Dr. Gupta: No Matter the Variant, Boosters Can Provide Some Protection

EXCERPT:

KEILAR: "And also, the -- you know, when you’re looking, Sanjay, at vaccination rate in South Africa and surrounding countries, that’s not helping for sure?"
GUPTA: "Right. No. I -- I think that’s -- that's very clear. When you look at the vaccination rates, you can sort of align them with -- with how quickly this sort -- this sort of variant starts to grow. The big question, though, as we have talked about almost since the beginning with these vaccinations in terms of preventing infection versus preventing serious disease. We know that they can be very good at preventing serious disease across the board and that’s likely to be the case here as well. There is something known as the cushion effect. I put this full screen together for you. I want you to look at this. When we talk about escaping immunity, people think, well, is the virus sort of getting around the antibodies? The way to more think about this is these vaccines provide this sort of cushion effect of antibodies, way more than you really need. So against the current virus, it is 1 to 1,000 cushion effect. With the mutated virus, it may start to drop off. And if it is dropping off that is the first indicator of this sort of escape immunity. Again we don’t know that for sure, but that is going to be a big concern. And that does make case, a stronger case even for boosters, you want to get more of that cushion effect so that no matter the variant, it can provide you some of that protection."