Key TakeawaysThe administration recently announced its plan to offer COVID-19 booster shots starting in September.Some experts are unsure on whether there’s enough robust evidence to support the recommendation of booster shots.In addition to COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, experts say there should also be greater emphasis on wearing masks, contact tracing, and improving ventilation systems.

Key Takeaways

The administration recently announced its plan to offer COVID-19 booster shots starting in September.Some experts are unsure on whether there’s enough robust evidence to support the recommendation of booster shots.In addition to COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, experts say there should also be greater emphasis on wearing masks, contact tracing, and improving ventilation systems.

U.S. health officials recently announced a plan tooffer COVID-19 vaccine boostersto fully vaccinated adults ages 18 and older starting September 20.

The booster recommendation is based on new data from the CDC which indicates that COVID-19 protection wanes over time.

However, many experts are questioning whether there is enough evidenceproving a need for boostersgiven that the vaccines remain effective at what they were intended to do—preventing serious disease, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19.

White House: Most Americans Will Need Booster Shot 8 Months After Vaccination

Why Might COVID-19 Booster Shots Be Needed?

According to the CDC, fully vaccinated individuals are now less protected against mild and moderate COVID-19 disease due to the Delta variant.But the vaccines are still working well at preventing severe cases.

“Booster doses are needed if we see a substantial reduction in vaccine effectiveness against severe COVID-19 disease, hospitalization, and death,”William Moss, MD, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, tells Verywell. “Data on breakthrough infections resulting in hospitalization and death are available in the United States and we continue to see relatively high vaccine effectiveness against these outcomes, albeit slightly lower than was seen in the clinical trials.”

Booster shots are now being offered to “stay ahead of the virus,” even though fully vaccinated individuals still have a high degree of protection from the worst outcomes of COVID-19,Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, U.S. Surgeon General, said at a White House press briefing.

But health officials say, for some of the groups first eligible for vaccination—older adults and immunocompromised people—that protection may be waning.

Where Can You Get A Booster Shot?

“We already have published data demonstrating poor or limited protective responses to the vaccine in certain groups who traditionally were at risk for poor responses—elderly and [those with] various immune conditions,”Stanley H. Weiss, MD, an infectious and chronic disease epidemiologist and professor at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the Rutgers School of Public Health, tells Verywell.

In fact, earlier this month, the FDA authorized additional vaccine doses for immunocompromised individuals to increase their protection against COVID-19.

Vaccines Prevent Severe Cases, Not Infection

U.S. health officials say that the administration’s plan to offer booster shots this fall is rooted in science. But they’re still looking at the data to confirm whether boosters are really needed as early as September.

“Further studies are in progress, and are needed, to refine our understanding,” Weiss says. “Given the high rate of breakthrough infection with Delta among fully vaccinated persons, the data does support proceeding now with these changes in policies. Alternative boosting strategies remain under study, and it will not be surprising if future innovations lead to additional changes.”

Are Booster Shots Common for Vaccines?

Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, director of the CDC, cited several studies at the White House briefing to demonstrate how vaccine-induced protection against the virus wanes over time, including:

Still, authorities clarified that the vaccines continue to offer the best protection against severe disease.

Many experts point out that most of the data the CDC presented focus on COVID-19 infection, rather than hospitalization or death. The vaccines were always meant to prevent severe outcomes, not provide 100% protection against infection. The vaccines are still effective for their intended purpose.

World Health Organization Asks Wealthy Countries to Delay COVID-19 Booster Shots

However, health officials say this current protection against severe disease, hospitalization, and death could potentially diminish in the coming months.

“The assumption seems to be that decreased effectiveness against infection now will, over time, become decreased effectiveness against severe disease,” Moss says. “There is some data from Israel suggesting this may be the case, but I am not convinced this will be true for everyone. Perhaps just for older adults and others who are at higher risk of severe COVID-19 and have weaker immune systems.”

What This Means For YouIf you are not immunocompromised you cannot receive a booster shot yet. But if you haven’t been vaccinated, you can find an appointment near youhere.

What This Means For You

If you are not immunocompromised you cannot receive a booster shot yet. But if you haven’t been vaccinated, you can find an appointment near youhere.

Solely Relying on Boosters Is Not Enough

Earlier this month,the World Health Organization (WHO) calledfor a moratorium on booster doses until the end of September to allow at least 10% of every country to get vaccinated first.

While high-income countries have given about 100 doses for every 100 people, low-income countries have only administered 1.5 doses for every 150 people due to lack of vaccine supply, according toTedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, director-general of the WHO.

Johnson & Johnson Says Its Booster Shot Raises Antibody Levels 9-Fold

“The major negative consequences are whether administration of booster doses in the United States distracts us from our primary goal of vaccinating the unvaccinated and whether such use of these vaccine doses further exacerbates global inequities in vaccine access,” Moss says. “The latter is a complex issue, but the United States and other higher-income countries need to do more to get vaccine doses to those who need them in low and middle-income countries.”

If vaccine availability does not improve in low- and middle-income countries, the virus will continue to circulate and mutate in unprotected areas, increasing the risk of more contagious variants emerging. This emphasizes the importance of increasing vaccine coverage globally, instead of focusing on certain regions or countries.

Can Vaccinated People Become COVID Long Haulers?

The booster shot can potentially decrease new infections, virus transmission, and slow virus spread, but it’s a serious error to rely on vaccination alone, Weiss says. He adds that greater emphasis should also be placed on some major factors like:

“The increased transmissibility of Delta means greater, not lesser, precautions needed, including greater distancing, especially inside but also outside,” Weiss says. “There remains a potential for further variants of the COVID-19 that may be even more dangerous than Delta, in terms of transmissibility and/or virulence. So far, we have lagged behind rather than stayed ahead. This pandemic remains a challenge. Letting our guards down will lead to new surges.”

The information in this article is current as of the date listed, which means newer information may be available when you read this. For the most recent updates on COVID-19, visit ourcoronavirus news page.

8 Sources

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.Joint Statement from HHS Public Health and Medical Experts on COVID-19 Booster Shots.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Shot.

Puranik A, Lenehan PJ, Silvert E, et al.Comparison of two highly-effective mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 during periods of Alpha and Delta variant prevalence.medRxiv. 2021. doi:10.1101/2021.08.06.21261707

Nanduri S, Pilishvili T, Derado G, et al.Effectiveness of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Vaccines in Preventing SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Nursing Home Residents Before and During Widespread Circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant — National Healthcare Safety Network, March 1–August 1, 2021.MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2021;70:1163-1166. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm7034e3

World Health Organization.COVID-19 Virtual Press conference transcript - 4 August 2021.

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