The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published data showing that a COVID-19 booster dose waned in effectiveness preventing emergency room visits after four months, but it was still more effective limiting urgent care trips than a two-dose vaccine series.
Dr. George Rutherford, Director of the Prevention and Public Health Group at UCSF, told KCBS Radio in an interview on Friday to not lose faith in the booster shots, as they are still successful.
"The CDC data, which are taken from emergency room and urgent care visits — so it's not really looking at any infection, it's the more symptomatic infections — show what I would characterize as a modest decline over time in vaccine effectiveness," he said of the study, which was published on Friday.
Rutherford said the boosters have done "pretty well" compared to the two-shot vaccines that became widely available last year.
"There's not that real steep decline (in effectiveness) that you see after two doses," he explained.
The main priority of the coronavirus vaccines and boosters are to prevent serious death and disease, which has become a topic of conflict as those hesitant to receive the vaccine point out that the shots do not entirely prevent infection.
"For the earlier variants, this vaccine was an absolute home run and knocked the ball out of the park," Rutherford said. "But for the later, for the delta and the omicron, especially, it seems to perform slightly less well, but it still performs in the 'very good' category."
Rutherford said the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines has saved thousands of lives and the world is better prepared if another virus poses a similar threat as the coronavirus.
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