine.

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.

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