The Debate Over COVID-19 Booster Shots

DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, CEO, PANDEFENSE ADVISORY: So there’s three different kinds of vaccine efficacy. A vaccine does three things. We want it to do three things. We want it to keep you from getting it, getting the disease. We want you to — keep you from giving it, spreading it, and we want to keep you from getting really, really sick. These vaccines are phenomenal at the middle. They keep us from getting sick. Vaccine efficacy in the 95 percent is not un — unheard of. But as far as getting it, there are more breakthroughs, certainly, with Delta than there have been with previous variants. And as far as giving it, it probably reduces transmission that you would normally have only by 50 percent, rather than 100 percent. I think the issue really is that there’s an epidemiological path, and there’s an equity path, and often they overlap. Sometimes, they confuse each other. Right now, we have two groups of people that we need to get vaccine to, first and foremost, those in the developing world, the poor world that have not been able to get vaccinated. I listened to Dr. Tedros. I respect him deeply. I agree with him. We need to stop the hoarding of vaccine in countries that have purchased four or five times what their need will be. That needs to be number one. But, at the same time, those countries have people who are over the age of 70 who are immunocompromised, and got their vaccine six months ago or more. Those people are not only at risk of getting it, Bianna, but they are at risk of becoming variant-producing factories. So we have to prioritize both of those groups. And I think I heard my German colleague use the word false choice. You couldn’t have said it better.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: So let me ask you that then, Dr. Lauterbach. Is this a false choice? Is this not just a case of either giving third boosters or waiting until everybody gets their first shot? Is there a scenario where we can see that vulnerable communities across the world may start receiving a third shot, while also more vaccines are going into the arms of people that haven’t even had one shot?

DR. KARL LAUTERBACH, GERMAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: Yes, I would think so. First of all, I would like to say hello to Dr. Brilliant. And I could not agree with him more, the way he has described, basically, what the vaccines are capable of performing when it comes to the Delta variant. But what is the situation in which we are in Germany currently and also in other European countries? We have a very old population. Germany does have, roughly speaking, the oldest population in Germany. A large percentage of that population has been vaccinated. And we now see the necessity of a booster immunization in those that are particularly old and do have diseases that make them immunocompromised.