More COVID-19 vaccine booster shots may be necessary down the road, even if that’s not the ideal scenario, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House medical adviser on the novel coronavirus.
Fauci told host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that he hopes more COVID-19 vaccine booster shots won’t be needed in the future due to the success of the recent vaccine boosters.
- “If it becomes necessary to get yet another boost, then we’ll just have to deal with it when that occurs, but I’m hoping from an immunological standpoint that that third shot of an mRNA and the second shot of a J&J will give a much greater durability of protection than just the six months or so that we’re seeing right now,” he said.
Fauci also said on ABC’s “This Week” that it’s too early to tell if yearly COVID-19 vaccine booster shots will be needed.
- “The third shot of an mRNA could not only do what we absolutely know it does, is it dramatically increased the level of protection, but from an immunological standpoint, it could very well increase the durability of protection,” Fauci said.
- “You don’t know that ... until you just follow it over a period of months,” he added.
Fauci comments come amid fears over the new coronavirus variant called omicron. Pfizer said last week that its booster shot can protect people against the omicron variant, according to The Associated Press.
Right now, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Protection show that 60.7% of the entire U.S. population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19. So far, about 26% of fully vaccinated individuals have received a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot.