'You can think of it like an annual flu shot': Doctor on possible COVID-19 booster shots

Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Sara Andrabi, joined Yahoo Finance to break down her thoughts on the possibility of needing annual COVID-19 booster shots to.

Video transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: Anjalee, we're going to keep talking about this with Dr. Sara Andrabi, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. It's always good to see you. There was a column by a doctor in the "New York Times" which basically said-- I'm summarizing what they said-- if you've got a vaccine, do not be afraid of the variants in the United States. What do you think?

SARA ANDRABI: So I think we do definitely have to be cautious of these variants. Pfizer's CEO, as you guys said, recently announced that a third dose of the vaccine is likely necessary in 6 to 12 months after you receive your first pair. And we have good data to show robust immunity six months post-vaccine. Soon, we should have 12-month data to see what that immune response looks like in vaccinated individuals.

We are continuing, though, to see this virus mutate and evolve. Specifically, the variants out of South Africa and Brazil are resistant to the immunity you would get from a natural infection. And additionally, the vaccines are less powerful against these variants as they are against the original strains. So if the virus continues to spread, which means it continues to mutate, it could evolve to a point where what you get from those first two doses in terms of immunity may not be enough, and that really need that additional dose. You can think of it like an annual flu shot, but for an illness that's much more serious, deadly, and contagious.

SEANA SMITH: Doctor, we also had that study from the CDC earlier this week talking about how people who are fully vaccinated, they were, again, infected-- or they were infected by COVID. Does this raise any alarm bells? Or is this in line with what we were expecting?

SARA ANDRABI: Yes, so CDC identified a small group of COVID-19 infections among fully vaccinated patients. 76 million people have been fully vaccinated, and there are 5,800 breakthrough cases is what they're calling them. Most of them were women, 40% were over the age of 60, and 7% had to be hospitalized. But this incidence is rare. It's about 0.008%, and it's in line with expectations.

The infections are similar to coming down with the flu despite getting the flu vaccine. So let's keep this with a global perspective in mind. The COVID vaccines were found to be 95% efficacious for Pfizer, 94% for Moderna, 86% for J&J. This is higher protection than the annual flu vaccine received.

The vast majority of people who are vaccinated and get COVID are going to have mild to moderate illness and be able to recover at home. The current vaccines protect against the UK variant, which is now the most common variant in the US. And they're almost 100% effective against preventing death, which is actually what the trials were set up to study. We also saw breakthrough infections in the trial data, so I'm not surprised we're seeing a small number of them right now.

ADAM SHAPIRO: I'm going to ask you a question that comes out of frustration that I think millions of us share having to work at home, but nothing like what those of you in the medical field deal with. At what point do-- because there are people who will not get the vaccine-- at what point do we just say, OK, we've got to get back to what we used to do. And if that means going to the office, going to school-- I mean, people are at the breaking point at this stage.

SARA ANDRABI: Yeah. And I think this is a tough thing-- we're seeing lots of folks with vaccine hesitancy, and then there's fatigue with mask-wearing and social distancing all across the countries. I think what those individuals need to understand is that how many of these very rare breakthrough infections we get depends on how much of the virus is circulating within the community.

So once we get to a point where we have enough people in the community that are vaccinated, then if somebody develops COVID in that community, the people around them are protected. And it's much harder for that person to spread the virus somewhere else. And therefore, the transmission stops, and less transmission means fewer breakthrough infection cases. Right now, we have a lot of transmission going on in many parts of this country, and the vaccine will really help decrease that. So getting vaccinated when you can is of utmost importance to returning to some semblance of normal.

SEANA SMITH: And, doctor, how do you view the likelihood of another wave? If you take a look at what's going on in Michigan, clearly, that's very concerning. We're also seeing numbers creep up in other parts of the country. What's your view on that?

SARA ANDRABI: Yeah. I mean, COVID infection rates are approaching the highest level, which is what the World Health Organization chief recently warned about. There's more than 139 million COVID cases that are reported worldwide, 2.9 million deaths. The new cases per week have nearly doubled in the past two months. This is approaching the highest rate of infection we have seen so far during the pandemic.

India, I recently read, had 200,000 new cases. And even in America, cases are up 11% in just the past two weeks. As was mentioned earlier, 20 states reported an increase in deaths. And we are seeing hospitalizations in a younger cohort now. And this may be related to mask fatigue. It might be related to more activities in that cohort without social distancing, and masks, and the ease of spread of the new variants. Plus there's lower vaccination rates in this age group.

Michigan's largest hospital system, like you were mentioning, is at 95% capacity from an increase in hospitalizations. All things considered, though, when I feel like you compare America to the rest of the world, we're really fortunate that we have vaccines available to be given to help curb the spread. And we should really be targeting those at-risk populations and getting them vaccinated.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Dr. Sara Andrabi, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, thank you for joining us. Once again, stay healthy, we look forward to your next appearance here on Yahoo Finance.