With the first round of the COVID-19 vaccines that became available in late December, there wasn’t much known about the effectiveness for protection against the virus.

Greene County Public Health Director Becky Wolf said earlier this year that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were about 95-percent effective for at least three months, due to there not being enough studies and results collected. She says currently, the vaccines can provide protection from 6-12 months. Wolf explains this is an ongoing process.

“I’ll have some people say, ‘Well, but can’t you just figure it out?’ Well no. This is a vaccine for a novel virus, a new virus. We have to keep doing clinical studies in order to get farther out to see how long the vaccine keeps our antibody level up.”

Wolf adds, clinical trials are ongoing to figure out if there needs to be an annual booster of the vaccine going forward to continue to fight against COVID-19.