With the onset of COvid-19 Vaccination, many trepidations around children and young adults venturing in the public sphere have disappeared. While this renewed confidence is a good sign, it is time to note the next step. As per researchers, every vaccination drive will have a lasting effect of around one year. This means that after every one year, the individual must take vaccine booster shots.
What Are COVID – 19 Boosters And Why Will They Be Needed?
The immune protection that the Covid-19 vaccine elicits may be able to fight against the current mutants. But what about the new mutants that come up in due course of time and may have to be combated then with body immunity triggered by these vaccines. A booster is needed to prevent and new mutant from creating havoc and to ensure that the body has enough resistance to any Covid-19 virus.
OFFICIAL INFORMATION IS CURRENTLY NIL
While currently, the US Centers for Disease Control has announced on its website that there is no need to take in any additional doses and the need for booster doses and timing of it is not currently felt, most researchers are aware that the next step is inevitable. According to Dr. Vivek Murthy, US Surgeon General, Americans must be prepared to receive the first Covid-19 vaccine booster shot within a year’s time. “We have to see how long the protection lasts. We know it lasts at least six months, but we’ll have to see,” Murthy said. “It’s very possible, though, and people should be prepared for the fact that we may need a booster within a year.”
How Frequently Should You Take The Booster Doses?
The frequency of these COvid-19 boosters is a question many people want answers to. Currently, as per Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden, we do not need to go for a vaccine booster dose anytime soon. The scientific community wants to explore the possibilities and failures of the current vaccine to be able to decide the next booster dose and its further frequencies, which is an extrapolation based on incomplete data, given the fact that only half of the US population has been vaccinated so far. Studies have revealed that the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna are effective till more than six months of getting vaccinated and the efficacy during and after this time is around an astounding 90%. It is yet to b determined as to how much time the efficacy shall last.
What Are The Consequences of Skipping The Booster Doses?
There is no chance that you can afford to skip the Covid-19 booster dose if it has been prescribed to you. It would amount to leaving your body less immune to the Covid-19 infection and would be at more risk than the person who has taken the prescribed booster. According to Dr. William Moss, Professor and Executive Director if the International Vaccine Access Center at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “A person who skipped a booster is placing themselves at higher risk of getting infected, and getting a disease from the SARS-Coronavirus-2, but I would also expect that they’re going to have some partial immunity and so they may be protected against more severe disease,” Moss said. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes Covid-19.
“It’s just a function of how much their immunity has waned or how different a variant is,” he said. “They’re just at higher risk of infection and disease than someone who got the booster, but they have more immunity than someone who was never vaccinated.”
So while the world needs to get ready to deal with the new normal of having been vaccinated by Covid-19 inoculation, the US is coming to terms with the creation of the Covid-19 booster dose that is unavoidable at any time in future, as per scientists of major pharmaceutical companies.
