The authorization effectively lets individuals choose whether to shore up their immunity against the virus the same way they can now choose to mask or take other precautions.

“Giving people the choice to have an added level of protection is where we should be at this point in the pandemic,” said Leana Wen, a professor at George Washington University. “To me, the decision of getting an extra booster dose is not much different from the decision to continue masking or to use rapid tests before getting together with people indoors.”…

Allowing people to minimize their own level of risk through booster shots may be a temporarily justifiable approach, but it doesn’t solve the massive issue of vaccine resistance.

Boosting large segments of the population every four months also isn’t sustainable. If the boosters’ protection against severe disease repeatedly wanes in a sizable portion of Americans — something experts think is unlikely — that means we need more durable vaccines.