Technologies

Moderna booster shot and omicron: CDC guidance, programs, stats to know today

Scientists and health officials strongly urge booster shots for Moderna and Pfizer as the omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 begins to circulate around in the US.

For the most up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO and CDC websites.

in response to the spread of the omicron variant, more vaccines are going into arms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported today, than since this summer. With more than 100 million people in the US eligible to receive a COVID-19 booster shot from Moderna of Pfizer, the US is doubling down on COVID vaccine efforts, including administering booster shots. (President Joe Biden’s campaign also includes «free» at-home COVID-19 test kits and stricter travel rules for international travelers.)

«The recent emergence of the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) further emphasizes the importance of vaccination, boosters, and prevention efforts needed to protect against COVID-19,» the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in updated guidance online. «Early data from South Africa suggest increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant and the potential for immune evasion.» The COVID variant has been detected in 18 states so far.

The CDC urges booster shots for anyone over 18 six months after their second dose of Moderna or Pfizer, and two months after getting a single Johnson & Johnson dose.

While much is still unknown about the vaccine response to the new omicron variant, health professionals believe that booster shots from Moderna and Pfizer could help slow COVID’s spread, reducing hospitalization and deaths, as the effects of the vaccine weaken over time.

The COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be highly effective in preventing hospitalization. People who are unvaccinated are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized if infected. With the federal vaccine mandates halted by a court order, Biden is turning to other measures to get booster shots administered. The government has also ordered 13 million courses of antiviral drugs in anticipation of higher case loads.

Here’s what you need to know about the Moderna booster, including doses, side effects and how to get a free ride. For more details, here’s the latest on COVID-19 vaccines for kids, how you can get a free COVID-19 test kit soon, how to get a free ride to your booster appointment and what to know about breakthrough infections.

Should people who are pregnant get a booster shot?

The COVID booster recommendations apply to all people 18 years and older, including people who are pregnant. In fact, the CDC urges pregnant people to get a COVID vaccine — and a booster is half a full vaccine dose.

«People who are pregnant or recently pregnant are more likely to get severely ill with COVID-19 compared with people who are not pregnant,» the CDC says on its website.

A recent study also linked COVID-19 infection in pregnant people to higher risk of stillbirth.

Is the Moderna booster shot a third dose?

Booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines are currently half doses of the same vaccine used in the first two full shots. The goal is to top up the vaccine formula that reinforces the body’s immune response against the virus and its variants. The Moderna booster authorized by the CDC is a 50-microgram dose, while the first two shots were each 100 micrograms.

Moderna is also working on a combination shot that contains this year’s flu vaccine and its COVID-19 booster vaccine, but that’s not available right now.

Is Moderna making an omicron booster shot?

Scientists worry the omicron variant could spread more quickly than the now-dominant delta variant because of the number of mutations the new strain has compared with delta. Moderna is currently working on an omicron-specific booster vaccine, along with testing a COVID-19 vaccine that could protect against several mutated strains of the coronavirus.

Like every other vaccine-maker around the world, Moderna is testing the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine against omicron, but it may be weeks before lab tests show concrete evidence of how well Moderna protects people from the new variant.

As part of its booster testing, Moderna is also investigating whether a 100-microgram dose of its booster provides better protection against the omicron variant — in other words, a third dose rather than a half dose as the booster is currently formulated now.

If Moderna needs to make a new vaccine modified for the variant, it could be available early in2022.

How do I know which pharmacies have Moderna appointments?

Boosters are available at roughly 80,000 places across the country, including over 40,000 local pharmacies. Some 90% of Americans have a vaccine site within 5 miles of where they live.

A terrific free service in conjunction with the CDC sends you information when you text your ZIP code to this number: 438829. The response will show you COVID-19 vaccine locations in your area, along with the brand they carry for certain age groups, for instance, Moderna 18+. This can save you the trial and error of calling around, or showing up to your appointment to find that your booster of choice isn’t available. The text can also give you a shortcut to make your appointment right from your phone screen.

You can also check Vaccines.gov to see which vaccines are available where, and call 800-232-0233 for vaccine information.

How can I get a free ride to get my booster shot?

Lyft and Uber are offering free rides for some people who need them. An easy way to access those links for more information is through the text feature above You can also go to Lyft.com/vax or call Uber at: 855-921-0033.

When is it time to get a booster shot?

If you got Pfizer or Moderna, six months after the date of your second shot listed on your vaccination card is when you’re eligible to receive your booster dose. The CDC and other health authorities are now urging you to get your booster as soon as you’re eligible, to keep your immune response against omicron, delta and other coronavirus variants as strong as possible. Two months after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the time for a booster (more below).

