WATCH: How long does protection from a COVID-19 vaccine last? Will I need a booster?

It’s not yet clear if we’ll need booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines in the years to come, or how long protection offered by existing shots will last. Dr. Kimberly Manning of Grady Medical Hospital noted that the reason we get an annual flu shot is because flu viruses mutate every year. If the coronavirus keeps spreading as widely as it is now, it will continue to have ample opportunity to mutate, possibly to the point of impacting protection offered by existing COVID-19 vaccines. If that happened, Manning said, we would need to develop new vaccines and vaccinate people again.

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