COVID-19 booster shots: what you need to know

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) – Sources confirm to ABC News that the Food and Drug Administration will authorize a COVID-19 booster for people with weakened immune systems.

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To learn more about booster shots, we interviewed Dr. Prathit Kulkarni, Assistant Professor of Infectious Disease Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

What is the callback?

“The booster would essentially be an additional dose of COVID vaccine beyond what has been currently recommended for the general public,” Kulkarni said.

Will everyone need a reminder?

“As to whether we can expect that, say, every year or every six months, or something like that, I think that’s theoretically possible,” Kulkarni said. “I think it’s going to depend on several things: how long will we be protected against, in particular, the severe forms of the disease where you end up hospitalized or something worse from COVID? Third, sort of an unknown situation, obviously we now have the new delta variant, but the question will arise whether other variants are potentially less covered by the current vaccine? “

Do I have to wait to get the vaccine until we know more about possible recalls?

“If you wait a year, then it’s potentially a year where you can go and potentially catch COVID. Although we are talking about the possibility of boosters. Yet the current data that we have right now, in mid-August 2021, are that vaccines are exceptionally protective, even against the delta variant. Yet vaccines are exceptionally protective and are the best way to bring the pandemic down and try to bring down the current tide. “

What happens next?

“It is certainly possible that we will need boosters at certain periodic times in the future. But, it is too early to say definitively,” he said.

For updates on this report, follow ABC13 reporter Pooja Lodhia on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram.