During Wednesday's White House COVID-19 press briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci said it's "conceivable" that Americans will need a fourth dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
"Before we start talking about a fourth shot, it will be very important for us to determine the durability of protection, particularly against severe disease for the third shot booster of an mRNA and the second shot of a J&J," Fauci said. "Right now, we don’t have that information."
Fauci said they'd decide once they get the scientific data from the third boost.
But Fauci added that as coronavirus cases continue to surge, more protection might be needed in the future against the omicron variant.
“It is conceivable that in the future, we might need an additional shot, but right now, we are hoping that we will get a greater degree of durability of protection from that booster shot,” Fauci said. “So we’re going to take one step at a time, get the data from the third boost, and then make decisions based on scientific data.”
