Three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine will offer you full protection against the coronavirus right now, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
How many COVID-19 vaccine shots do you need?
Fauci said Thursday that there’s good reason to believe a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine “will actually be durable, and if it is durable, then you’re going to have very likely a three-dose regimen being the routine regimen.”
- To support this, Fauci has kept his eye on data from Israel, which has been giving third doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to its people over the last two months.
- Two studies — like this one and this one — based in Israel show, so far, that the third dose — a booster shot — is providing protection against COVID-19.
Indeed, health officials from Israel have noted that the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine is lowering infection rates and improving vaccine efficacy among the fully vaccinated, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
- That said, Fauci has previously warned people against getting their COVID-19 vaccine booster shot too soon, as I wrote for the Deseret News. People need to wait until their body adapts to the second shot.
Who needs a third COVID-19 vaccine shot?
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said it’s unclear who needs a third shot yet. But, he said, answers will come with time. For now, everyone should work to get that third shot.
- “At some point down the line, we may have a way of telling who needs an extra shot, and who doesn’t,” he said, per CNN.
- “Right now, we don’t have that indicator, which is why we’re recommending that not only people get vaccinated across the board — regardless of whether they were infected in the past or not — but also when it comes to getting these extra doses to sustain and extend your protection, that we do that broadly,” he said, according to CNN.