Is the Covid-19 booster the same as a vaccine?

Is the Covid-19 booster the same as a vaccine?

20.12.2021

Yes, Covid-19 boosters use the same recipe as the original shots, despite the emergence of more contagious variants of the virus. The vaccines weren’t tweaked to better match the Delta or Omicron variants.

The vaccines work by training your body to recognise and fight the spike protein that coats the coronavirus and helps it invade the body’s cells. The increased protection you might get from a booster adjusted to better match the Delta or other variants would be marginal, says Dr Paul Goepfert, director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, US. Manufacturing doses with a new formula would have also delayed the rollout of the booster shots. Moderna and Pfizer are studying boosters tweaked for the Delta, Omicron and other variants. Health authorities would have to decide if and when a vaccine formula swap would be worthwhile.

—AP