We’ve seen second COVID-19 boosters recommended for older adults and people with underlying health conditions — but what about the general population? Will another booster shot be recommended for everyone in the fall to fend off a winter surge? Or will the next booster campaign be geared to those most at risk for developing severe disease?
These are the key questions vaccine experts are considering right now. The Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee recently met to discuss the next round of boosters. The panel agreed that while there is a strong need to craft a plan ahead of fall and winter, there isn’t enough data to know who would benefit from another booster. The committee also didn’t decide whether a next booster would be an already-approved shot or one of the updated vaccines currently being tested. The advisory group will meet again on June 28.
Infectious disease experts generally agree that developing a booster strategy is a complicated task. The utility of boosters varies greatly, depending on people’s age and risk factors, so we may very well see the next round of boosters limited to at-risk individuals. Vaccine scientists also have to consider that a booster strategy for everybody might not make sense today, but we could very well find ourselves in a totally different situation come September.
“The solution isn’t just throwing vaccines at everybody. It’s actually having a meaningful understanding of what are the goals of the vaccine program and what can we expect the vaccines to do,” Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease physician and scientist at the University of Toronto, told HuffPost.
Experts expect COVID boosters will be recommended for some, but not all
Bogoch said in order to determine if, when and how boosters will be needed, it’s crucial to first look at the goals.
The current shots have waning protection against infection and onward transmission, Bogoch explained, but they continue to be safe and very effective at preventing severe outcomes like hospitalizations and death.
Health officials will need to decide if they want boosters to prevent hospitalization and death (which the initial shots still do in most people) or to prevent symptomatic COVID (a harder feat), according to Arjun Venkatesh, a Yale Medicine emergency medicine doctor and associate professor at Yale School of Medicine.
The effectiveness of vaccines varies between people. Immunocompromised individuals and older people’s antibody levels wane earlier, which makes these people strong candidates for booster doses, Venkatesh said.
“The reason we want to boost older adults first is because in many ways, the vaccine — their first two doses — didn’t work as well as it worked in younger people,” Venkatesh said. That second booster has helped at-risk groups be “as vaccinated” as healthier individuals who got only two doses.
It’s reasonable to expect that the next round of boosters will be recommended for vulnerable individuals before the next wave of the pandemic this fall, Bogoch said.
Venkatesh also believes we will see booster campaigns targeting at-risk populations more than blanket booster recommendations. It’s not uncommon for booster campaigns to roll out for select groups — we already do this for shingles, pneumonia and flu shots.
Vaccine experts are still examining the need and timing for second COVID boosters for the general population. (Photo: juanma hache via Getty Images)
When will the general population get another booster?
Trials have shown that a fourth dose of the currently available vaccines doesn’t provide much more protection against mild or asymptomatic infections than a third dose in healthy people under 50, according to Supriya Narasimhan, the division…
Read More: When Will It Be Time For Another COVID Booster? Here’s What Experts Think.