WHO official thinks the COVID-19 vaccine booster debate is all wrong

World Health Organization.
(Image credit: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

The World Health Organization's director of immunization, vaccination, and biologics argues it may be too early to push for population-level COVID-19 booster shots, especially when many people around the world have not even received their first dose.

There just isn't enough evidence right now to back up the need for widespread boosters in heavily vaccinated countries, director Kate O'Brien suggested in an interview with Stat News. Looking specifically at the two-dose mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna, O'Brien said the timing and rationale for third doses isn't really about "boosting," anyway. Instead, "it's actually about whether ... you need a third priming dose" for people who are immunocompromised. "For some vaccines ... there seems to be evidence coming forward, more about people who are having a failure of the primary series [of shots] and evidence on whether or not a third priming dose would help," she said.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.