Fully vaccinated Americans may not need to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday in an interview on CBS’ “This Morning.”
Fauci, who is head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said that there was “some misunderstanding” about whether fully vaccinated people would need a booster shot six months after getting injected.
“We are planning for the eventuality that we might need to boost people, we don’t know whether we will have to do it and when we will have to do it,” Fauci said.
“There’s estimates well it may be here, it may be a little bit longer. The fact is we don’t know, but it would really be foolish not to plan for the possibility that we might have to boost people, but there’s no set rule now that says in six months or in a year we’re going to get, we’re going to require a boost,” he added.
However, when asked two days earlier how soon fully vaccinated people would need a COVID-19 booster shot, Fauci told Axios Co-founder Mike Allen that Americans would need it.
“Well, we don’t know exactly when that will be Mike, but I believe it likely would be within a year,” said Fauci. “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 [injection].”
Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive officer, also said in an interview that the data from Pfizer’s clinical trials supports “the notion that likely there will be a need for a booster somewhere between 8 and 12 months.”
Scientists still do not know how long the COVID-19 vaccines will confer immunity but data suggests that the vaccines should provide up to six months of immunity. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
All three COVID-19 vaccines granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration have yet to be approved by the drug regulator as the vaccine manufacturers continue to gather safety and efficacy data from their Phase 3 trials.
BY MEILING LEE
