Do We Need a COVID-19 Vaccination Booster Shot?

People around the world have seen many ups and downs during the pandemic, we are in a constant battle with this virus and have vigilantly created vaccines to help us fight through this, but the virus is not taking it slow either, it is constantly mutating and testing the efficiency of the vaccines, which has led us to take a decision regarding the need of a booster shot for the newly emerging highly contagious variants of COVID-19 virus.

A booster dose is as the name suggests an efficient means to boost the body’s immunity against the said virus when there are chances that the effect of previous doses has waned off after a certain duration. Boosters are a very common source of increasing immunization potential against many viruses and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends boosters for many common vaccines like those in effect against diseases like hepatitis, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, and polio. Imani Sciences, a company that runs antibody tests on vaccines says that

 “It’s possible a fully vaccinated person could remain protected for more than a year. That protection could also drop off as quickly as 3 months.”

 Therefore scientists all over the world are keenly studying how well the COVID vaccines are lasting by conducting tests for examining the titer of the protective antibodies. This will help predict the need for a booster dose shortly. Dr. Anthony Fauci went on record to tell a Senate subcommittee that he doesn’t expect the resilience of COVID vaccine protection is going to be infinite, he remarked about it:

“It’s just not,” he said. “So I would imagine we will need, at some time, a booster.”

Some experts are debating in favor of not considering giving a booster shot as according to them the number of people suffering from breakthrough infections from new variants who were already fully vaccinated is considerably low with less severity and they haven’t crossed a threshold that enforces the need of a booster. In other regions of the world, like the European Medicine Agency have concluded that there is still insufficient data as of yet regarding the booster shots, and it needs to be put on hold for the moment.

Pfizer was the first company to announce on the 8th of July,2021 that they have applied for emergency authorization for a third (booster dose) of their vaccine. They stated in the announcement that,

 “We continue to believe that it is likely, based on the totality of the data we have to date, that a third dose may be needed within six to 12 months after full vaccination.”

In a nutshell, researchers around the world are conducting studies to test the vaccine and estimating the protection they are capable of providing, it is safe to say that we might need booster shots in the near future, but will have to wait until we have sufficient information about the urgency of its need. For more information about the vaccination and help, visit us: www.sosdoctorhousecall.com  OR call at 866 767 6348 and we at SOS Doctors ON-Call will be happy to serve you.