Will a Fourth Covid Vaccine Be Necessary?
3,334 total views, 1 views today
It’s now been a few months since the first COVID-19 vaccine booster shot became available, and many are wondering if a fourth dose, or second booster, will be necessary. As the CDC relaxes its mask guidelines and most people go back to life as usual, it’s still important to take precautions against the virus. What are the experts saying about the possibility of a fourth vaccine? Read on below for everything you need to know.
Already available for the immunocompromised
A fourth dose of the vaccine has already been approved for those who are immunocompromised, but current data has shown that a single booster shot is enough protection against COVID-19 for most people.
While this protection may hold true for current strains of the virus, it’s unknown how the virus will mutate and evolve from this point, and it’s very possible that a more dangerous variant could evolve from Omicron or Delta. This possibility is why there’s never been any complete certainty about whether or not new vaccines will be necessary.
What Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla says
In an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla acknowledged that the current vaccine doesn’t last very long, and said that the company is hoping to develop “not only a vaccine that will prevent against all variants, including Omicron, but something that can protect for at least a year.”
Bourla’s official statement was that a second booster shot will be necessary and Pfizer’s scientists are hard at work in researching it. He said that the research indicates that Omicron will not be the last COVID-19 variant and new forms of the virus will continue to emerge.
What public health expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID, has said that the government is currently “carefully monitoring” the potential future requirement for a fourth dose of the mRNA vaccine or a third dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
In the past, Dr. Fauci has said that if a fourth dose of the vaccine becomes available for a broader group of people, it still will most likely be based on the age and health of those involved and not necessarily recommended across the board.
It could be a yearly shot
According to Bourla, it’s possible that in the future, COVID-19 vaccination doses might need to be a yearly occurrence like the flu shot. This possibility has been a concern on some level since the beginning of the pandemic, but this is the first we’re hearing official news of it from the experts. Dr. Fauci has made mention of this possibility in recent weeks as well. If Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson are unable to develop a vaccine that offers long-lasting protection, this approach might be another alternative.
Development of a new vaccine
As of now, the federal government is testing possible vaccines comprising multiple strains of the virus to see which formula has the potential for the broadest coverage. Vaccines made of multiple COVID-19 variants are helpful because they’ll provide better protection against a new variant whether it evolves from Omicron, Delta, the original virus, or any other subvariant.