Are COVID-19 vaccine boosters the way forward?

One study, for example, showed that 95% of people who received both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine had a weaker immune response to the delta variant than to previous strains.People who received just one dose of either vaccine had a very weak immune response, which suggests that a single dose of one of these vaccines does not offer adequate protection. This works by producing a new immune response to the parts of the virus which have changed from the original vaccine whilst also improving the existing immune response against the unchanged parts of the virus, which also should help protect against other variants,” they added. However, it remains unclear for how long COVID-19 vaccines — in the current dosages — continue to offer protection.Nevertheless, booster doses might benefit older individuals or those with a weak immune system, as their bodies may not have generated a strong enough immune response after the initial vaccines.“Based on current data, for people who respond well to the vaccine, it looks like immunity remains strong for over 12 months and works even against the new variants,” Dr. Richard Stanton, a reader in the Division of Infection and Immunity at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, told MNT.“My personal opinion is, therefore, that we don’t need to be too worried about boosting them yet,” he said.However, he cautioned:“Where we do need to be careful is in people who don’t respond well to the vaccine. Another study — which also appears online via a preprint service — found that after receiving the one recommended dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, people showed immunity against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants, including the delta variant.The researchers noted, however, that the immune response to the delta variant appeared to be weaker than that to previous variants of SARS-CoV-2. On July 8, 2021, Pfizer and BioNTech released a statement saying that giving booster doses of their vaccine 6 months after the second dose produces an immune response to several variants of the virus that is 5–10 times more potent than that following the second dose.