The CDC reports that the vaccine’s protection has waned this spring but the boosters have helped.
Scientists from the United States found highly contagious sub-Omicron bacteria this spring in the United States that appear to reduce the protection offered by vaccines against Covid hospitalizations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday.
But the first and second booster shots helped bolster the people’s defenses, the agency found. The additional footage raises everyone’s level of protection against those Omicrons and restores some of the protection that’s been lost over time since their last shot.
“The booster dose should be administered as soon as people qualify,” the CDC scientists wrote.
However, these findings come with a notable caveat: Measuring vaccine effectiveness is complicated by the number of unvaccinated people who have become infected with the virus, especially during the winter. cases of Omicron disease.
Previous infections provide people with protection against Covid. As a result, in studies like the CDC that compare outcomes from viruses in vaccinated and unvaccinated people, vaccines appear to be less protective than they actually are.
CDC scientists used the little information they had about the patient’s infection history to try to explain those difficulties. Using data from hospitals across 10 states, the agency’s scientists studied approximately 58,000 hospitalizations with a Covid-like diagnosis between mid-December and mid-June. The study focused on those adults with healthy immune systems.
At the end of April, Omicron’s sub-variables are known like BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 passed the Omicron version that spread across the country during the winter.
After those sub-variants became dominant, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were less effective at stopping people hospitalized with Covid than they were during the winter Omicron wave, the study said. research shows.
Two doses of the vaccine were 24% effective on hospitalizations after variants took over, compared with 61% during a period when the original version of Omicron dominated. (These numbers apply to people who received a second dose at least five months earlier.)
That decline is probably due in part to the ability of sub-variants to evade human immune defenses from vaccines, and in part to the fact that unvaccinated people have some measure of protection. protection from previous infections.
A booster dose helped significantly, although the benefit of those additional doses appeared to wane over time. When sub-variants became the primary source of infection, a third dose of Pfizer or Moderna raised the vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalization to 69% initially and 52% after four months or more.
The third dose was even more protective during the winter spike of the original version of Omicron.
The second booster was authorized at the end of March It’s for people 50 and older with healthy immune systems, the CDC says, and those extra boosters seem to help people get over the spike.
The agency said that at least a week after the fourth dose, the vaccine was 80 percent effective in combating hospitalizations with Covid. That’s a significant increase from the 55% effectiveness provided by three doses at four months in that age group.
It is not clear how quickly the protection provided by that fourth dose will wear off. The study also did not measure the effectiveness of the vaccine against BA.5, the latest Omicron sub-variable, seems to be driving a large number of cases and hospitalizations. That secondary nature has become dominant among new cases in the United States and appears to be the easiest form of Omicron to avoid spreading domestically.
With hospitalizations rising, federal health officials urged those who were eligible to get a booster dose as soon as possible, says those shots won’t prevent people from getting an additional dose of a particular updated variant vaccine in the fall or winter. The agency said the latest results underpin the need for booster injections.
“Given the recent increase in deaths and hospitalizations associated with the BA.5 variant,” the CDC said on Friday, “everyone should be up to date with recommended Covid-19 vaccines. recommendations, including additional booster dose for people with moderate to severe immunodeficiency and adults over 50 years of age. “
