FILE PHOTO: Vials labelled "Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine" are seen in this illustration picture taken May 2, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo

Ben Burke Producer/Editor

U.S.

Experts recommend booster shots for every American, but not quite yet

Aug 17, 2021

Ben Burke Producer/Editor

By Ben Burke (Producer/Editor)

United States health officials announced every American, regardless of age, should get booster shots for the COVID-19 vaccine. However, there is a catch. The recommendation is likely to say to wait eight months after receiving your second dose of the vaccine before rolling up your sleeve for your booster shot.

This means health care workers, nursing home residents and other older Americans could soon be eligible for the booster shot. These groups got their first dose shortly after the vaccine received emergency use authorization last December.

Earlier this week, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said the U.S. could decide in the next couple weeks whether to offer coronavirus booster shots to Americans this fall. Doses won’t be available until the Food and Drug Administration gives full approval of the vaccine. FDA officials are expected to rule on full approval for the Pfizer vaccine in the coming weeks.

Federal health officials have been reviewing case numbers in the U.S. as well as the situation in other countries such as Israel.

Israel has been offering boosters to people older than 50 who were already vaccinated more than five months ago in an effort to control its own surge in cases from the delta variant.

Back in the states, more than 198 million Americans have received at least one dose of a vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 168 million are fully vaccinated.

For months, officials had said data still indicated people remain highly protected from COVID-19, including the delta variant, after receiving both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. However, U.S. health officials said they are now preparing for the possibility boosters may be needed sooner rather than later.

“There is a concern that the vaccine may start to wane in its effectiveness,” Dr. Collins said. “And delta is a nasty one for us to try to deal with. The combination of those two means we may need boosters, maybe beginning first with health care providers, as well as people in nursing homes, and then gradually moving forward.”

Tags: Pandemic

Dr. Payal Kohli: “Hi, I’m Dr. Payal Kohli, the Straight Arrow News health expert. And today we’re talking about boosters. Why do we need them? Who needs them? And when do we get them? Boosters, why do we need them? So the CDC has been closely watching the rate of breakthrough infections, which means fully vaccinated people that are then going on to get COVID-19, or test positive for the virus. When that number starts to go up, that tells us that the vaccine efficacy is going down, or that our opponent is getting stronger. And in this case, likely both. The vaccine efficacy goes down over time as we start to lose your antibodies. And because this delta variant is so aggressive, and so much more contagious than the original variant, and the rates of infection are going up in the community. All of that creates that perfect storm for the rate of breakthrough infections to start to increase. So that’s the idea is to boost your immune system with a third shot of the same vaccine in order to try to boost those antibodies so that it can better fight off a potential infection. And what we know about the Pfizer messenger RNA booster is that a third shot in phase one clinical trials has been shown to boost antibodies against the original strain against the beta strain, and boost them five to 11 fold against the Delta variants. So it really does appear that it boosts your immune system. So the efficacy pieces there. And that’s the why right now, this is why we’re having this right now is because their rate of breakthrough infections has gotten out. So that’s the why now let’s talk about the how. So the how is that they’re going to give you a third shot of the exact same vaccine that you got either Pfizer or Moderna, about eight months after you got your original vaccine. Now the eight months really comes from the fact that most Americans started getting their vaccine about eight months ago. And it comes from the fact that we start to see a dropping off in the in the number of antibodies, the neutralizing antibodies, after about six months or so. Now, we don’t yet know what the Johnson and Johnson people should do. We don’t have good data on that. And they are hopefully going to come forth with more data.”