The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday said that Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus do not need a booster shot for now. This statement was made as the United States has witnessed a rapid spread of the Delta variant, first found in India, of the COVID-19. 

People, who were vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine, are wondering if they should get a dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine to boost their protection against COVID-19. However, experts say that the J&J vaccine is sufficient and people don’t need any booster doses. 

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“There is currently no data suggesting that one needs to boost the Johnson & Johnson vaccine,” Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist with the University of California, San Francisco was quoted by HuffPost. 

Gandhi believes that there is no strong evidence that people who got the J&J shot developed breakthrough infections versus an mRNA vaccine – Pfizer or Moderna. 

“That, to me, is as proof positive that you do not need an mRNA vaccine after,” she adds.

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A preliminary report led by the Oxford University last month revealed that mixing and matching of coronavirus vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford generates a robust immune against the virus.

However, Gandhi says that antibody levels are bound to wane after the infection or vaccination. “If scientists were only measuring antibodies, we would be boosting constantly,” Gandhi explained.

“There probably isn’t any harm in taking an extra dose, but there also doesn’t seem to be a need as of now. Plenty of people who experienced anaphylaxis after one of the mRNA shots followed up with a J&J shot and were just fine,” Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security said, according to HuffPost.

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The J&J will likely be able to protect us against all variants Adalija believes.

Talking about the booster doses, Adalja adds, “It’s a promising thing to study, especially for populations like the immunosuppressed where they may have a blunted response to one type of vaccine, and when you combine it with another they get a more robust response.”

“The best course of action in the interim? “Continue to enjoy your immunity from the J&J vaccine,” he concludes.