Department of Medicine

“I feel like it’s just another thing that we knew was likely to happen,” said Michelle Barron, Director of Infection Prevention at UCHealth [and professor of medicine at CU School of Medicine]. “The idea behind a booster is to stimulate your immune system. It’s something that your body has potentially now seen before with the first vaccine, so it’s not starting over in terms of the education of the immune response.”

“I would definitely say the pandemic is not over yet,” said Michelle Barron, the senior medical director of infection prevention at UCHealth [and professor of medicine at CU School of Medicine]. “Somewhere between 70%, 80% is probably the point at which we will feel comfortable that enough people are protected that it’s not going to spread.”

Michelle Barron a top infectious disease expert in Colorado affiliated with UCHealth [and professor of medicine at CU School of Medicine], said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FDA recommended pausing use of the J&J vaccine on April 13 due to an association with rare blood clotting issues in six women between the ages of 18-48.