Booster shots on the horizon? Here’s what an expert says.

Dr. PAYAL KOHLI: “My guess is that most people will need a booster at some point, the studies have looked at about six to eight months after your full vaccination. So that’s really what’s been studied. But there are a lot of scientists that are suggesting maybe we should push it out a little bit farther, maybe we should do it once a year or so because even at six to eight months, even though those antibodies might go down the protection from severe illness, it’s still very good. And there’s only a few groups that are looking like they may have less protection from severe illness. And those are patients over the age of 75. And of course, those immunocompromised patients that are already eligible for the booster. But if your general average risk person just hang tight a little bit, because we’re still waiting for the FDA to weigh in on whether we really need it, and whether it’s safe for us to get it.

Now people ask me, why not just get the booster? what’s the downside of getting the booster, and you really want to remember vaccines are very safe. These ones are very effective. But every time you rev up that immune system, you can be at risk for the immune system misbehaving. So if you get it too soon, for example, after your initial vaccination, or you’re getting it too often, you know the immune system could start attacking itself. That’s where we get that myocarditis pericarditis, you could have complications like guillon barre. And on a population level, those can really get amplified. So you don’t want to just willy nilly get the vaccine as if it’s nothing but at the same time when the time is right, when we’ve shown that it’s safe, and we’ve shown that we all need it. That’s the time to go and get it.”