I Missed My Second COVID-19 Vaccine Appointment. What Happens Now?

Welcome to COVID Questions, TIME’s advice column. We’re trying to make living through the pandemic a little easier, with expert-backed answers to your toughest coronavirus-related dilemmas. While we can’t and don’t offer medical advice—those questions should go to your doctor—we hope this column will help you sort through this stressful and confusing time. Got a question? Write to us at covidquestions@time.com. Today, W.S. in Florida asks: I got my first Pfizer vaccine in January. Is it too late to get the second injection now, more than two months later? What should I do? The second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine should ideally be given three weeks after the first. (Moderna’s second dose is meant to be given four weeks after the first, while the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen shot is delivered in a single dose.) But, well, sometimes life gets in the way. So what happens if you don’t make it to that second appointment? Schedule another one as soon as you can, says Dr. Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at NYU Langone Health and a vaccine researcher. While a three- or four-week gap between shots is ideal, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says you can get your second shot within 42 days of the first one and still mount a full immune response. “Beyond that, we start to operate in an area where there’s simply less data,” Ratner says. That doesn’t mean your seco...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID Questions COVID-19 Source Type: news