Should You Get Another (Second) Booster Shot?
By Amy Rogers, MD, PhD
The US Food and Drug Administration has “authorized” second COVID-19 boosters for people 50 years and older. ( STAT News) For most vaccinated Americans, a second booster would be a fourth dose of COVID vaccine.
Should you get the shot?
A lot of people have asked me this question.
Let’s jump to the punchline: For most people, do what makes you comfortable, because the details are extremely messy, uncertainty/lack of data is high, and we’re talking about population-based probabilities not individual preferences or risk tolerance.
Ground Rules
Having said that, let’s rehash the basics.
All US-approved COVID vaccines provide excellent-to-stunning protection against severe coronavirus disease, hospitalization and death. The miracle of this pandemic is the speed with which these very safe, very effective vaccines were made available to all Americans. The tragedy is the unwillingness of so many Americans to take advantage of this cheap, easy protection. If you have not taken the initial series of 2 doses of Moderna, Pfizer, or Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, you are needlessly putting your health at risk. Whether that risk is closer to driving without a seatbelt…
