November 29, 2021
When Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson announced their Phase 3 clinical trial results, suggesting that their injections were 95 percent, 95 percent and 67 percent effective at preventing infection, respectively, experts cheered. All three vaccines provided what seemed to be nearly impenetrable walls against severe COVID-19 disease. However, as the pandemic has worn on and reports of breakthrough infections made national headlines, the FDA and CDC recommended a shot to boost immunity among all adults six to eight months after their second shot of Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccine, or two months after the first shot of Johnson & Johnson.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recently told the New York Times that immunity is “waning to the point where you’re seeing more and more people getting breakthrough infections, and more and more of those people who are getting breakthrough infections are winding up in the hospital… boosters will be an essential part of the protection.”
Read more at Smithsonian Magazine.