Raphael Stevens

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is described as a “toxic” workplace, according to an essay by 21 current and former employees.
The essay claims that the company pushes workers to sign strict nondisclosure agreements, stifles internal feedback, disregards safety concerns, and creates a sexist environment for women.
Blue Origin responded that it “has no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind” and “promptly” investigates claims of misconduct.

Jeff Bezos announces Blue Moon, a lunar landing vehicle for the Moon, during a Blue Origin event in Washington, DC, May 9, 2019.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Twenty-one current and former employees of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin claim the space company is a “toxic” workplace, according to an essay posted Thursday.
Led by former Blue Origin head of employee communications Alexandra Abrams, the essay claims that the company pushes workers to sign strict nondisclosure agreements, stifles internal feedback, disregards safety concerns, and creates a sexist environment for women. It also gave examples of alleged sexual harassment.

“I’ve gotten far enough away from it that I’m not afraid enough to let them silence me anymore,” Abrams said in a CBS interview that aired Thursday.
The essay was published Thursday on the Lioness website. It was signed by Abrams and said it was endorsed by 20 other current and former employees whose names were not listed.
In a response to CNBC’s request for comment, Blue Origin vice president of communications Linda Mills said Abrams was “dismissed for cause” in 2019 “after repeated warnings for issues involving federal export control regulations.”
Responding to Blue Origin, Abrams told CNBC in a statement that she “never received any warnings, verbal or written, from management regarding issues involving federal export control regulations.”
Abrams acknowledged in the CBS interview that she was fired by Blue Origin. She told “CBS Mornings” she was “shocked” when she was fired but was told by her manager that “Bob and I can’t trust you anymore,” referring to CEO Bob Smith. According to her LinkedIn account, she now works in employee communications for a large software company.

Alleged sexism and harassment

The essay said that “workforce gender gaps are common in the space industry” but claimed that “at Blue Origin they also manifest in a particular brand of sexism.”
It gave two examples from senior leadership. It alleged that a “senior executive in CEO Bob Smith’s loyal inner circle” was repeatedly reported to the company’s human resources team about sexual harassment claims. Despite the claims, the essay said, Smith made the executive a member of Blue Origin’s hiring committee when the company was filling a senior human resources role.
In the second example, a former executive allegedly was demeaning toward women, “calling them ‘baby girl,’ ‘baby doll,’ or ‘sweetheart’ and inquiring about their dating lives.” The essay claims Blue Origin would warn new female hires to stay away from the executive, who allegedly had a “close personal relationship with Bezos.”
“It took him physically groping a female subordinate for him to finally be let go,” the essay alleges.
Mills, in her statement, said that “Blue Origin has no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind.”
“We provide numerous avenues for employees, including a 24/7 anonymous hotline, and will promptly investigate any new claims of misconduct,” Mills added.

Blue Origin’s headquarters in Kent, Washington.
Blue Origin

Blue Origin also intensified the use of strict nondisclosure agreements, the essay says, pushing all employees to sign new contracts with a nondisparagement clause in 2019. The company’s work culture has “taken a toll on the mental health” of “many” people, the current and former employees claimed. The letter cited a senior program leader with decades in the aerospace and defense industry who claimed that “working at Blue Origin was the worst experience of her life.”

FAA reviewing safety allegations

Safety concerns are another key piece of the essay, which alleges that “some of the engineers who ensure the very safety of the rockets” were either forced out or paid off after internally voicing criticisms.
The essay said that last year, Blue Origin leadership showed “increasing impatience” with the low flight rate of its suborbital New Shepard rocket, saying the company’s team needed to jump from “a few flights per year … to more than 40.”
“When Jeff Bezos flew to space this July, we did not share his elation. Instead, many of us watched with an overwhelming sense of unease. Some of us couldn’t bear to watch at all,” the essay said. “Competing with other billionaires—and ‘making progress for Jeff’— seemed to take precedence over safety concerns that would have slowed down the schedule.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement to CNBC on Thursday that it is reviewing the safety concerns raised within the essay.
“The FAA takes every safety allegation seriously,” the regulator said in a statement.

