04-22-2021, 07:11 AM
mrbigstuff wrote:
I've been wondering about this for some time, if it's only a one-shot jab. Is ther any evidence that they may be working on a reformulation?
They're all talking about boosters. They don't know whether immunity will last a year and that's not even considering variants. It's not the ideal way to test, but since the first does were distributed to politicians and health care workers around December/January, when/if those populations start getting COVID again we'll have an indicator as to the duration of protection.
J&J hasn't publicly committed to reformulating the vaccine for variants (that I've seen). That would undermine already shaky confidence in what they've got. But they're working on a booster for variants and it seems likely that all three companies will have done some tweaking by winter and will try to get emergency approval again.
For now, the boosters they're pushing are multiple doses of the original vaccines. It's early yet, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't a recommendation regarding boosters (using another dose of the same vaccine) by mid-summer. There's a great deal of concern about another surge as the weather cools and people spend more time indoors and even if that doesn't provide the best coverage for variants it will still offer some additional protection and will keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/world...oster.html
...Mr. Bourla said that “a likely scenario” is “a third dose somewhere between six and 12 months, and from there it would be an annual re-vaccination.” Moderna said this week that it was at work on a booster for its vaccine, and Johnson & Johnson has said that its single-shot vaccine will probably need to be given annually.