Can booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine be expected to slow the spread of COVID-19 infections? Or is the benefit purely a reduction in symptomatic disease?
Can booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine be expected to slow the spread of COVID-19 infections? Or is the benefit purely a reduction in symptomatic disease?
This explainer is more than 90 days old. Some of the information might be out of date or no longer relevant. Browse our homepage for up to date content or request information about a specific topic from our team of scientists.
This article has been translated from its original language. Please reach out if you have any feedback on the translation.
SciLine reaches out to our network of scientific experts and poses commonly asked questions about newsworthy topics. Reporters can use the video clips, audio, and comments below in news stories, with attribution to the scientist who made them.
SciLine reaches out to our network of scientific experts and poses commonly asked questions about newsworthy topics. Reporters can use the video clips, audio, and comments below in news stories, with attribution to the scientist who made them.
Publication
What our experts say
Context and background
Expert Comments:
Camille Kotton, M.D.
The data show that an additional dose of vaccine decreases significant infections, and currently the majority of transmissions occur because of unvaccinated people. So we don’t know that an additional dose of vaccine will definitely decrease transmission, but we are cautiously optimistic that with overall lower disease rates in the community we will have lower rates of transmission.
Steven Varga, Ph.D.
Because not enough people have received the booster dose, we don’t yet have clear data regarding whether or not it will decrease the chances that a vaccinated individual could become infected or spread the virus. However, the data thus far show that individuals that received the booster exhibit an increase in their antibody response, which should result in increased immunity and should limit the chances that they would spread the virus to others. That increased immunity is certainly likely to decrease the frequency of people that have been vaccinated and experience symptomatic disease.
