Two shots are good, but three may be even better for preventing COVID-19 infections.
It's difficult to say what the long-term benefit of coronaviruses booster shots will be, because no one has had a boost in their system for long. The immune system gets a boost when people are first injected.
Early-stage booster shot studies from around the world suggest that the protection people get when they have an additional shot months after their first vaccine course is more potent, and that at least temporarily, bolstering protection against COVID-19.
The data from Pfizer's booster shot trial shows that 10,000 people were fully vaccineed with two shots of the company's COVID-19 vaccine. The trial participants were split into two groups, with about 5,000 getting boosted and the other 5,000 getting a fake jab.
The difference between the boosted and unboosted people in the trial was quickly apparent. The chart below shows that booster shot recipients benefit from increased protection against coronaviruses just a few days after their third dose.
Booster shots kick in after a few days, providing more robust protection against COVID-19, at least for a few months.
The CDC ACIP will take place on November 19, 2021.
"If you look at the blue, it's what happens after you get the third dose booster shot," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Monday during a White House briefing.
Fauci pointed out that the people who had a boost in Pfizer's trial had a lower incidence of COVID-19 than the people who only had two shots.
Fauci said that the booster shot had an effect.
The protection against COVID-19 is going to get better in about a week or two.
The booster shot is 98% vaccine efficacy according to Pfizer. In the Pfizer trial, almost all of the people who got sick with COVID-19 werevaccinated, but not boosted. The scientists began to tally the cases seven days after the boosts were given out.
You don't have to take Pfizer's word for it.
A landmark National Institutes of Health trial mixed and matched people who'd gotten Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines into different booster groups and found that no matter which combination of initial vaccine and booster people had, their antibody levels soared.
A study done in the UK found that the effectiveness of the vaccine in people over the age of 50 was improved by more than 90 percent. The rate of serious illness goes down more than 19-fold among booster recipients, according to data from Israel.
A trend is becoming clear. Booster shots make it less likely that people will get sick with COVID-19, at least for a while.
It's important to remember that the benefits of a booster shot will likely diminish over time, according to vaccine experts. Before people gather for the holidays, boost may be a good idea, but they won't last forever.
The executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center told Insider that the immune system is a normal part of ours. If they don't come down, our blood would fill with antibodies.
Even if people get a little sick, they are generally well-protected against the worst that COVID-19 can do, because vaccination promotes a more enduring memory immune response that lasts for many months longer than the antibodies do.
