BOOSTER SHOTS–WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW?

COVID Booster Update
January 1, 2022
Dr. Marc Weisman

The so-called “COVID booster” is no longer a debated topic. With the advent of Omicron, the booster provides at least some measure of added protection that is not present in the J&J, or the mRNA vaccine’s original 2-shot series.

The problem is that the variants are less sensitive to the vaccines because these variants have new proteins in addition to some older ones in their spike (hence, mutants), and we have no antibodies against these new proteins. We do have antibodies from the vaccine against the remaining original proteins and another booster will increase these antibodies providing us at least some level of protection. Eventually, with subsequent variants, all the spike proteins will probably be replaced with new ones rendering our original vaccines ineffective—Omicron is almost there, and therefore the vaccine efficacy is waning. Hence the need for new boosters with mRNA coding for the newer variant proteins resulting in our ability to create better antibodies against them. Israel is toying with a 4th shot for the immunocompromised and I expect that to be recommended here over the winter or spring 2022 but it will not likely offer much more protection. I am hopeful for a late spring 2022 variant-booster and with it, the defeat or near-defeat of COVID (annual boosters may be needed) because some 6 billion souls will have seen COVID and or been vaccinated and we live in a global community where we are affected by each other—COVID needs to be defeated everywhere to be defeated anywhere.