How many booster shots will we need to stay protected against COVID-19? Health experts are admitting, even they do not know.
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John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus at UC Berkeley School of Public Health and infectious disease expert, told KCBS Radio's "Ask An Expert" the future of the COVID-19 booster is unclear.
"We're going to need to figure out an awful lot in a relatively short period of time to make the best recommendations for the American public. It's going to be really tough in terms of the timeline," he said.
As Americans 50 years and older debate whether or not to get the fourth booster shot, Swartzberg said, as of now, it's impossible to know if there will be a fifth that follows.
"There's just so many questions and not a lot of answers right now. This fourth booster is not necessarily recommended, it was approved for use for people 50 and over and that is a subtle distinction, but I think it's important for people to pay attention to," he emphasized. "It's not recommended like the other vaccines necessarily were."
Swartzberg said that by June, health experts will need to know much more than they do now about booster shots for a variety of reasons.
"The first is that we need to collect the science and that’s going to take a while. Number two is to ramp up production of whatever vaccine we think will be best in the fall will certainly take several months. And then, of course, there’s the approval process. So all of those things together mean that we don’t have a lot of time to make decisions," he explained.
However, if you are up to date with your vaccinations, you are very well protected against hospitalization and death, Swartzberg reassured, defining "up to date" as both initial shots and a booster. "The first three jabs really work very well and they're continuing to work very well," he said.
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