Some seek additional vaccines, while scientists debateناقش

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Many scientists say that people who have been vaccinated probably won’t need a booster injection any time soon. Some get them anyway.

They go to local drugstores, other states, or even other countries – anywhere there is no record of their vaccination – to get extra doses because of concern about the delta variant or because they worry that their protection may wear off. Thursday’s news that Israel will give it to some senior citizens seems to spur that trend.

“You can’t get enough, that’s how I feel,” said Ida Thompson, a retired geology professor who got an injection from Pfizer a few weeks ago in the US, months after receiving two doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine in Britain. “bring it.”

Dr. Thompson, who has six grandchildren, said her decision to get a booster shot happened at the moment. While taking a coronavirus test at a pharmacy in Florida, where she was visiting her family, she saw that the pharmacy was providing vaccines.

When I asked a pharmacy employee if this was the first shot or the second, she said first. “Since it was my first Pfizer,” Dr. Thompson said. “It was very clear to me that AZ plus Pfizer was a good idea,” she added, after reading about a study on the benefits of mixing AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

A nurse prepares a syringe of the Pfizer vaccine during a vaccination campaign at the Purdez gas station in Laplace, Los Angeles, last month. Credit … Emily Cask for The New York Times Do Boosters Provide Additional Protection?

Maybe, but it’s too early to say, at least according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC has not authorized booster doses, but there is a growing consensus in the Biden administration that people 65 and older or who have a compromised immune system would benefit from a third dose.

Pfizer and BioNTech, the company that invented the vaccine and partnered with Pfizer to develop it, report that the third shot of its vaccine boosts antibody levels in the blood against several versions of the coronavirus, including the highly contagious delta type. And some research suggests that mixing different types of vaccines can elicit a stronger immune response than any one brand alone.

Israel continued to move forward on Thursday, announcing that it would begin administering three Pfizer boosters to people over the age of 60 starting Sunday. They will need to get their second shot more than five months ago to be eligible, according to Kan News Network, which is funded by the state.

But some researchers and public health officials caution that much of this data is preliminary and people should not assume boosters are necessary. Two shots of Pfizer or Moderna provide powerful and lasting protection against severe illness and death. Johnson & Johnson said the company’s data shows the vaccine was 85% effective against severe delta-type diseases, and also protects those who received it from hospitalization and death.

Krutika Kupali, MD, an infectious disease specialist and associate professor of medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, said many of her patients who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which, like AstraZeneca, is less effective than the mRNA vaccines, asked if they should get a shot additional.

She told them it wasn’t unreasonable for them to think about it.

But Dr. Kubali said she is explaining to her patients that the data is still vague about potential side effects and that the research is not yet conclusive. “We actually want science to drive our politics,” she said.

Terry Givens, a professor at McGill University in Quebec who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in March, said she was considering a booster dose, but did not want to move forward with the research.

“I don’t want to do that because it might work,” said Professor Givens, 56, who studies political science. “I want to do it in good conscience as my doctor says it’s okay.”

updated

July 29, 2021 at 12:22 PM ET

Due to the decentralized system of vaccine reservations in the United States, many people said that it is easy to obtain a booster, although it is not technically allowed.

In the emergency authorizations for vaccines, the Food and Drug Administration allowed only two doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine and one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Before the CDC can recommend the boosters, the Food and Drug Administration will have to change this authorization or fully approve the vaccines. If it were fully approved, doctors would have more room to prescribe a booster dose to their patients.

In comments, Walgreens and CVS pharmacies, which have vaccinated hundreds of thousands of Americans, said they do not offer booster doses.

Trevor Achilles, 27, who is at risk for Covid-19 because he had a kidney transplant, said he struggled to get an appointment at CVS for a third vaccine, even after his doctor recommended one in addition to the two doses of Pfizer he had already received.

He was finally able to make an appointment at a local pharmacy in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he lives. “I’m incredibly weak and don’t want to risk as much as Delta.”

Health workers carrying supplies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has received 1.7 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through Covax, a vaccine-sharing partnership. Credit… Guerchom Ndebo / Getty Images What about ethics?

Experts said it falls into a gray area. Ideally, the vaccines left in rich countries should go to countries with less stock, rather than people who want extra doses, Dr. Kupalli said.

“Before we start talking about people getting a third dose of the vaccine, we need to make sure that everyone can get one dose of it,” she said.

Understand the state of vaccine mandates in the United States

Erin Mattson, who got Moderna’s shot on Sunday after getting one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, said she was worried she might be taking a dose from someone who hasn’t yet been vaccinated.

But with many unused vaccines being phased out, given vaccine hesitancy in the United States, she said she believes that is unlikely.

“I don’t take it from someone who wouldn’t otherwise have a vaccine,” said Ms. Mattson, 41, who lives in the Washington, D.C. area. “I take it from the landfill.”

Ms. Mattson, director of the nonprofit, said she was concerned about getting a highly transmissible delta type and infecting her 8-year-old daughter. She got a booster shot at a drugstore where no one asked her if she had already received a vaccine, which brings her relief.

Maureen Kelly, a member of the World Health Organization’s ethics committee for Covid-19 research, said that at the policy level, the focus among governments of high-income countries on giving the booster shots was shameful when only 1.1 percent of people were in the poor. Countries that received at least one dose.

She said anyone who gets a booster dose contributes to ignorance of vaccine inequalities.

“If I make a decision to get a booster dose, I think I’m complicit in my government’s decisions or those of the drug companies,” said Dr Kelly, professor of bioethics in the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford. “I don’t think we can easily separate individual decisions from this kind of policy-level decision.”

Another bioethicist, Hon Lam Lee, deputy director of the Center for Bioethics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said he saw a more important issue: arguably, it is unethical to avoid vaccination, as it puts the lives of others at risk. He said he does not see ethical issues in cases where patients are weak or where doctors recommend treatment.

What about the fourth shot? Dr Thompson, a retired geologist in Edinburgh, said she will think about it when she returns to Florida in a few months.

“If I thought it would improve my horse even more, I would definitely,” she said.

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