How Long Does the Vaccine Protect Me?

Hi, everyone. I'm Dr. John Whyte, Chief Medical Officer at WebMD. Just how long are you protected from COVID after vaccination? Here's what you need to know in 60 seconds.

Both Pfizer and Moderna studied the immune function of people that were vaccinated six months ago. And what they determined was that they still had strong immune function. The vaccine was effective at over 90%.

Now they only studied 6 months because that's what's required by the FDA for full approval, but they're going to continue to study for many months, and even years. And the point of this is, there's protection for at least six months, not only six months. And that's been misreported by some news media.

So what do you do? Well, don't get frustrated. Thinking that this is never going to end, or we're going to need boosters every six months or every year. We don't know that, it depends what happens with the variant. But what we can do is get vaccinated, protect ourselves, protect our family, and protect our community.