Biden admin considers changing definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ to include booster shot

With the onset of the Omicron variant in the United States, the country has topped the leaderboard with record amounts of COVID-19 cases being reported.

According to The New York Times, the Biden administration is weighing redefining what it means to be "fully vaccinated" into saying Americans have their vaccinations "up to date."

It's a thematic messaging debacle that comes as President Joe Biden previously said publicly that it's up to states to handle COVID-19 themselves.

While the CDC currently interprets vaccination status as those who "received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shots, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson shot," that's likely to change in 2022.

Places like Chicago, New York City, and Washington, DC, have either announced or enacted their own vaccine passport measures meant to crowd-control the general public. The New York Times is accurate in their ballpark estimate of 140 million Americans who've received their "full vaccination" minus the booster.

The outlet has competing experts giving their own theories.

"It's just nonsensical to have that mandate coupled with a state of vaccination that we know is markedly less effective than you could achieve with a completely safe and easy to take additional intervention: one more shot," said Dr. Wachter of the Department of Medicine at the University of California.

But according to Dr. Krause, a former FDA "top vaccine regulator," he believes that changing the definition of full vaccination is a distraction from the big picture. "The place where the risk is highest — among the elderly, the immunocompromised, people with comorbidities — those are the people accounting for almost all of the severe disease among the vaccinated," Krause said.

Back on Monday, Goldman Sachs announced their requirement for employees to get their COVID-19 booster shot if they didn't want to experience a workplace disruption going into 2022. The same is being mandated for the University of Oregon's students and staff.

If researchers were to change the definition between unvaccinated and vaccinated to include those who haven't gotten their booster shot, it stands to complicate research efforts.

As it stands already – there have been arguments in 2021 surrounding whether or not vaccinated people can spread COVID-19, and questions why vaccinated people have to wear facemasks despite previous promises to the contrary.

That's aside the ongoing courtroom battle with the Biden administration between various states in pushing for a widespread vaccine mandate. After deflecting previous lawsuits earlier this year, SCOTUS finally agreed to hear arguments over the matter.

President Joe Biden is willing to enact vaccine mandates for flights within the United States, if his "experts" voice it as necessary.

Questions are still out there about the efficacy of vaccines in general as well as with the onset of the Omicron variant. But earlier this month the Biden administration promised a winter of "severe illness and death" for the unvaccinated.