The essay contends that environmental concerns were an afterthought at the company, with impacts on local ecology and required permits considered after “the machinery showed up” at Blue Origin’s factory in Kent, Washington.Additionally, Blue Origin’s headquarters in Kent – which opened last year – is not a LEED-certified building, according to the essay, claiming that it “was built on wetlands that were drained for construction.”
The statement to CNBC from Blue Origin’s Mills did not respond to these other issues.

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Fanatics chairman Michael Rubin joined CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday to discuss the company’s expansion into the sports trading card sector.
Fanatics sent another shockwave through Wall Street this week after it revealed their trading card business is already valued at more than $10 billion after raising $350 million in funding.

Anjali Sundaram | CNBC

Sports merchandise company Fanatics surprised Wall Street this week after it revealed its trading card business is valued at more than $10 billion in the course of raising new capital.
Fanatics raised a $350 million round one month after capturing licensing rights for top sports leagues, including Major League Baseball and the National Football League. The e-commerce giant separated its trading card company from its merchandise business in last August. Rubin lured leagues and player unions into leaving current partners by offering equity in the new business.

“The trading card companies are good manufacturers, but they didn’t have a vision for building much more of a direct-to-consumer model and then bringing all the pieces together to create a great collector’s experience,” Fanatics chairman Michael Rubin said Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “It’s what we did in the merchandising category with our Fanatics commerce business — and now doing it with trading cards.”

Calculating Fanatics’ $10 billion valuation

Some on Wall Street remain perplexed at the value of Fanatics’ trading card company, especially since the licensing rights don’t transfer for another few years, but sports attorney Irwin Kishner said it’s possible to “articulate pretty good reasons as to how they got there.”
Traditional valuation metrics include discounted cash flows, comparable companies in a sector, EBITDA, and cost of assets, Kishner said. However, these combined metrics may not be the only ones that apply in Fanatics’ case.
“You’re looking at what the projected cash flows can be for each of their business segments, and that’s what you’re valuing this business on,” said Kishner, the co-chair of the sports law firm Herrick, Feinstein, which has worked on mergers and acquisitions and represented teams including the New York Yankees.
Discussing Fanatics’ valuation on condition of remaining anonymous due to privacy concerns, one sports banker factored in that Topps’ valuation was about $1 billion before Fanatics stole its star client in MLB and crushed Topps’ plans for a SPAC merger. Bloomberg has also reported that Panini was worth about $3 billion. Taking those valuations and applying them to Fanatics’ card business — they have rights to the MLB, NFL and National Basketball Association — leads to the $10 billion valuation.

Fanatics’ hiring of executives like former IAC chief financial officer Glenn Schiffman should also be factored in, Kishner said. And Rubin has built equity with the way he’s positioned Fanatics for the future, including starting an NFT company called Candy Digital.  
“A lot of what you’re betting on is management,” Kishner said.
Fanatics’ plan for the physical trading card space is to expand it by opening the market to leverage it more via direct-to-consumer offerings. For example, should collectors purchase a trading card, they’ll be able to insure the asset, grade, store and even put them on a marketplace to sell or trade all through Fanatics. The company would likely collect transaction fees.
Rubin also mentioned that traditional trading card manufacturers “will make close to $1 billion EBITDA this year on a combined basis.” He added the trading card sector is a “highly profitable business” with a “massive opportunity.”
 “This hobby has so many people in the middle of it and perfectly set up to have an integrated direct-to-consumer experience,” Rubin said.
Not everybody agrees with Rubin’s assessment. When discussing the matter, a Wall Street CEO labeled Fanatics trading card agreements as a futures contract since the company can’t produce the collectibles yet. The executive spoke to CNBC on the condition of remaining anonymous to speak freely about another company’s affairs.
“I understand that statement because they haven’t fully executed yet on their potential — yet,” said Kishner when asked if he agreed with the label. “But the way they got the baseball contract, the way they’ve been picking up various management talent from around various companies, and positioned themselves as a technology company — you’re talking about bringing together under one roof NFTs, paper trading cards, and blockchain technology. So, there’s a lot here.
“You’re buying an asset that you anticipate will grow higher because of market forces and the way you position that asset,” he added.

