The U.S. has been fighting the COVID pandemic for nearly two years now. While we all hoped that the virus would be eradicated by now, a full year since the introduction of highly effective vaccines, slowing vaccination rates and a fast-spreading variant kept the pandemic in full swing over the summer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 58.5 percent of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, leaving more than 60 million people unvaccinated despite being eligible. But while health officials caution that the unvaccinated are most at risk right now, some experts now say that vaccinated people should also be on high alert.

On Nov. 12, White House COVID adviser Anthony Fauci, MD, went on The New York Times‘ podcast The Daily to discuss the current state of the coronavirus in the U.S. According to Fauci, officials are now starting to see some waning immunity against both infection and hospitalization several months after initial vaccination. The infectious disease expert pointed toward incoming data from Israel, which he noted tends to be about a month to a month and a half ahead of us in terms of the outbreak.

“They are seeing a waning of immunity not only against infection but against hospitalization and to some extent death, which is starting to now involve all age groups. It isn’t just the elderly,” Fauci said. “It’s waning to the point that you’re seeing more and more people getting breakthrough infections, and more and more of those people who are getting breakthrough infections are winding up in the hospital.”

As a result of these findings, Fauci warned that vaccinated people should get their booster shot, as it might actually be more important than health officials first realized. “If one looks back at this, one can say, do you know, it isn’t as if a booster is a bonus, but a booster might actually be an essential part of the primary regimen that people should have,” he said on The Daily.

Fauci went on to say, “I think … that the boosting is gonna be an absolutely essential component of our response, not a bonus, not a luxury, but an absolute essential part of the program.”

Neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor the CDC have extended booster eligibility yet to more of the general public. While all Johnson&Johnson recipients are authorized to get an additional shot, only high-risk Moderna and Pfizer recipients are eligible, per the agencies’ guidelines.

But some states, like California and Colorado, have recently side-stepped the two agencies by expanding booster eligibility to all adults in their states already. “Allow patients to self-determine their risk of exposure,” Tomás J. Aragón, MD, the director and state public health officer for California’s Department of Public Health wrote in a Nov. 9 letter to local health providers. “Do not turn a patient away who is requesting a booster.”

During the Nov. 12 podcast, Fauci also touted the effectiveness and safety of the boosters. “We’ve shown that boosters are safe and effective in dramatically increasing the response not only immunologically, but also when you look at the clinical data from Israel, it’s very clear that it reverses some of the waning effect that you see in people who have been vaccinated six months or more,” he said.

The need for boosters doesn’t mean that the vaccines don’t work, however. On the contrary, Fauci stressed that he does not think that “we’ve given the full rein to prove what it is that you need to make them work,” like additional doses. According to the virus expert, researchers did not “have to time” to do extensive studies to determine whether two doses would be better than three, as there was a pressing need to get vaccines out to people sooner rather than later, which was “life-saving for millions of people,” he noted.

Getting the unvaccinated vaccinated and “aggressively” boosting the people who have been vaccinated is likely to put the U.S. in a safer spot this winter than the country saw with previous surges, both over the past few months and during the brutal winter of 2020, Fauci said. And as more time passes, we’ll be able to see how long the boosters keep recipients protected from COVID—but Fauci is optimistic.

“I think when all is said and done, as we get through boosting the overwhelming majority of the people who’ve been primarily vaccinated, we’re gonna say, just like other vaccines that require multiple doses, like hepatitis B, like some of the childhood vaccinations, that it is likely” a booster is needed, he explained. “I’m making my own personal projection as an immunologist and infectious disease person. We don’t have the proof yet—the proof of the pudding will be after you get people vaccinated and boosted, and we have a greater durability of protection that doesn’t wane as easily.”

Meanwhile the NZ media continues to circulate horseshit like the following

An immunologist says those who qualify should get a Covid-19 booster shot because it seems that the third dose of Pfizer really lifts people’s level of immunity.

Graham Le Gros is an immunlogist and director of the research at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research. Photo: Supplied

The government yesterday announced that booster shots of the Pfizer vaccine would be available in a fortnight from 29 November for people who got their second dose more than six months ago.

Ultimately the booster shots will be available to everyone, though those initially seeking a third shot will be the over-65s, border workers and medical staff – the first cohort to be vaccinated earlier this year.

Immunologist Graham Le Gros, who is director at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, said booster shots had great potential to change the game for the better.

“It seems that with this Pfizer vaccine, the third dose really lifts the level of immunity way beyond and it really gives the person who receives it a very strong immune response, very protective and it really resists against that waning immunity we’ve seen from overseas.”

He said some people, such as those on immune suppressive drugs or those who are older, may not have had such a good immune response to two shots of the vaccine and the third dose would bring their immune response up to a good level so they stay protected.

Le Gros said there was some speculation about how long the booster shot would last, but he was hopeful that it would give a couple of years of “durable immunity” because of the way that the immune system works.

“You change the cells of the immune system when you give that booster shot and actually these memory cells which long live, they go around different parts of your body and they stay there just waiting, waiting for the virus to come and actually that’s the strength to the long-term immunity and it seems as though the booster shot will give those.”

It was known from other vaccines that once those cells have been produced, they last for a long time, he said.

The Pfizer booster shot seemed to cover the existing variants of Covid-19 and it was also possible to mix the Pfizer booster shot with another type of vaccine, such as AstraZeneca, he said.

“So we’re in a very good place for the booster shot and remember, think of winter next year, next year we’re going to go into a situation where influenza could be around, Covid-19 will certainly be around as we go back indoors, so having a booster shot from now until autumn next year probably very good for people.”

He said a clinical trial was underway in the UK comparing the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines which would inform future decisions on what was a good combination of vaccines for the future.

“So remember this Covid-19 is going to be around for years to come, so we’re going to have to work out which strategies to give booster shots and long durable immunity.

“I’m afraid it’s bad news for everyone and they all go depressed but the virus is here and we’ve got to work with it and get rid of it.”

Work was underway to make a New Zealand made booster shot, Le Gros said.

“Right now for New Zealand if you really want to increase your immunity, if you’ve actually been a bit immune-suppressed or you’re over 65 where you’ve got a kind of hard old immune system, a booster shot is a very good thing to do to make sure that you’re protected.”

He said those who had their two shots over six months ago needed to ensure they achieved strong immunity by getting a booster shot.