Getting one dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine will protect you for a little while, but scientists say it’s critical patients get the second dose to be protected.
According to the FDA, the Pfizer vaccine is 52% effective after one dose, but it becomes 95% effective after the second dose. Doctors say the first shot primes your immune system by teaching your body to recognize and fight of COVID-19, but they’re not sure how long the first shot’s effects will last.
Having said that, we won’t know how long that immunity lasts until we’ve been in it for a spell. So the vaccine studies are not going to allow us to have a predictable timeframe of ‘Yes, this protects you for X amount of time.’
This is probably going to be well into the end of 2021 into 2022 as we do an analysis to determine what’s the staying power of these vaccines and if they will ultimately require boosters.
“It is not yet determined if people need to have a booster vaccine,” Tryon Medical Partners Dr. Ryan Shelton said. “Studies are ongoing to see how long the immune protection lasts.”
Natural immunity to COVID-19, meaning the protection an individual gains from already having been infected, varies from person to person and evidence shows that it may not last very long. Concerning vaccination, the CDC website clearly states in its COVID-19 information page that:
“Regarding vaccination, we won’t know how long immunity lasts until we have a vaccine and more data on how well it works.”
While knowledge about vaccine-induced immunity is still not thorough, scientists and researchers are hard at work to fill in the gaps about the vaccine’s duration and effectiveness. In response to being asked how long the COVID-19 vaccine would last, Carl Zimmer at the New York Times answered, #WakeUpCLT #COVID19 #Vaccine
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