Healthy people should get annual COVID-19 boosters to prevent widespread outbreaks, a new study from Yale University suggests. Yearly shots provide just enough frequency to prevent huge outbreaks, while not putting an undo burden on people.
“There seems to be an inflection point” at about a year, said senior author Jeffrey Townsend, a biostatistician and evolutionary biologist at the Yale School of Public Health “Delaying boosting beyond that point rapidly increases the risk of an infection.” While federal officials have suggested annual shots, this study is the first to examine the long-term outcomes from a booster schedule and the first to show that boosters will be especially effective at intervals of no more than a year.
The study, published earlier this month, focused on people with healthy immune systems. Townsend and his colleagues are starting work on a similar study looking at the optimal vaccine interval for people with weakened immunity from cancer treatment and other health problems. The researchers modeled antibody levels against the virus that causes COVID-19 if someone was boosted with a Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine every six months, one year, 18 months, two years or three years over a six-year timespan.
Editor’s Note: ‘Covid’ has become the new “sexier” ‘flu’. The initiative to push mRNA shots and universal vaccines was proposed at a focus group held at The Milken Institute just before the pandemic. The meeting does not discuss the enormous amount of industrial pollution and chemicals poisoning the planet, depleting soil of essential minerals and vitamins. — mmd