A scientific journal written by a group of experts including a few members of the FDA has noted that the average person does not require a COVID-19 booster shot just yet.
The international group of scientists, including two top U.S. regulators, reviewed studies of the vaccines’ performance and concluded the shots are working well despite the extra-contagious delta variant, especially against severe disease. The opinion piece, published in The Lancet concluded, “Even in populations with fairly high vaccination rates, the unvaccinated are still the major drivers of transmission.”
Source: NPR (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
The authors include two leading vaccine reviewers at the Food and Drug Administration, Drs. Phil Krause and Marion Gruber, who recently announced they will be stepping down this fall. Among the other 16 authors are leading vaccine researchers in the U.S., Britain, France, South Africa and India, plus scientists with the World Health Organization, which already has urged a moratorium on boosters until poor countries are better vaccinated.
Because the body builds layers of immunity, gradual drops in antibody levels don’t necessarily mean overall effectiveness is dropping “and reductions in vaccine efficacy against mild disease do not necessarily predict reductions in the (typically higher) efficacy against severe disease,” they wrote.
In the US, an extra dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine is already being given to people with severely weakened immune systems, and President Joe Biden has claimed that he will consider the same for average persons, by “following science”.
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