Vaccine experts say the benefits of the COVID-19 booster shots expected to be rolled out in the coming weeks remain to be seen.
The Biden administration hopes that the boosters, formulated to target the prevalent subvariants of the omicron variant, willprovide better protection against infection and severe disease, but it’s unclear how large an additional effect it will have given that much of the population has already been vaccinated, been exposed to the omicron variant, or both. Some experts argue that shots should’ve already been in arms and that, given that the virus could evolve again, authorities should focus on accelerating updated shots for future variants much more quickly.
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“Whether or not the new formulation … the addition of the second spike protein to the formulation, is going to dramatically improve the protection over the original formulation, that really remains to be seen,” said Lisa Morici, professor of microbiology and immunology at Tulane University School of Medicine. “It also really depends on what the virus continues to do in the population. It may mutate again, omicron BA.4 and BA.5 may fizzle out, and something else may emerge.”
Both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech submitted their booster candidates for FDA authorization earlier this week, preparing to ship doses beginning in September if approved. Half of the updated vaccine recipe targets the original strain of the virus from 2020, and the other half targets omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, which now account for most COVID-19 cases in the United States.
Jeremy Kamil, a virologist at LSU Health Shreveport, said the months it will have taken to get an updated booster since identifying the omicron variant last November is “unacceptable,” resulting in many people getting infected with omicron and needlessly getting sick as previous vaccines proved less effective against the variant.
“March 2020 to December, we had the first mRNA vaccines out; that’s nine months. Now, it’s going to have been 10 months between identifying omicron and simply updating a vaccine recipe,” Kamil said. “That’s a total failure to the American public.”
Whether or not the booster cuts down on transmission rates and case numbers this fall could also be contingent on if enough people get the shot.
“We need to communicate to people that this bivalent vaccine is different. It’s better than the previous boosters. And we need to get the buy-in, to get a large number of people to take those boosters,” said Andy Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “More vaccinations could mean less people that are spreading the virus, and that may mean less total number of cases.”
Experts underscored that the boosters, like the previous vaccines, will not eliminate breakthrough infections (meaning someone who still gets infected despite vaccination), but they will provide protection from severe illness.
“The point is that you’re not being hospitalized, and you’re not dying of the disease,” said Morici. “Every year, we get the flu vaccine, we recommend the flu vaccine — again, to prevent you from severe disease, hospitalization, and death. You might get the flu still, but your chances of ending up in the hospital are much lower. That’s the same thing now that we’re seeing with COVID.”
The Biden administration has been eager to roll out boosters in anticipation of a spike in COVID-19 cases as people head indoors during the fall and winter and has already secured agreements with Pfizer and BioNTech to purchase 171 million doses of their bivalent boosters.
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The government plans to offer the boosters to those who have already received the initial two-shot series, prioritizing vaccinations for those with the highest risk of developing severe COVID-19 infections, including long-term care residents and people ages 65 and older. The Pfizer-BioNTech booster is expected to be authorized for people 12 and up, while Moderna’s is for those 18 and older.
