Booster jabs

While many people have bragged about being “fully vaccinated” after taking two COVID-19 jabs, a Swedish professor says that as many as five shots may be needed to combat falling immunity.

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“After receiving the second dose, the immune response slowly subsides. Within a year, many may have lost their protection. We do not know yet, but if you get a third dose, it will be activated again,” he said. “Biology says that a fading immune response is not unlikely. Then it’s time for a third, fourth, maybe fifth dose”.

summit.news/2021/08/06/swedish-professor-says-5-shots-of-covid-vaccine-may-be-necessary/

Researchers say they are seeing some waning of protection against Covid infections in double-jabbed people.

The real-world study includes data on positive Covid PCR test results between May and July 2021 among more than a million people who had received two doses of Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine.

Protection after two shots of Pfizer decreased from 88% at one month to 74% at five to six months.For AstraZeneca, the fall was from 77% to 67% at four to five months.

www.bbc.com/news/health-58322882

However, perhaps the most pressing question of all is how long a person's newly restored immunity from their booster shot will last – and here at least, there is a strong suspicion of what is to come.

"I don't think we know that," says Humar. "But I think that that's a very real possibility. That's what it's starting to look like, especially as we see the waning antibodies and the decreased effectiveness against variants.

"Altmann could also see booster programmes eventually evolving into annual ones, however he's unsure whether the science would back it up. "I think that would be a managerial logistics decision, not an immunological decision," he says, explaining that it seems unlikely population immunity – with all the antibodies and T cells that involves – would be low enough to justify it.

www.bbc.com/future/article/20210916-covid-19-how-effective-is-a-third-vaccine-dose