As a doctor at Family Care Health Centers in St. Louis and a mother, I don’t play around with COVID. When the time comes, I know I will be getting my booster dose.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended booster shots for high-risk patients who received the Pfizer vaccine, and Missouri is giving out booster shots to certain populations, starting with older people and residents in long-term care. It is common in medicine to recommend booster shots for different vaccines for different reasons. For example, we get a booster shot against Tetanus every ten years. The flu shot is essentially a booster you get every flu season. Sometimes I’ll recommend an additional dose of the Hepatitis B vaccine for a patient whose lab work shows they’re not sufficiently protected. In all of these cases, the goal is to boost the person’s immunity so their body can target the harmful virus or bacteria should they be exposed to it.
When patients ask me if the COVID-19 vaccines are safe, I tell them the truth: Yes, they are safe. Millions of people across the U.S. (and billions of people worldwide) have been vaccinated under the most intense safety monitoring in history. You, your family and your community are safer with each individual who chooses vaccination.
Patients also ask me if I am concerned by how quickly the vaccine was developed. My answer is, no. I tell them how I do feel: amazed, excited, optimistic. It’s not just the science behind the vaccine that is impressive but the way the entire science community worked together for one need. Fifty years ago, we were not able to develop vaccines and treatments this quickly and efficiently. Now we can. It’s amazing to me how much we can do with science when we come together.
We learn more everyday about how effective our vaccines are against COVID-19. I’ll be watching the research closely so I know when to recommend booster shots to my patients and how to remain a trusted messenger to the community.
“It’s amazing to me how much we can do with science when we come together.”
