Fauci says you'll eventually need to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
COVID-19 vaccine booster shots are inevitable, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on the "Today" show Thursday.
"No vaccine, at least not within this category, is going to have an indefinite amount of protection," he said.
"Inevitably, there will be a time when we'll have to give boosts" to the general population, said Fauci.
Those who are vaccinated against COVID-19 will "inevitably" need booster shots, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert.
"No vaccine, at least not within this category, is going to have an indefinite amount of protection," Fauci said during an interview on NBC News' "Today" show Thursday.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, added, "Inevitably, there will be a time when we'll have to give boosts" to the general population.
"What we're doing, literally, on a weekly and monthly basis is following cohorts of patients to determine if, when, and whom should get it," Fauci said. "But right now at this moment, other than the immunocompromised ... we're not going to be giving boosters to people, but we will be following them very carefully and if they do need it, we'll be ready to give it to them."
The FDA is preparing to authorize booster shots for the immunocompromised
The Food and Drug Administration is reportedly expected to announce soon that it will authorize COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for immunocompromised Americans.
The extra jabs could be authorized as early as Thursday, sources told NBC on Wednesday.
People who are immunocompromised - either due to immunosuppressive medications, such as chemotherapy, or autoimmune or kidney diseases - are known to have a less robust immune response to the COVID-19 vaccines.
Even after getting vaccinated, immunocompromised people have a much higher risk of being hospitalized due to COVID-19 compared to the general vaccinated population, according to a preprint study that hasn't yet been peer reviewed.
Another study found Pfizer's vaccine lowered the risk of symptomatic COVID-19 by 75% among immunocompromised people - compared to 94% among all vaccine recipients.
"I think the important thing to point out the difference between the immunocompromised - who really never really got a good response to begin with," said Fauci, who is President Joe Biden's chief medical advisor.
He continued, "So for them, it's more of getting them up to what they hopefully had gotten the first time around, but we know because of their immunocompromised, they don't."
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
Read the original article on Business Insider
