- Regulators in Europe say getting too many COVID-19 booster shots may actually weaken your immune system.
- Scientists in Israel also report that a fourth vaccine dose doesn’t appear to produce enough antibodies to protect against an Omicron variant infection.
- Experts explain that our bodies need time to process the stimulation from a vaccine or infection.
- They recommend that people still practice safety protocols such as mask-wearing and physical distancing even if they are fully vaccinated.
European regulators say giving COVID-19 booster shots too frequently may weaken immune response.
At a press briefing, experts from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) argued that COVID-19 booster shots should not be given too close together.
“We are rather concerned about a strategy that entangles repeated vaccination within a short term. We cannot really continuously give a booster dose every 3 or 4 months,” Marco Cavaleri, the head of Biological Health Threats and Vaccines Strategy at the EMA, said at the briefing.
“If we have a strategy in which we give boosters, let’s say every 4 months approximately, we will end up potentially having a problem with the immune response, and the immune response may end up not being as good as we would like it to be. So we should be careful in not overloading the immune system with repeated immunization,” Cavaleri added.
In addition, researchers in Israel say a fourth COVID-19 shot doesn’t appear to produce enough antibodies to prevent infection from the Omicron variant.
This comes as Israel is offering a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccination to those who work in healthcare and people who are over age 60.
Dr. William Schaffner, an expert in infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, says it is crucial to give the immune system time to process what it receives in the initial vaccination…