Topps trading cards are arranged for a photograph in Richmond, Virginia.
Jay Paul | Bloomberg | Getty Images

What will Fanatics buy next?

Over the last year, when Fanatics has secured new capital, it’s usually sought an acquisition.
For example, the company purchased licensed sports merchandise manufacturer WinCraft using money from a $350 million Series E funding round in August 2020. And in 2017, it bought VF Corp’s licensed sports group for roughly $225 million. That deal included the Majestic Athletic brand, and it came right after Fanatics took Majestic’s MLB apparel rights.
Fanatics isn’t expected to start its trading card business from scratch and will likely seek to buy an existing company in the space like Upper Deck.
Asked about this on Thursday, Rubin responded: “It’s possible that we’ll buy one of the trading card companies because they are good companies.”
Expect more moves from Fanatics in the coming months as the company expands before seeking an IPO.
Kishner said Fanatics’ business plans resemble investing in real estate, adding it “seems high now, but 10 years from this date, you’d wish you bought it.”
“They’ve aligned themselves with various leagues, took the Topps business plan and made it their own,” Kishner added. “This company is going to be a disruptor.”

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More than 120,000 pregnant women in the U.S. have been diagnosed with Covid.
The risk of miscarriage after Covid vaccination aligns with the normal risk of miscarriage after adjusting for the mom’s age.
But unvaccinated pregnant women are more than twice as likely than non-pregnant women to need intensive care and a ventilator when they contract Covid, Walensky added.

A Pregnant woman getting an ultrasound
Kemal Yildirim | E+ | Getty Images

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Thursday that Covid-19 deaths among pregnant women reached a record high of 21 in August, urging expectant mothers to get vaccinated against the virus.
Just 31% of pregnant women nationwide are vaccinated, even though pregnant women with Covid are likelier to experience dangerous symptoms that jeopardize their infants’ health, she said. Walensky’s comments came just a day after the CDC announced a health advisory for pregnant women to get vaccinated to reduce the risk of contracting a severe case of Covid.

“Compared with pregnant women without Covid, pregnant women with Covid are more likely to have a preterm birth or a stillbirth,” Walensky said during a presentation to the Infectious Disease Society of America. “And this very much demonstrates with a huge amount of evidence that pregnant women are at high risk of Covid-19, and their babies are at high risk as well.”
More than 120,000 pregnant women in the U.S. have been diagnosed with Covid, and Walensky added that more than 5,000 pregnant women have participated in the agency’s vaccine safety monitoring programs. Roughly half of those studied received the Pfizer vaccine, about 44% got Moderna’s and approximately 5% were immunized by Johnson & Johnson.
Walensky said that studying the participants enabled the CDC to determine that Covid vaccines have no impact on increasing the potential for miscarriage. CDC officials expanded on those findings at a Sept. 22 meeting of the agency’s vaccine advisory committee, reporting a 12.8% risk of miscarriage by the 20th week of gestation among 2,456 pregnant individuals inoculated with Pfizer or Moderna.
The risk of miscarriage measured in the study aligns with the normal risk of miscarriage after adjusting for the mom’s age, officials said. But unvaccinated pregnant women are more than twice as likely than non-pregnant women to need intensive care and a ventilator when they contract Covid, Walensky added.

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The CDC studied 1,634 babies born to mothers immunized against Covid as well, reporting 45 with birth defects — similar rates as babies born to healthy mothers. There were also 99 preterm infants, 45 considered small for their gestational age and 158 requiring intensive care. Officials found no evidence of rare types or clusters of birth defects.
Researchers from the HealthPartners Institute also told the CDC’s advisory panel that Covid vaccines are not associated with stillbirths. An analysis of the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink found that pregnant people inoculated against Covid delivered 11,300 live births and 26 stillbirths from December through July. The majority of the stillbirths in the study resulted from placental complications, obstetric complications and maternal comorbidities.

