SOURCE: As­so­ci­at­ed Press

WASH­ING­TON — The Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion on Mon­day broad­ened its rec­om­men­da­tion for COVID-19 boost­er shots for all adults as the new omi­cron vari­ant is iden­ti­fied in more coun­tries.

The agency had pre­vi­ous­ly ap­proved boost­ers for all adults, but on­ly rec­om­mend­ed them for those 50 years and old­er or if they live in a long-term care set­ting.

CDC Di­rec­tor, Dr. Rochelle Walen­sky said the new guid­ance re­flects the emer­gence of the omi­cron vari­ant, which has not yet been iden­ti­fied in the U.S. but that of­fi­cials say will in­evitably reach the coun­try.

“Every­one ages 18 and old­er should get a boost­er shot ei­ther when they are 6 months af­ter their ini­tial Pfiz­er or Mod­er­na se­ries or 2 months af­ter their ini­tial J&J vac­cine,” she said in a state­ment.

Walen­sky al­so en­cour­aged Amer­i­cans feel­ing un­well to seek out a COVID-19 test, say­ing “In­creased test­ing will help us iden­ti­fy Omi­cron quick­ly.”