Boosters for all three manufacturers' COVID-19 vaccines may soon be available.

But, UPMC doctors said Friday, booster shots are one, minor part of the solution.

“The most important job right now in immunization is to get those who haven't yet decided to get fully vaccinated ... to the point where they are choosing the vaccine and getting the vaccine,” Dr. Donald Yealy said in a media briefing. “That is, far and away, the most important job right now, as opposed to booster doses for most of the population.”

Yealy, emergency medicine chairman at UPMC, said the vaccines created by all three manufactures — the mRNA shots made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, as well as Johnson & Johnson's adenovirus vaccine — continue to be effective at both preventing infection and preventing serious symptoms and hospitalization.

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