Instead, they hide out - in your spleen, in your lymph nodes, perhaps at the original site of your infection - waiting for a signal to start producing antibodies again. These save the instructions for producing a particular antibody, but they aren’t active. are critically important because they produce antibodies.Ĭertain types of B-cells - recall, these are the ones that make antibodies - become memory B-cells. There are helper T-cells, which stimulate killer T-cells and recruit yet another class of cells called macrophages to gobble up infected cells, and they also stimulate B-cells, which. There are killer T-cells, which hunt down and kill cells that have been infected. There’s a whole lot more our immune systems have to offer, as Vox’s Brian Resnick and Umair Irfan have explained: It’s not just antibodies that save us (though those obviously help). To understand this more clearly, it helps to review some basics about how our bodies mount an immune response to a virus. But scientists can also tweak what goes into the booster if they’re aiming to protect you from a new variant - a version of the virus that’s mutated significantly from the original version you were vaccinated against. What goes into the booster can be the exact same as your original vaccine, in which case its goal is to increase the magnitude of protection (for example, by producing more antibodies). 1) What are boosters and how do they work?Ī booster shot is a way to strengthen your immune system’s response to a pathogen. Sign up to receive our newsletter each Friday. Vox’s German Lopez is here to guide you through the Biden administration’s burst of policymaking. These answers to common questions are based on what experts currently know, though of course they might shift as new data comes to light. So here’s a guide to navigating our collective confusion about boosters. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci likewise said there isn’t enough data for the government to recommend a booster for J&J recipients. A working group for the CDC said in June there isn’t yet evidence to suggest that a booster is needed. Naturally, people will wonder if they should follow suit.īut so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t offered any recommendations on this. Some scientists who got the one-and-done J&J vaccine have said they’re now topping up with an extra shot of Pfizer or Moderna, out of concern that their one dose won’t be enough to stop the more contagious delta variant.

A lab technician sorts blood samples for a Covid-19 vaccination study at the Research Centers of America.

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