On Dec. 2, Biden also outlined a plan for Medicare to contact the 64 million people it serves and for AARP to reach out to its 38 million senior members. Pharmacies like Walgreens, CVS, RiteAid and others will also contact people who got a vaccine at their retail stores when it’s time to schedule another dose.

Who can get a Moderna booster shot right now?

As of Nov. 19, all US adults — those age 18 and older — are eligible to get a booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. They qualify if it’s been at least six months since they’ve received a second dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. Those who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are eligible for a booster dose after two months. Adults are encouraged to get whatever booster dose is available to them, even if that means mixing and matching vaccine boosters (more below), in other words, getting a different booster shot than their original vaccination.

What are the side effects of Moderna’s booster?

According to the CDC, those who got the Moderna booster dose reported fewer reactions than they did after the second dose of the vaccine. In its study, the CDC found 95% of those who got Moderna for the first round of vaccine shots chose Moderna for the booster dose.

Is it safe to mix and match vaccine and booster brands? Yes

The US Food and Drug Administration has authorized mixing COVID-19 boosters, which in the US means Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. Anyone eligible for a booster can get any of the available brands of coronavirus vaccines. If you initially received Johnson & Johnson and it’s been two months or longer since you received the initial dose, you’ll be able to get the Moderna or Pfizer booster. If you received Moderna or Pfizer for your first two shots, you could pick any authorized vaccine available to you — including J&J — if you qualify and it’s been six months or longer since your second shot.

Is the Moderna COVID-19 booster shot still free?

All booster shots will be free, regardless of immigration or health insurance status. However, depending on where you get your booster shot — for example, at a local pharmacy — you may be asked to log your insurance status. You may be asked to provide your insurance card information, including your name, date of birth and membership number. You will not be charged for your COVID-19 vaccine or booster shot.

Will I need another COVID booster shot?

The CDC updated its guidance to say that in 2022, some immunocompromised people will be able to get a fourth COVID-19 booster shot. It’s unclear if other groups will need to get a fourth dose at this time, but guidance could change in light of the omicron variant.

For more on coronavirus treatments and vaccines, here’s what we know about monoclonal antibody treatments, the new federal vaccine mandates and why some people may not want the shot.

What does the Moderna booster shot do?

A COVID-19 booster shot — whether from Moderna, Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson — tops off your immune response and guards against a breakthrough COVID-19 infection as the vaccine’s effectiveness decreases over time.

Recent studies of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines show that their effectiveness can begin to wane after six months. Moderna said early data suggests that those who received the Moderna vaccine in 2020 are showing a higher rate of breakthrough COVID-19 infections than those vaccinated this year, suggesting the need for a booster to maintain high levels of protection.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

Technologies

Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Pack Points System Needs an Overhaul Yesterday

The pack-opening pity points system is pitiful. There’s a very easy way to improve it.

Pokemon TCG Pocket is more than a mobile game: It’s a money-making machine. The virtual trading card app raked in more than $900 million in its first six months, eclipsing even Pokemon Go’s revenue in the same post-release time span. As it turns out, fake Pokemon cards are just as much of a hot commodity as the real thing.

People love ripping open card packs, hunting down ones with their favorite illustrations of fan-favorite Pokemon. It feels great to beat the odds by pulling an elaborately-inked full art or a shiny secret rare. But it really starts to irk me when I’m missing only one or two cards from a set and I can’t get lucky enough to pull them out of a pack.

Pokemon TCG Pocket has a «pity points» system that’s supposed to make this feel less terrible: Every time you open a pack, you earn five pack points, which you can directly trade in for a card of your choosing.

You can trade in 35 points for a common card, but if you want to get the rarest cards from a set, they could eat up 500 points, 1,250 points or even a whopping 2,500 points each. That means you’d have to rip open 500 card packs in order to earn a single copy of one of Pokemon TCG Pocket’s rarest cards.

It sounds absurd (and it is), but that’s to be expected for a free-to-play game, especially one where the developer makes money by encouraging players to pay for extra card pulls. My real big issue with pack points is that they’re restricted to the expansion set you earned them in.

For example, I have 210 pack points for the latest card set, Secluded Springs, and I’ve been exclusively pulling those packs since it was released. I also have 700 pack points for the game’s first-ever expansion Genetic Apex — but those points are locked to Genetic Apex, and can’t be used for any other set. I’ve accrued hundreds of pack points, but they’re essentially useless to me because they won’t help me complete the sets I’m still missing cards in.

Pokemon TCG Pocket expansion sets are released on a monthly basis, which means no one really has time to earn enough pack points for a rare card before the next shiny slate of cards is dangled in front of your eyes. It propagates a desperate sense of FOMO that I’ve criticized in the past, but there’s a simple solution that would make the problem disappear overnight.

