As the third dose is slowly but surely becoming a reality in the United States, fully vaccinated people wonder what they are about to feel and experience after getting the third shot.
Regardless of the fact that the World Health Organization in multiple occasions announced their recommendation for countries to not allow the third dose, serious number of countries including the United States decided to enroll a booster dose program after the CDC recommendation.
As of now, majority of states across the country started giving third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to immunocompromised people, but starting September, everyone will be eligible to get the vaccine if they want.
According to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although the vaccines remain highly effective protecting people from severe condition, hospitalizations and deaths, several recent studies showed “that the vaccine is starting to wane in its effectiveness against infection.” Even Walensky confirmed that.
“It’s still holding up relatively well against severe disease and hospitalization, but we’ve also seen that we actually need more protection against the delta virus,” she said.
Third dose of the vaccines has never been part of the testing and research companies did before their vaccines were authorized for emergency use. Without further long-term data and expectations from the booster dose, Walensky recently revealed what she hopes will happen with the new COVID-19 booster shots.
- She said on the “Today” show that the CDC is “hopeful” the COVID-19 boosters will “give you a higher level of protection, not just against the delta variant but against a broad range of variants.”
- She said the CDC hopes the boosters will “decrease the level of virus that you have and make it less transmissible.”
- Specifically, the new COVID-19 booster shot will “optimize” and “extend that protection longer.”
The vaccines are not that effective when it comes to the Delta variant as more and more fully vaccinated people are getting infected and they can further transmit the virus. Following this, Associated Press reported on Wednesday that US health officials announced that the booster dose will be available for all Americans starting September.
- The delta variant has only made these matters more complicated, as it has increased transmissibility between fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike.
- “We are starting to see evidence of reduced protection against mild and moderate disease,” officials told The New York Times.
- These COVID-19 booster shots will start being offered on Sept. 20, per The Associated Press.
