Booster shots for coronavirus ‘will become a reality’, doctor says

Talks over booster injections for COVID-19 vaccines have gained traction in recent weeks with an increase in the number of cases and the emergence of new variants.

“Right now, as we continue to develop more variants internationally and they come to us, it looks like boosters are going to become a reality,” Dr Manish Garg, emergency physician and co-founder of the World Academic Council of Emergency. Medicine, said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above).

The three vaccines available in the United States from Pfizer (PFE), Moderna (MRNA) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) have been shown to be effective against the most dominant COVID strain – the Delta variant. However, their effectiveness rates are lowered against the variant and the overall effectiveness will naturally decrease over time.

As a result, Pfizer and Moderna said their companies were developing booster shots that would fill gaps in current vaccines.

“I would say boosters are going to be needed for those who are most vulnerable, so those who are either immunocompromised or immunosuppressed, and I think that’s where we’re going to see that end up going,” Garg said. “For now, we know that if you’ve been vaccinated with any of the vaccines currently available in the United States – so Pfizer, Moderna, J&J – you’re going to be protected from the worst possible outcome, which is intubation, ICU admit, death, and I think that’s the key point here.

“Children can end up being the ones to spread it”

In the United States, 58.1% of people 12 years of age and older are fully vaccinated, while 67.5% have received a dose.

“This virus always does a number on infected people… so we see that this has become an unvaccinated pandemic,” Garg noted. “And there are a large number of people who are still not vaccinated. “

As vaccination rates have slowed in the past two months, authorities are looking for ways to encourage unvaccinated people to reconsider their position. This includes offering payments and scholarships in certain states.

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President Biden on Thursday ordered the Treasury Department to start paying $ 100 to state governments to hand it over to Americans who choose to finally get vaccinated.

For those still unsure of getting the vaccine, Garg suggested considering it as a way to protect loved ones who are more vulnerable, such as children under 12 and those who are immunocompromised or immunocompromised.

“We know that children under the age of 12 seem, when infected, not to have the worst outcomes,” Garg said. “But right now, over 20% of infections that occur in unvaccinated people are children. Unfortunately, children can end up becoming the people who pass it on to those who are most vulnerable in our communities. “

He also noted that the virus is still new, which means the long-term effects are still unknown.

“We know you can get multi-inflammatory syndrome in children, and we certainly don’t know the long-term effects if children have a bad outcome,” Garg said. “I think it all depends on the personal risk of a person or a family. And if you have kids who are definitely at risk, or if you have people in your household who are there, it only makes sense for people to end up trying to use a strategy that would protect us all. “

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome first appeared as a side effect of COVID-19 in children in April 2020 and there had been 4,196 cases in children as of June 28, 2021. The CDC defines it as “a condition in which different parts of the body can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs.

Garg’s hope is that more data will be available by the fall, when the children return to school, on whether the vaccines are safe to use for those under 12, which he says would create “a much better experience”.

In the meantime, back to basics: wear a mask if necessary, especially for unvaccinated people, and avoid high transmission areas if possible.

“It’s important to know that when you follow the science, the science is clear that masks work, vaccines work, and we need to evolve our public health recommendations as this virus evolves,” Garg said.

Adriana Belmonte is a journalist and health policy and policy editor for Yahoo Finance. You can follow her on Twitter @adrianambells and reach her at [email protected].

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