Beaumont doctor says the booster vaccine is needed to protect against omicron

FOX 2 - "I’ve been vaccinated, but I have not taken the booster shot yet I’m waiting until I see what the effects are," said Mat Allen.

New Centers for Disease Control research says the COVID-19 vaccines are helping fight the omicron variant among people who have received their booster shots

"Some data from inside Beaumont now looking at the people who are vaccinated and getting admitted, and they’re almost all unboosted," said Dr. Matthew Sims.

Sims believes the findings of the recent research make sense if you follow the progression of coronavirus.

"Back when it was Alpha basically everyone who was admitted was unvaccinated," he said. "With delta it was something like 75 percent to 80 percent were unvaccinated. But with omicron it has gone even further where 35 to 40 percent of the people getting admitted to the hospital are vaccinated."

Dr. Sims says as the virus evolves and more variants are formulated, the original vaccine is not as effective and you need that boost

"As we go further and further from that original strain, we get less and less protection," Sims said. "Now, the vaccine alone is not enough, now you need the booster to get any type of reasonable protection."

Medical professionals believe a new Covid vaccine in the works by Pfizer will also be more effective than the initial vaccine.

"Pfizer is hoping to have out in March, an omicron-specific vaccine," he added. "That’s what we need, because even if omicron has fallen off by then, the next variant. that may be worse, we need a new starting point."

Doctors make it clear that the best way to fight the formation of new variants is for people to get vaccinated.

And there may need to be vaccination requirements to make it happen.

"We won’t see a slowing down of the variants until we get this spread under control," Sims said.