Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s leading infectious disease expert, has said protection would not be infinite.
“I would imagine we will need, at some time, a booster,” he told a U.S. Senate subcommittee recently. “What we’re figuring out right now is what that interval is going to be.”
The main fear now is that a new variant will emerge that is “different enough from the wild-type virus that you are not protected, and yet close enough that your body thinks it’s what it’s already seen and allows you to get infected unchecked,” Poland said.
That’s why public health experts are pushing for as many people to get vaccinated as quickly as possible. The United States just passed the halfway point, with more than 50% of people aged 12 and older fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
President Joe Biden’s goal is for 70% of the nation to have at least one shot by July 4. But the rate of new vaccinations has slowed recently and is now fewer than 600,000 a day.
“The phase we’re in right now is very much a desperate race between vaccine and variant,” Poland said. “If we can get everybody immunized very quickly and don’t allow the Delta variant to gain a stronghold, I think we’ll be home free.”
Poland pointed to an encouraging model.
“There’s a model out showing that if we can achieve 50% vaccine coverage of the entire population, we will prevent about 6 million additional COVID cases,” he said. “This is really important, because if the virus can’t infect, it can’t replicate. If it can’t replicate, it can’t mutate.”
