How many COVID-19 vaccine shots do you need? Dr. Anthony Fauci has revealed the right amount to keep you safe from the coronavirus.
Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, said Tuesday at the 2021 STAT Summit that three shots of the vaccine may become the standard for full vaccination, especially as the winter months lead to more cases, according to ABC News.
- “The somewhat unnerving aspect of it is that if you keep the level of dynamics of the virus in the community at a high level — obviously the people who are most vulnerable are the unvaccinated — but when you have a virus as transmissible as delta, in the context of waning immunity, that dynamic is going to negatively impact even the vaccinated people. So it’s a double whammy,” Fauci said, per ABC News.
- “You’re going to see breakthrough infections, even more so than we see now among the vaccinated,” he added.
Booster shots could continue to come in the next few months. In fact, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in October that some immunocompromised people can receive a fourth COVID-19 vaccine shot. These people are “moderately to severely immunocompromised” and received three doses of an mRNA vaccine already.
- You can only get your fourth shot six months after getting your third shot.
Dr. Anand Swaminathan, a New Jersey-based emergency medicine physician, recently told Yahoo! Finance that boosters are somewhat of a distraction away from the true need — getting more people vaccinated against COVID-19.
- “Honestly, I think that boosters right now are a bit of a distraction away from where we should be focused, which is getting first doses, especially since we know that even now, even with Delta surging, the primary doses of the vaccines are highly protective against serious infection, against hospitalization,” Swaminathan said.