First of all, remember that getting more people vaccinated is more important than getting people with more vaccines. Unless we get the world vaccinated there is going to be more virus mutating into potentially worse things. Having said that, immunity with all vaccines wanes with time. What is unknown is how long the vaccines are protective. Most people would rather err on the side of getting one earlier than later, but the jury is still out as this article mentions. This is the norm in medical debates, not the exception. Let’s see what the recommendation comes out of the meeting on September 17th.
Here is a key sentence from the Lancet article for those who ae concerned about their antibody levels.
Even if humoral immunity appears to wane, reductions in neutralising antibody titre do not necessarily predict reductions in vaccine efficacy over time, and reductions in vaccine efficacy against mild disease do not necessarily predict reductions in the (typically higher) efficacy against severe disease.
There Are No Credible Data To Support Coronavirus Booster Shots For General Population, Review Says
The New York Times (9/13, Mandavilli) reports, “None of the data on coronavirus vaccines so far provides credible evidence in support of boosters for the general population, according to a review published on Monday” in The Lancet “by an international group of scientists, including some at the Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization.” In the new review, “experts said that whatever advantage boosters provide would not outweigh the benefit of using those doses to protect the billions of people who remain unvaccinated worldwide. Boosters may be useful in some people with weak immune systems, they said, but are not yet needed for the general population.” In addition, the experts warned that prematurely promoting boosters and any reports of side effects caused by booster shots could undermine confidence in the initial vaccine series.
Bloomberg (9/13, Kresge) reports review authors “based their assessment on a wide range of real-world observational studies as well as data from clinical trials.”
STAT (9/13, Joseph), the AP (9/13, Neergaard, Perrone), TIME (9/13, Park), and HealthDay (9/13, Reinberg) also report on the review.
