Annual COVID-19 Boosters May Not Be Good Use of Resources: AstraZeneca Boss

A health service worker draws up a dose of COVID-19 vaccine at a drive-through vaccination centre in Blackburn, England, on Jan. 17, 2022. Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images

Annual booster vaccination against COVID-19 may not be “a good use of resources,” the boss of major vaccine maker AstraZeneca has said.

The UK health authorities are offering a booster jab to everyone over the age of 50 to protect them from COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases this winter.

But Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca’s chief executive officer, said that he is unclear on whether “boosting people every year is that critical.”

In an interview with The Telegraph, Soriot said he believes most of the vaccinated population has a “foundation immunity against severe disease” at this point.

Pascal Soriot, executive director and CEO of AstraZeneca, testifies to Congress in Washington on Feb. 26, 2019. Win McNamee/Getty Images

He said: “People who are otherwise healthy—especially if they are young, have been vaccinated, have had a boost already—boosting them again, I’m just not sure it’s really a good use of resources.”

He said the “foundation immunity” lasts “a long time, we don’t know if it’s one year, two years, three years. I think more than one year for sure.”

On boosting people every year, he said, “I’m not sure it’s a really good use of money, because most of the people now who catch it will just have symptoms if they get COVID, and that’s it.”

Soriot accepted that more protection needs to be provided to elderly people, who could be given boosters, and immunocompromised people, such as those who have blood cancers or are transplant patients, who he said would benefit from antibody treatments.

Falling Infection Rates

The UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has recommended an autumn booster shot to people aged 50 years and over, those in care homes, and those aged 5 years and over in clinical risk groups.

The committee said booster vaccination is needed because “this winter it is expected that many respiratory infections, including COVID-19 and flu, may be circulating at high levels—this may put increasing pressure on hospitals and other health care services.”

COVID-19 infections in the UK are continuing to fall and are now at their lowest level for more than two months, the latest official data show.

A total of 1.4 million people in private households are estimated to have had the virus in the week to Aug. 16, according to the UK’s Office for National Statistics.

This is a drop of 16 percent from 1.7 million the previous week.

PA Media contributed to this report.