ST. PETERSBURG — Pfizer announced on Wednesday that its Covid-19 vaccine protects against infection and severe disease from omicron, especially people who’ve received a booster shot.

Those lab results are preliminary.

The company said it will continue collecting more lab and real-world data and has begun developing an updated vaccine that targets the new variant, just in case it is needed.

USF's College of Public Health has been studying a similar aspect of the pandemic.

Epidemiology Professor Dr. Jason Salemi along with colleague and former USF Professor Dr. Elizabeth Pathak have published a research paper soon to be peer reviewed arguing for a change of the CDC's “Fully Vaccinated” designation.

Dr. Salemi spoke to Spectrum News about his research and explained as he did in a Twitter thread what is “Optimal Immunized.”

Per the CDC, “Fully Vaccinated” is currently defined as two shots of the Pfizer or Moderna and one of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

But experts have revealed research which shows protection begins to wane over time.

If someone gets a booster shot, Dr. Salemi said they then would be “Optimally Immunized.”

"If you have gotten two doses of an MRNA vaccine back in February and nothing since, it is very likely that your immune response would not be optimal to fight let's say omicron which we know presents a lot of other challenges,” said Dr. Salemi.  “So, we're just trying to suggest that let's take into account that waning immunity."

While Florida's vaccination rate hovers just above 60% fully vaccinated, he said that number doesn't reflect the entire story.

"But only 30% of the population has that optimal immunity,” he said.

“You know a lot of people need to come in and get that booster and especially when we heard the news from Pfizer today it's only a lab study, it's not real-world study yet but it suggests that omicron, we know that it possess some ability to evade our antibodies and it looks like getting that booster dose really boosts up those levels and would reduce the level of infection."

Dr. Salemi argued it’s not to scare anyone but to also prevent the spread of the virus.

"It looks like even with what we're seeing with the mutations on omicron, it doesn't seem to impact another important component of our immune system those t-cells,” said Dr. Salemi.  “So, it's very likely that you may get infected but the t-cells kick in to prevent you from getting severely ill. But as you pointed out if we're preventing people from getting infected in the first place including people who may be very susceptible to severe illness. So that's in part what all this boosting is all about."

Therefore, if you reduce the spread of the virus and you also reduce the chance of more mutations.