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Troubling headlines about the stock market of late may be prompting investors to give bonds another look.
Here’s a look at what experts say you should weigh.

Vlad Yushinov | iStock | Getty Images

The stock market has taken some steep drops this month, and forecasts of a correction, or worse, are mounting.
As a result, many investors may be wondering if it’s time to transfer some of their money to bonds, where returns can still be decent but the risk of losses is typically lower than with equities.

“My outlook on bonds remains that they serve a critical role of shock absorber when stocks tank,” said Allan Roth, a certified financial planner and founder of Wealth Logic in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Indeed, portfolios weighted heavier in bonds tend to recover faster from downturns than ones tilted more toward stocks.
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An allocation with more than 70% stocks and the rest in bonds and cash took more than two years to recover from the 2008 financial crisis, compared with just seven months for portfolios with more than 70% in bonds and cash and the rest in stocks, according to calculations provided by Charles Schwab.
But not all bonds will protect you during troubling times, experts say.

“High-yield bonds are highly correlated with equities,” said Stuart Katz, chief investment officer at Robertson Stephens in San Francisco.
Instead, Roth recommends a fund such as the Vanguard Total Bond Fund, which is made up of roughly 65% U.S. government bonds.
“And only the U.S. government can print money,” he said.

Recently, Eric Jacobson, a strategist at Morningstar, found that even though U.S. Treasury bonds have returned investors just around 3% a year over the past decade, they make up a quarter or more of many of the bond funds tracked by Morningstar.
That’s because when the markets sour, these bonds tend to act as an insurance policy.
For example, when the S&P 500 Index was down by more than 20% between February and March 2020, a 10-year Treasury note was up 8%, according to calculations by Jacobson.
“Back in 2008, when we had the financial crisis, the only thing that saved a lot of people were their bond allocations,” Jacobson said.
Still, experts caution against getting too jittery.

Keeping too much of your money in bonds or cash can be just as risky as investing too much of it in the market.
The S&P 500 has outpaced the Morningstar Core Bond Index in nearly every three-month rolling period over the past 10 years, Jacobson found.
Even those nearing or in retirement benefit from remaining in the market. In fact, Wade Pfau, professor of retirement income at the American College for Financial Services, says retirement portfolios last longest when stock ownership ranges between 50% and 75%. 
Meanwhile, bonds come with their own risks these days.
“Bonds are facing a lot of headwinds with the threat of rising inflation and a possibility of increasing interest rates,” Katz said.

In response, investors may want to take a second look at bonds that go up with inflation, such as Treasury inflation-protected securities, or TIPS, and Series I bonds, said Andy Mardock, CFP and founder and president of ViviFi Planning in Bend, Oregon.
Owning bonds with a variety of maturity dates will also enable investors to move around their money and take advantage of increasing interest rates, he said.
Overall, when determining their allocation between stocks and bonds, investors should prioritize their own financial goals and time horizon over current economic conditions, Mardock said.
“The right allocation for any investor is a calculated assessment of the risk and return that makes sense for them,” he said.

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The NBA is back in the spotlight as players refuse the Covid vaccine despite local mandates.
On Wednesday, the league said players who miss games would not be paid.

Kyrie Irving #11 of the Brooklyn Nets drives to the basket against the Milwaukee Bucks during Round 2, Game 3 of the 2021 NBA Playoffs on June 10, 2021 at the Fiserv Forum Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Nathaniel S. Butler | National Basketball Association | Getty Images

The National Basketball Association wants to fully embrace its upcoming 75th anniversary, but internal problems around Covid policies and vaccinations continue to overshadow the milestone.
The NBA’s Covid problems returned to the national spotlight when it announced unvaccinated players in New York and San Francisco won’t be paid if they miss games.