Instead of locking pack points to any one set, they should be an account-wide currency instead. Every time you earn pack points, they should be added to one large pool that you can use on any of the in-game card sets. That way, players wouldn’t have to feel a manufactured sense of guilt for ripping open packs from older sets.

While it’s customary for gacha games to have a pity system that guarantees a certain reward after a certain amount of pulls, it’s by no means a requirement for these games to have these systems. In a sense, I’m grateful that the pack points exist in Pokemon TCG Pocket in the first place.

I think we should always argue for a more consumer-friendly experience in modern gaming. Overhauling the pity system so that pack points can be used universally across all of the in-game card sets will make the game fairer and give more players a real chance to get the rarest cards.

It creates a greater sense of parity between free-to-play and paying players, and it might even cause some people to spend more money on pack openings to boot. Universal pack points are a win-win for players and DeNA alike.

Technologies

Adaptive Power in iOS 26 Could Boost Your iPhone Battery Life, but It’s Not on All Models

The new iPhone 17 models get better battery life, partly through this iOS 26 feature that is available on other iPhones, too.

When Apple announced the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air earlier this month, it touted improved battery life across the board and «all-day» battery for the iPhone Air, which has a physically smaller battery to fit inside its thin design. Some of that is due to physically larger batteries, but a new feature called Adaptive Power in iOS 26 is also contributing. And it’s available on any iPhone capable of running Apple Intelligence.

Currently, the iPhone uses as much power as it needs to perform its tasks. You can extend the battery life by doing a number of things, such as decreasing screen brightness and turning off the always-on display. Or, if your battery level is starting to get dire, you can activate Low Power Mode, which reduces background activity like fetching mail and downloading data in addition to those screen adjustments. Low Power Mode also kicks in automatically when the battery level reaches 20%.

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If Low Power Mode is the hammer that knocks down power consumption, Adaptive Power is the scalpel that intelligently trims energy savings here and there as needed. Based on Apple’s description that accompanies the control, the savings will be felt mostly in power-hungry situations such as recording videos, editing photos or perhaps even playing games:

«When your battery usage is higher than usual, iPhone can extend your battery life by making performance adjustments, such as lowering display brightness, allowing some activities to take longer, or turning on Low Power Mode at 20%.»

Apple says Adaptive Power takes about a week to analyze your usage behavior before it begins actively working. It works in the background without needing any management on your part. The iPhone user guide describes it as follows: «It uses on-device intelligence to predict when you’ll need extra battery power based on your recent usage patterns, then makes performance adjustments to help your battery last longer.»

Which iPhone models can use Adaptive Power?

The feature uses AI to monitor and choose when its power-saving measures should be activated, so that means only phones compatible with Apple Intelligence get the feature. These are the models that have the option:

• iPhone 17
• iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max
• iPhone Air
• iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus
• iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 16e
• iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max

Although some iPad and Mac models support Apple Intelligence, the feature is only available on iPhones.

How to turn Adaptive Power on

On the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air, Adaptive Power is on by default. For other models, you must opt in to use it. In iOS 26, you’ll find the Adaptive Power toggle in Settings > Battery > Power Mode. If you want to be alerted when the feature is active, turn on the Adaptive Power Notifications option.

Adaptive Power sounds like an outgrowth of Gaming Mode, introduced in iOS 18, which routes all available processing and graphics power to the frontmost app and pauses other processes in order to deliver the best experience possible — at the notable expense of battery life.

What does this mean for your charging habits?

Although we all want as much battery life as possible all the time, judging by the description, it sounds as if Adaptive Power’s optimizations will not always be active, even if you leave the feature on. «When your battery usage is higher than usual» could include a limited number of situations. Still, considering that according to a CNET survey, 61% of people upgrade their phones because of battery life, a feature such as Adaptive Power could extend the longevity of their phones just by updating to iOS 26.

I also wonder whether slightly adjusting display brightness could be disruptive, but in my experience so far, it hasn’t been noticeable. Because the feature also selectively de-prioritizes processing tasks, the outward effects will likely be minimal.

Read more: Adaptive Power in iOS 26 Could Save the iPhone 17 Air From This Major Pitfall

We’ll get a better idea about how well Adaptive Power works as more people adopt iOS 26 and start buying new iPhone models. Also, remember that shortly after installing a major software update, it’s common to experience worse battery life as the system optimizes data in the background; Apple went so far as to remind customers that it’s a temporary side effect.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, Sept. 19

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Sept. 19.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

I didn’t get off to a great start with today’s Mini Crossword, completely blanking on 1-Across. Thankfully, the other clues were easy, and that answer filled itself in. Need some help? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.