One group in particular could need booster especially soon: the immunocompromised

The Biden administration is working to get immunocompromised people booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine “as quickly as possible,” Anthony Fauci said Thursday, calling the group “vulnerable.”

Administration health officials have said that booster shots overall are not needed at this time, but Thursday’s comments from President Biden‘s chief medical adviser signal a new urgency for additional shots to those with compromised immune systems.

That group includes people who have received organ transplants, are undergoing chemotherapy or are taking medications that suppress their immune system. Slides presented at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory committee meeting last month estimated the group accounts for 2.7 percent of all U.S. adults.

“Immunocompromised individuals are vulnerable,” Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said at a White House press briefing on Thursday.

With some exceptions, he said, they “do not make an adequate response [to the COVID-19 vaccine] that we feel would be adequately protective.”

“It is extremely important for us to move to get those individuals their boosters, and we are now working on that and will make that be implemented as quickly as possible, because for us and for the individuals involved it is a very high priority,” Fauci said