The cities, not the league, issued a mandate that requires eligible people to be vaccinated for entry to public places, including sports arenas. NBA teams opened training camps this week, and most of the chatter was centered around unvaccinated players.
“There’s a whole lot of ignorance on the part of players who will not get vaccinated,” said former NBA player turned scholar Len Elmore. “The NBA is flexing its muscle and has to support mandates for the greater good because that’s really what we’re talking about here.”

How the NBA got here

Like most vaccine advocates, including NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elmore said science supports requiring vaccinations. Now a professor for Columbia University’s sports management program, Elmore noted the Black community remains at high risk for contracting Covid, adding NBA players should recognize the power they hold through positive messaging.
“We’ve got to protect our communities, and in a league that’s 80 percent Black, these guys have got to understand that,” Elmore said. “The impact of your decision goes way beyond your personal interest,” he added.
The NFL used a similar tactic when it said it plans to finish its 2021 season without delays. The NFL said in July it’s fining players and forfeiting teams if unvaccinated individuals cause outbreaks that lead to postponements. The NFL also fined players who violate mask guidelines at team practice sites.  

Sports leagues are taking a hard stance on vaccines, in part, because media partners lost money on postponed games during the 2020 season. Networks like CNBC parent company NBCUniversal needed to provide make-goods to marketers who didn’t receive viewership impressions for primetime games that were moved due to Covid outbreaks.
The NBA agreed to vaccine mandate terms with its referees last August to avoid disruptions for the upcoming season. The Athletic said in July that 90 percent of NBA players are vaccinated. But, the league hasn’t issued a mandate for players since it can’t find common ground with its players’ union.
In Brooklyn and San Francisco, where mandates are in place, players Kyrie Irving (Nets) and Andrew Wiggins (Golden State Warriors) are two prominent faces in the NBA that remain unvaccinated. Wiggins attempted to use religious reasons to excuse his status, which the league office denied. And Irving spoke on the Nets’ media day away from the team, which shed further light on his vaccination status. Both players downplayed questions around the vaccine and asked for privacy during recent media events.
Leagues often have to go after players’ salaries to get attention. It’s a financial loss that players will never get back.
NBA spokesperson Mike Bass said players who miss games due to vaccination status during the upcoming season will forfeit their paychecks. Without factoring in pay advances or a negotiated pay schedule, should Irving elect to sit home games, he could miss an estimated $425,000 per game. Irving, 29, is scheduled to make $34.9 million this season. Wiggins will bring in approximately $31 million.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver attends an NBA basketball game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Clippers during game two of the first round of the NBA playoffs at AdventHealth Arena at ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex on August 19, 2020 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
Ashley Landis | Getty Images

