A student receiving the COVID-19 vaccine at a BU clinic last January. Photo by Janice Checchio

Booster Shots

BU Will Offer 800 COVID-19 Booster Shots to Eligible Students, Faculty, Staff

People who meet the eligibility criteria can sign up online—first-come, first-served—for a Moderna booster shot, starting October 29

Boston University’s Healthway team announced Friday it will offer COVID-19 booster shots—manufactured by Moderna—to as many as 800 eligible members of the BU community. Those eligible can sign up online starting Friday, October 29, through first-come, first-served appointment slots for vaccination on November 9 and 10. 

“We have 400 appointments for each day, between 9 am and 3 pm,” says Judy Platt, BU’s chief medical officer and executive director of Student Health Services. BU has requested 800 Moderna booster shots from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in anticipation of those appointments. To sign up to receive a Moderna booster through BU’s booster vaccine clinic, visit Patient Connect and Occupational Health Connect. Access to either portal is available through Healthway. Once the time slots are filled, the sign-up process will close.

To be eligible for the booster clinic appointments, BU community members must be at least six months past their second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines and meet one of these criteria in accordance with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

• Are 65 years or older
• Are 18 or older and live in a long-term care setting
• Are 18 or older and have an underlying medical condition
• Are 18 or older and work or live in a high-risk setting
• Are 18 or older and received a primary or single dose of the J&J/Janssen dose at least two months ago

Platt says the recent mix-and-match vaccine studies show that it’s safe and effective for folks who received Pfizer-BioNTech or J&J shots as their primary COVID-19 vaccines to get a Moderna booster. 

One important distinction, however, is in parsing the differences between boosters and “third shots” for immunocompromised people. Platt says the November 9 and 10 clinics at BU will provide only booster shots. Anyone in need of a third shot—those with underlying conditions who did not mount as much of an immune response as others, based on their initial COVID-19 vaccine doses—should contact their primary care provider to schedule a third shot. 

Those who are less likely to have had an appropriate immune response are people on steroids or who have received organ transplants, have severe HIV infections, or have other underlying conditions. The third shot for immunocompromised people is a full dose like the first and second shots, rather than a scaled-down dose found in some booster shots.

Platt says the Moderna booster shot is half the size of the doses that were given as part of the initial two-shot series of Moderna vaccines administered earlier this year.

She says her team is excited to be able to provide Moderna boosters to eligible members of the BU community, but wants people to know that receiving a booster shot is a choice, and is not part of BU’s vaccine mandate at this time. This message is especially important, she says, for international students, who may have received a different type of COVID-19 vaccine than the Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and J&J shots administered in the United States, and have had concerns about whether their vaccination status complies with BU’s mandate.

“We have thousands of people in our community who received other COVID-19 vaccines that were recommended by the World Health Organization,” Platt says, and those people don’t need to receive any additional vaccines to continue complying with BU’s vaccine mandate.

However, if they would like to boost their immunity, she says, they can schedule an appointment at a variety of sites across the city and state to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, which current data indicate may provide stronger and longer-lasting protection than other COVID-19 vaccines. Locations in Massachusetts providing primary doses and booster vaccines can be found via vaxfinder.mass.gov. 

Members of the BU community who have already received a third dose or a booster dose should update their information via Patient Connect or Occupational Health Connect. Visit the Back2BU vaccination page for instructions on how to upload vaccination documentation.