COVID vaccines and immunity
AARP news release
After half a million deaths and more than a year of lockdowns, quarantines, masking and social distancing, the U.S. is in the midst of a vaccination campaign that aims
to put an end to the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Months of rigorous testing and clinical trials have shown that the vaccines are safe and highly effective at preventing COVID-19 and will likely fend off serious illness or hospitalization even if you do get sick. What is still unclear is just how long that protection will last or whether we will eventually need boosters or follow-up shots to protect against new variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. A piece of the answer came today from Pfizer, which announced that its vaccine, after the second dose, was shown to be highly effective for up to six months — even against one of the well-known virus variants. Real-world data helps fill in some blanks left by a shorter-then-usual clinical study period for the vaccine. Under normal circumstances, phase 3 vaccine studies would have continued for another few years, showing how long immunity lasts, before the vaccine was distributed to the general public, says Clare Rock, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins
School of Medicine.
