Pennsylvania health officials on Tuesday pledged that covid-19 vaccine providers would be ready when federal guidance on potential booster shots comes down, something that is expected to come Thursday.

An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration last week issued a narrow recommendation in terms of which Americans should receive a booster shot of the vaccine, declaring that, right now, only those 65 and older should be eligible.

The FDA’s final decision is expected later this week along with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We can assure you that, first, we have the vaccine available in Pennsylvania, and second, providers are ready to start administering boosters as soon as we have the CDC guidance,” said Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam.

Beam issued a new order requiring vaccine providers across the commonwealth to be ready to meet the demand for the shots, including requirements regarding online scheduling, dedicated phone numbers, walk-in availability and working with organizations to reach those who cannot leave their homes.

“These four basic steps are not new concepts in Pennsylvania — they mirror orders issued previously during the initial roll-out of the vaccine,” Beam said.

Orders like those, she said, “helped get us to the point where we are today.”

Cases across Pennsylvania and most of the country have continued to rise, driven mostly by the unvaccinated. That was part of the reason the FDA advisory panel rejected the notion of booster shots for all.

“At this moment, it is clear that the unvaccinated are driving transmission in the United States,” the CDC’s Dr. Amanda Cohn said during the meeting Friday.

The CDC said it is considering boosters for older people, nursing home residents and front-line health care workers, rather than all adults.

Any booster doses approved this week will be different than the third doses the immunocompromised have been receiving.

“These are people who did not mount the full immune response like everyone else would have,” Acting Physician General Denise Johnson said of the third doses. “It’s a third dose to get them up to the immunity that most other people have (from two doses).”

The aim of booster shots will be to enhance immunity that has waned since the initial doses.

“It’s the difference between not mounting enough of a response in the first place and a waning response with time,” Johnson said.

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