Do you Really Need another shot of COVID Vaccine booster later this year?

Volunteers from within a 50-mile radius of Wrexham are needed to take part in a new clinical trial to receive a third ‘booster’ COVID-19 vaccine.

Public Health Wales is recruiting over 30s who have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to take part in this research study, including those immunised early in the vaccination programme.

For example, adults aged 75 and over or health and care workers.

The COV-Boost study, which is being run at Wrexham MaelorHospital, is taking place at 18 sites in the UK and will involve 2,886 volunteers.

This is what Experts think:

• The CEOs of some pharmaceutical companies say COVID-19 vaccination booster shots may be needed as early as this fall to bolster immunity against the disease.
• Experts say it’s too early to tell if and when those booster shots will be needed.
• Booster shots are not uncommon. They’re used for the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccine, among others.

The trial is looking at seven different COVID-19 vaccines as potential boosters, given at least 10 to 12 weeks after a second dose as part of the ongoing vaccination programme.

Volunteers could receive a different brand to the one they were originally vaccinated with.

It is the first in the world to provide vital data on the impact of a third dose on patients’ immune responses.

It will give scientists from around the world and the experts behind the UK’s COVID-19 vaccination programme a better idea of how effective a booster of each vaccine is in protecting people from the virus.

The study is looking to include people from a wide variety of backgrounds and those from ethnic minorities are encouraged to apply.

As variants of the novel coronavirus continue to spread and mutate, researchers are monitoring how the vaccines perform and whether booster shots will be needed to maintain meaningful immunity.

Right now, experts say it’s too early to speculate whether we’ll need booster shots like some routine vaccines.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, says it’s premature to predict whether COVID-19 boosters will be needed and, if so, at what intervals.

“To me, the threshold for boosters would be to see fully vaccinated individuals getting breakthrough infection severe enough to land them in the hospital,” Adalja told Healthline. “We have not crossed that threshold.”

However, the CEO of the companies whose COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed in the United States say their shots may need to be given annually, like a flu shot. They told Axios those boosters could come as early as September.

Data shows Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, which both use the same mRNA technology to create immunity against the novel coronavirus, remain effective after 6 months. Still, Pfizer officials in February said they are testing a booster shot up to a year after a person receives their first two doses.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine — which hasn’t received approval to be used in the United States — has been tested with a booster or a second shot after 12 weeks. Still, it doesn’t appear to offer any more meaningful protection than doses given closer together.

“The common childhood vaccines such as measles, mumps, and rubella that most of us have had typically result in lifelong immunity,” Russell said, “but they use live replicating viruses, which may persist much longer than mRNA vaccines and are therefore able to drive a better, more lasting immune response.”

So i hope you understood that Do you Actually Need another shot of COVID Vaccine booster later this year?