FORT MYERS, Fla. — Since December of 2020, medical experts wanted you to roll up your sleeves to get the COVID-19 vaccine, now some are wanting to hit the pause button on the 4th booster.
“The speculation is “What happens if we continue to booster?” Chief Medical Officer of Millennium Physician Group Dr. Alejandro Perez-Trepichio said.
Dr. Perez-Trepichio explains one theory some epidemiologists are researching.
“The World Health Organization is saying if we keep giving boosters we run the risk that a part of our immune system the T-Cells, that has an integral part in how we defend against infections, it may be as they call it “exhausted”,” Dr. Alejandro Perez-Trepichio said.
So, NBC2 took the time to explain how T-Cells work and how these boosters could impact them.
When you get vaccinated for COVID-19, your body creates antigens that are not supposed to be in your body.
T-Cells are trained to flag intruders that they don’t recognize, so they come after the antigens and destroy them.
The idea is once T-Cells learn to destroy the vaccine-created antigen, then they’ll know exactly what to do when the real virus comes into your body.
Now, some medical experts are concerned about the recommendation to get a booster shot roughly every four months.
That’s because if we keep getting the same boosters over and over again, those antigens will almost always be inside your body meaning your T-Cells may not realize they are bad and may stop destroying them.
“Although it’s a theoretical idea that this could be an event that could happen, it has not been proven in COVID,” Dr. Alejandro Perez-Trepichio said.
Dr. Alejandro Perez-Trepichio said right now there is no date to prove being too boosted is bad but that could change as more research is done.