One year or 5? Doctors and drug companies increasingly disagree about when we’ll need COVID-19 booster shots

Booster shots may not be necessary for another one to five years — but companies are preparing to distribute them before the end of 2021 anyway.

In either case, boosters probably won’t require the same urgency as initial vaccines do. Photo: Marianne Ayala/Insider

By Aria Bendix, Hilary Brueck, and Andrew Dunn

The next vaccine race is underway — this time for booster shots.

Leading vaccine developers, including Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax, are sizing up the market for boosters — an additional jab to boost protection for those already vaccinated against COVID-19. These drug companies have also crafted new versions of their shots, customized to fight some of the most concerning variants the world has seen.

Meanwhile, researchers are still waiting to find out how long initial vaccine protection lasts. That’s creating a contentious split in the range of predictions about when we may need more shots. Figuring out when to boost is one of the biggest lingering mysteries of the pandemic in the US, and a growing disconnect between drug companies and scientists could make it all the more complicated to find consensus.

The CEOs of leading pharmaceutical companies have become forceful advocates for administering boosters sooner rather than later — potentially as early as later this year…