--- title: Why Older Adults Need Another COVID-19 Shot description: The CDC now recommends another dose for seniors. canonical: https://time.com/6836390/older-adults-covid-19-vaccine-2024/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-02-29T21:15:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T17:13:00.469Z article:section: Health og:title: Why Older Adults Need Another COVID-19 Shot og:description: The CDC now recommends another dose for seniors. og:url: https://time.com/6836390/older-adults-covid-19-vaccine-2024/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7b8f09632264ef37/698a48f8cabb1da43ee52bae/GettyImages-1316009298.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2120 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: Senior female getting vaccinated at home og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Older Adults Need Another COVID-19 Shot twitter:description: The CDC now recommends another dose for seniors. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7b8f09632264ef37/698a48f8cabb1da43ee52bae/GettyImages-1316009298.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Older Adults Need Another COVID-19 Shot > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=92df9c0c-c5c8-4c76-9b37-c52e1e0c4d05&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1)  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Feb 29, 2024 9:15 PM UTC  Senior female getting vaccinated at home during pandemic. Nurse weairng PPE and surgical gloves giving vaccine to elderly woman at her home. Senior female getting vaccinated at home during pandemic. Nurse weairng PPE and surgical gloves giving vaccine to elderly woman at her home. Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Feb 29, 2024 9:15 PM UTC Older adults should get the COVID-19 vaccine more frequently than previously recommended, according to new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Health officials are urging people ages 65 and older to receive another vaccine dose in the spring, or at least four months after their most recent dose. CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen announced the decision after a CDC advisory committee, which is made up of independent vaccine and infectious disease experts, voted 11-1 to make the change. “An additional vaccine dose can provide added protection that may have decreased over time for those at highest risk,” she said in a statement. The decision is based on data presented by CDC scientists that showed current hospitalization rates for COVID-19 are highest among seniors, with the biggest spikes occurring among those 75 years and older. People 65 and older account for [67% of hospitalizations](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2024-02-28-29/02-COVID-Taylor-508.pdf) due to COVID-19\. (The CDC previously recommended that most people get a COVID-19 vaccine once a year. ) The committee reviewed new [data](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7308a5.htm) showing that the current COVID-19 shot is effective against [currently circulating variants](https://time.com/6548748/jn1-covid-variant/) including JN.1 , even though it targets XBB. People who were vaccinated with the latest shot made fewer trips to urgent care and emergency rooms for COVID-19-related symptoms, and were less likely to be hospitalized than those who did not receive the shot. But vaccine protection wanes over time, so getting another dose will help prevent serious outcomes in the most vulnerable. **Read More**: [_Why It's So Hard to Get Kids Vaccinated Against COVID-19_](https://time.com/6694944/kids-covid-19-vaccine-how-to-get/) “I was convinced by the data that there is significant protection with an additional dose at this time,” says Dr. Wilbur Chen, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a member of the committee. “This recommendation isn’t for the entire population, but for high-risk segments of the population. We are trying to improve their protection as much as possible and wanted to afford those over 65 years the opportunity to get a second dose.” One challenge to achieving that, however, is that uptake of the newest COVID-19 vaccine has been low. Though about [40%](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2024-02-28-29/03-COVID-Chatham-Stevens-508.pdf) of seniors have gotten it so far—the highest rate out of any age group—it still means more than half of a very vulnerable group are not up to date. The low demand is fueling decreased access, says Chen, since more doctors’ offices are deciding not to provide the shot because their patients aren’t asking for it. Now that the government is no longer providing the vaccines for free, many people who are under- or uninsured are not getting immunized. Chen says the committee members hope that older adults and health care providers alike receive the strong message behind the recommendation and take it seriously. “As we enter the warmer months, while we usually see flu and RSV disappear, in previous summers we still saw 500 deaths a month,” he says. “That’s a lot of deaths, and we need to act on that.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6836390/older-adults-covid-19-vaccine-2024/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6836390/older-adults-covid-19-vaccine-2024/"},"headline":"Why Older Adults Need Another COVID-19 Shot","datePublished":"2024-02-29T21:15:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T17:13:00.469Z","description":"The CDC now recommends another dose for seniors.","url":"https://time.com/6836390/older-adults-covid-19-vaccine-2024/","keywords":["COVID-19","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7b8f09632264ef37/698a48f8cabb1da43ee52bae/GettyImages-1316009298.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7b8f09632264ef37/698a48f8cabb1da43ee52bae/GettyImages-1316009298.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Senior female getting vaccinated at home","caption":"Senior female getting vaccinated at home","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/covid-19/","name":"COVID-19"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6836390/older-adults-covid-19-vaccine-2024/","name":"Why Older Adults Need Another COVID-19 Shot"}}]}] ```