Protecting the NBA’s image

Penalties will only help the league if other NBA cities decide to issue vaccine mandates. Elmore praised the NBA’s stance on pushing for vaccinations, noting a player’s “decision goes way beyond your personal interest.”
“I think they are being smart,” added sports marketing executive Tony Ponturo of the NBA’s threat to withhold payments. “People are still getting Covid – it’s not like we escaped it. And as a marketer, I would also respect someone that’s not doing the easy thing, but they are doing the right thing.”
The NBA will return to a standard 82-game format next month, limiting room for postponements due to Covid. The NBA will also lose its flexibility to shift games to different venues as other sports leagues and entertainment properties return to arenas where teams play. 
Ponturo, the former vice president of global sports and entertainment marketing at Anheuser-Busch, said sponsors should be concerned since they’ll lose impressions on rescheduled games, which could cost them millions.
“Sponsors are underwriting not only the broadcast rights but the local team signage and trademarks and other forms of sponsorships that they do with leagues and athletes,” he said. “All of a sudden, if you have a widespread Covid situation and you lose games, there’s going to be a pro-rata situation.”
Ponturo said the NBA’s image is at risk if it makes excuses for unvaccinated players. He said NBA commissioner Adam Silver is “sensitive to looking like the NBA gets an exception” and wants to avoid “stepping on government laws.”
There is a confusing exception, though. Visiting players could be allowed to play in mandated cities even if they aren’t vaccinated. So, though Wiggins and Irving can’t play at home, they’d be able to play on the road. Elmore said that exception is unfair and questioned its legitimacy.
“I would suspect that anybody that’s not vaccinated can’t go inside the arena,” Elmore said. “How is it in those cities that visitors can get inside? How do they get into the arena? I’m still trying to figure out how guys are allowed to play if the jurisdiction requires you show your vaccination.”
Ponturo pointed to a recent Broadway outbreak that led to a canceled show even though performers were vaccinated. He said the NBA wants to avoid a similar situation with unvaccinated players. Since the pandemic, NBA issued protocols designed to help prevent outbreaks, including mask mandates. 
But will the NBA really enforce its guidelines and issue fines as the NFL does? Or is it just creating a scare tactic? Bass did not respond to a CNBC request on Wednesday evening for additional comment.
Patrick Rishe, the director of Washington University’s sports business program, said the NBA’s public stance could impact smaller businesses. It’s similar to the NBA’s decision to suspend play when the pandemic hit in March 2020.
“I have to believe that there will be an influence,” Rishe said. “If the NBA is taking this stance, then there will probably be organizations and venues that may copy.”
Rishe used NBA superstar LeBron James as an example. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Lakers forward told reporters he’s vaccinated, despite early skepticism. “I felt like it was best suited for not only me but for my family and my friends,” James said via the Associated Press.
Said Rishe: “Who knows how many people that is going to inspire to say, ‘You know what, if he’s doing it, I can do it.’ If you follow his history, he’s a guy that wants to do good socially, and this may be a form of that.”

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The largest jackpot ever won was a $1.6 billion prize in January 2016.
The cash value — which most big lottery winners choose instead of an annuity — for this $620 million jackpot is $446 million.
The chance of a single ticket matching all six numbers drawn in Powerball is about 1 in 292 million.

Powerball’s top prize has surged yet again, vaulting it into the top 10 largest jackpots in U.S. lottery history.
With no one matching all six numbers drawn Wednesday night, the jackpot is now an estimated $620 million for Saturday night’s drawing. If there’s a winning ticket, it would be the 10th-largest lottery prize won — and still $980 million behind the largest ever: a $1.6 billion Powerball prize won in January 2016.

The jackpot has been growing since early June when a single ticket sold in Florida won $286 million. Since then, there have been 38 drawings with no grand prize winner.

The cash value — which most winners choose instead of an annuity spread over 30 years — for this $620 million jackpot is $446 million. That amount would be reduced by a 24% federal tax withholding of about $107 million, as well as any state taxes due. And, more would likely be owed to the IRS at tax time.
Despite the sizeable share that goes to taxes, the windfall would be more than most people see in a lifetime. This makes it important for winners to get professional guidance before heading to lottery headquarters. Depending on where the ticket is purchased, you get anywhere from three months to a year to claim your prize.
Generally speaking, the first call should be to an attorney experienced in assisting lottery winners, experts say. Other professionals also should be brought in to help, including a tax advisor and a financial advisor.
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The winner also should make a copy of their ticket and store the original in a safe place (i.e., a lockbox or a bank safe deposit box). Additionally, it’s worth sharing the news with as few people as possible, experts say.
Meanwhile, the Mega Millions jackpot is at $34 million for Friday night’s drawing. Last week, a ticket sold in New York matched all numbers drawn to win about $431 million.
Your chance of hitting either game’s jackpot with a single ticket is miniscule. For Mega Millions, it’s 1 in 302 million and for Powerball, 1 in 292 million.

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Four people who received Pfizer’s booster shot said they felt relieved after getting the extra dose and experienced minimal side effects.
They said they got the extra doses over the fear that they could expose themselves or their loved ones to the delta variant and become severely sick.
“I didn’t want to bring it home to my wife or other members of my family,” California resident Wayne Adams said.

