COVID-19 Booster Shot

by Zaid Aleem

According to CNN, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, stated Wednesday that a Covid-19 booster vaccine will likely be required within a year after the initial inoculation.

“I believe it likely will be within a year,” Fauci said during an Axios interview on vaccine rollout.

“We know that the vaccine durability of the efficacy lasts at least six months, and likely considerably more, but I think we will almost certainly require a booster sometime within a year or so after getting the primary,” Fauci said.

This corresponds to prior statements made by the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) leadership to CNBC. According to Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, the current versions of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines are extremely successful at preventing Covid and also appear to protect against the variations circulating in the United States. 

“So, hopefully, you know, it would be nice if it’ll turn out that it’ll be a year before anyone might need a booster,” Marks said during a virtual press conference on the Covid-19 vaccines with high school and middle school journalists.

“But we still don’t know,” he added. “It could be more, it could be a little less but … this is just something we’re gonna have to figure out as we go.

Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines currently require two doses given three to four weeks apart, while Johnson & Johnson’s shot requires just one jab. All three vaccines have been shown to be highly effective against Covid, though company executives now say they expect that strong protection to wane over time.

BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told CNBC in a recent interview that researchers are seeing a decline in antibody responses against the virus after eight months.