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How Long Will COVID Vaccine Boosters Be Necessary?

Nurse preps vaccine at Columbus clinic
Dan Konik
/
Statehouse News Bureau
Nurse prepares a vaccine at a Columbus shot clinic

The director of the Ohio Department of Health explains it depends on when Ohio achieves community immunity.

State health leaders are preparing to offer booster shots to Ohioans who are 8 months out from their last Pfizer or Moderna COVID dose. That leads to the question – will boosters be required every 8 months from here on out?

Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff says boosters will likely be needed until enough Ohioans develop immunity to stop the virus from spreading and mutating.

“And because we will all have quite a bit of immunity, the virus that is out there will begin to look to us a whole lot more than the common cold,” Vanderhoff says.

Vanderhoff has said he doesn’t know how many people will need to be vaccinated for that community immunity to happen. Right now, 55% of Ohioans over 12 have been fully immunized against COVID.

Contact Jo Ingles at jingles@statehousenews.org.
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