Lalain Reyeg administers a COVID-19 booster vaccine and an influenza vaccine to Army veteran Gary Nasakaitis at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital on September 24, 2021 in Hines, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images

Massachusetts resident Preston Alexander, 66, was elated when he found out last week he was eligible to receive a booster dose of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine.
Alexander, whose wedding photography business went under during the pandemic, worried about his level of protection against the virus heading into the fall and winter when the delta variant is expected to circulate alongside the seasonal flu. After CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off Friday on boosters for a wide array of Americans, including those age 65 and older, he immediately called his local pharmacy to set up an appointment.

The photographer and videographer regularly worked large parties and weddings with 200 to 300 people, he said.
“I am definitely not going to subject myself to others when they’re not even wearing masks and they’re dancing on the dance floor like it’s 1999,” he said in a phone interview. He got a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Saturday.
Four people interviewed by CNBC – among the first Americans to receive booster shots in the United States – said they got the extra doses over the fear that they could expose themselves or their loved ones to the delta variant and become severely sick.

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The strain has led to a surge in U.S. hospitalizations, mainly among the unvaccinated. Still, some vaccinated Americans have suffered so-called breakthrough infections and just over 19,000 of them – less than 1% – have been hospitalized or died with Covid as of Sept. 20, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Scientists say vaccine protection against infection generally starts to wane six months after the second shot. Federal health officials hope boosting the U.S. population will continue to ensure long-term and durable protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death. Other countries, including Chile and Israel, have already started offering third doses to many of their citizens.

On Friday, Walensky approved a series of recommendations, including distributing the shots to older Americans and adults with underlying medical conditions beginning six months after their first series of inoculations. She also cleared booster shots for those in high-risk occupational and institutional settings, such as health-care workers and teachers, overruling the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices after it rejected the same proposal.
The new policy will make third doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine available to roughly 60 million people, 20 million of whom were immediately eligible as the highly contagious delta variant continues to tear across the country, President Joe Biden said Friday.
Alexander of Massachusetts said he viewed the extra doses as a “blessing.” He noted the side effects from the third Pfizer shot were similar to the ones he experienced after the first and second doses.
“I didn’t expect anything major when I got my booster,” he said. “I still had a painful arm for a day and a half. No headache, fatigue, no nothing. Just an incredible sense of peace of mind.”
Three other people who received Pfizer’s booster shot also said they felt better after getting the extra dose and experienced minimal side effects.
Karen Cobb of Sanbornton, New Hampshire looks after her two granddaughters, ages two and four. The 69-year-old said she got a booster shot at her local CVS on Sunday because she didn’t want to give the virus to her grandchildren, who are currently ineligible to get vaccinated.
“I’m the treasurer of my town, and even though everyone in the office was fully vaccinated, there was an outbreak. Two women got Covid, and I was exposed to them,” she said.

Preston Alexander
Source: Preston Alexander

Cobb, who also suffers from autoimmune diseases, said her arm was sore on Monday, and on Tuesday, she suffered from headaches and nausea that lasted through the morning.
“But luckily I was able to rest,” she said. “I feel better now that I’ve had the booster about going back to work,” she added.
California resident Wayne Adams, 62, got his Pfizer booster Monday at his local Walgreens. Adams, who has underlying health conditions, said getting the third shot took about 45 minutes, and was painless besides the initial jab.
His job in public transit is considered essential, “so I didn’t have the option of working from home. I didn’t want to bring it home to my wife or other members of my family,” he said.
“I want to have a normal Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday parties for my children and grandchildren, and it’s the right thing to do and the vaccine is the path forward for us all,” he said.
Alberto Jacinto, 29, said he lied to get a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine, telling his local pharmacy that he had a medical condition.
He said he felt he needed to get a booster because he was moving for work to a city in northwest Texas that has a low vaccination rate. He said he got his extra dose in late August after he discovered a CVS was offering third shots.
“It’s a college town, and so I wasn’t gonna take any risks with the students here,” he said.

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