COVID-19 Vaccines and Variants Explained (video)

In this video, BU public health experts discuss the future of the pandemic as vaccines ramp up while viral variants become more prevalent

Over 50 million Americans have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, yet even as more and more people roll up their sleeves, many questions still remain about how effective the vaccines will be against emerging COVID variants. Will the current crop of vaccines protect us against those new threats? How many people need to be vaccinated before we can achieve herd immunity? Will we need booster shots to keep new variants at bay?

In this video, two Boston University public health experts discuss the future of the pandemic, and how the tension between vaccines vs variants will shape its trajectory.

Davidson Hamer is a member of BU’s Medical Advisory Group that has been guiding the University’s COVID-19 response since March. He chairs a group where clinicians and leaders from BU, Harvard University, Tufts University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology share data and insights on campus coronavirus response efforts. Hamer is a faculty member of BU’s School of Public Health, School of Medicine, and National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, and helps manage the travel medicine clinic at Boston Medical Center (BMC), BU’s teaching hospital. Cassandra Pierre is the medical director of public health programs and an associate hospital epidemiologist at BMC. At BU School of Medicine, Pierre is an assistant professor of medicine and chairs the school’s Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council.