Even with the Delta variant raging across the U.S., we’ve clearly reached a plateau as far as vaccinations go. As of mid-June, almost 15 million Americans were only partially vaccinated, meaning they got the first jab of a two-dose vax but skipped the second. All this half-assing may seem harmless — and offer at least a little protection, right? Nope. Experts have long said that skipping your second shot is a bad idea, and now there’s a small but important study to back them up. Here’s why you need that second vaccine shot.
Research published in mid-July in the journal Nature suggests that it’s not the first shot of the mRNA vaccines that does the heavy lifting — the second shot is the star. The study followed 56 healthy volunteers who were part of a Pfizer vaccine trial at Stanford University starting in December 2020. The researchers tested the blood samples of participants at multiple times before and after their first and second doses. What they found was that the first shot increases COVID-specific antibody levels — which was expected — but not as much as the second shot does, EurekAlert reported.
