COVID vaccine boosters: Who needs them, and how people are skirting rules to get one — even without approval

Dr. Yomaris Pena, Internal Medicine Physician with Somos Community Care, extracts the last bit of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine out of a vial so as not to waste it at a vaccination site in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York on Jan. 15, 2021. An untold number of Americans have managed to get COVID-19 booster shots even though the U.S. government hasn’t approved them. They’re doing so by taking advantage of the nation’s vaccine surplus and loose tracking of those who have been fully vaccinated. (Mary Altaffer, AP file) (Mary Altaffer/AP)