Do You Need a Covid Booster?
If you’re fully vaccinated, there’s no indication you need a booster yet. But many could urgently use that dose — here’s why.
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Last week, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer held a closed-door meeting with senior U.S. health officials to pitch them on Covid-19 booster shots.
Just a few days prior, Pfizer announced they would ask the FDA to expand the emergency authorization for their current two-dose vaccine to include a third, a booster shot.
We can only speculate on the confidential data presented in that meeting, but the Department of Health and Human Services who convened it issued a statement reflecting what many scientists believe: “At this time, fully vaccinated Americans do not need a booster shot”. The CDC and FDA also pushed back, issuing their own joint statement declaring “Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time.”
Still, recent data from Israel suggesting declining efficacy of the Pfizer vaccines — with protection against symptomatic infection falling to 64%, down from 94% in the initial trials — have made some wonder if boosters will be needed in the near future.
Despite many acting like the pandemic is basically over, more than half of all Americans still haven’t been fully vaccinated against Covid.
Some countries are starting to administer third doses to immunosuppressed patients and organ transplant recipients after it was discovered that the normal two-dose regimen didn’t provide sufficient protection in these groups. And federal authorities are monitoring if and when boosters may be needed in other high-risk populations, such as the elderly.
But right now and for everyone else, research has shown that the current vaccines still provide excellent protection against severe disease and death from Covid-19, even with the Delta variant.
That’s why instead of focusing on boosters, a push to vaccinate those who haven’t yet had their first shots would be more impactful in getting Covid under control in the U.S. Despite many acting like the pandemic is basically over, more than…
