The majority of people in Massachusetts last week were able to begin the daunting task of trying to get an appointment to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, but the first or second dose of the vaccine may not be their last.
Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health, said he doesn’t think SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, will ever be completely eradicated, and people therefore may need booster shots over time as variants inevitably emerge.
“We know that coronaviruses mutate, so you have a mutating virus that’s generating variants,” Ellerin said. “Over time, we’re going to have to battle the changing faces of the virus. And immunity to most of the common coronaviruses is relatively short-lived. It doesn’t look like we’ll need a booster shot at six months, but one year? It’s possible. Eighteen months? It’s possible.”
In any case, periodic boosters are “very likely,” he said, because the virus is highly contagious, you can transmit it even if you don’t have symptoms, and it mutates into variants.
Human behavior — not wearing masks, not washing your hands often enough and not social distancing — also increases the odds that a booster shot will be necessary, as does people who refuse to get vaccinated and the fact that much of the world is not going to get vaccinated for a long time, Ellerin said.
“I still believe the worst is behind us,” he said. “The majority of Massachusetts will be vaccinated by fall or winter. So that’s when we’ll see the true battle of the variants versus the vaccine.”
Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said it’s too soon to tell whether people will need booster shots.
“We really don’t know yet,” he said. “Boosters might be needed because immunity to COVID might decline or because of variants. But I don’t think there’s any substitute to watching and waiting.”
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla earlier this month said people will “likely” need a third dose within one year of getting fully vaccinated. Bourla even went as far as to say that people may need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus annually, just as they do against the flu.
“A likely scenario is that there will be likely a need for a third dose, somewhere between six and 12 months, and then from there, there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed. And again, the variants will play a key role,” he told CNBC’s Bertha Coombs during an event with CVS Health.
Bourla’s remarks came after Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky in February also told CNBC that people may need to get vaccinated against COVID-19 annually.
The Link LonkApril 25, 2021 at 05:36AM
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Coronavirus vaccine booster shots likely necessary a year out, experts say - Boston Herald
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