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COVID vaccine boosters: the most important questions

Concerns over waning immunity and SARS-CoV-2 variants have convinced some countries to deploy extra vaccine doses — but it’s not clear to scientists whether most people need them.
  1. Ewen Callaway
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A person receiving a dose of COVID-19 and a healthcare worker are reflected in a wall creating a mirror image

Britain is one of several countries looking to administer booster shots for COVID-19 in the coming months; some have already started. Credit: Henry Nicholls/Reuters/Alamy

To boost or not to boost? That is the question facing countries fortunate enough to have vaccinated much of their adult population. In the face of soaring infection numbers caused by the highly contagious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, and hints that immunity triggered by COVID-19 vaccines might fade over time, some countries are considering whether to give further doses to those who have been fully vaccinated. Germany and Israel have announced plans for booster-shot programmes, and a growing list of countries including the United Arab Emirates, China and Russia have already started administering extra doses.

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Nature 596, 178-180 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02158-6

References

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