The time for booster vaccinations has come in Germany.
But this prick passage will also drag on.
A vaccination protection calculator comes in handy.
Munich - The second Corona winter is already knocking unmistakably on the door.
In view of the spreading cold, significantly more meetings are taking place indoors, which is known to suit the virus very well.
Because without a great deal of air circulation, it can spread wonderfully and secretly haunt people.
In addition, Sars-CoV-2 continues to mutate diligently, with Omikron a new and, according to experts, worrying variant has already been detected in Germany.
And, as is so often the case, the vaccine in Germany is scarce.
In booster times, many vaccination doctors ask themselves in the face of millions of prickly citizens: Where to get the vaccine from?
Interactive vaccination protection calculator shows the level of immunization
Many Germans who want to have their third dose administered have to be patient again.
It would be all the more important to know how strong your own immunization is.
The
Tagesspiegel
wants to
remedy this.
An interactive vaccination protection calculator has been available there for a few days.
The model only needs three pieces of information to spit out approximate values.
First of all, the vaccination status has to be selected, whereby a distinction is only made between "unvaccinated" and "twice vaccinated".
Then click on the injected vaccine - in addition to “Biontech / Pfizer”, “Moderna” and “Astrazeneca”, the variants “Astrazeneca & Biontech” and “Astrazeneca & Moderna” are also available, as well as “Other / don't know”.
Last but not least, the last vaccination date is requested.
Vaccination protection calculator differentiates between three immunization values
Once these three categories have been processed, the computer indicates your own protection against illness, protection against severe disease and overall protection after an additional booster vaccination.
The values are to be understood in comparison to those who have not been vaccinated, i.e. they show the effect of the vaccine.
The authors point out, however, that the results are not to be understood individually, because the real degree of immune protection also depends on age, gender, general health, personal behavior, living conditions or job.
The calculator does not take all of this into account.
The basis is a study from Sweden with 1.6 million people
As a basis, the
Tagesspiegel used
a study by the Swedish University of Umea, which has not yet been verified by independent experts.
Between January and October 2021, data from 800,000 vaccinated and 800,000 unvaccinated people in Sweden were collected and compared.
Especially in summer, when significantly fewer infections were registered, the statistical fluctuations were large.
"The longer it has been since you were vaccinated, the less exactly the estimated number may reflect reality," says the text on the vaccination protection calculator: "The data are less precise and only provide very rough information." Therefore, the entire confidence interval would always be displayed , i.e. two values, between these with 95 percent certainty the value of each individual with the given data lies.
Careless behavior after vaccination can falsify the results of studies on vaccination protection
It is pointed out that new corona variants can change the effect of vaccination protection.
In addition, the more careless behavior of vaccinated people in the knowledge of their own immunization could play a role in the figures, because this increases the likelihood of an infection despite the fact that protection is still good.
One thing is clear: the effect of the vaccine diminishes over time, so a booster vaccination is always useful.
Due to the small number of meaningful individual studies, the values for protection through the third prick can only relate to the effect of a Biontech vaccination after a previous two-fold Astrazeneca vaccination or a total of three Biontech doses.
There was always more than five months between the second administration and the booster.
Video: Differences between the vaccines for the booster vaccination
The vaccination protection calculator cannot display any data if there is a long period of time between the vaccination and the information
The
Tagesspiegel
emphasizes on the basis of the available figures: "Even if it was a while ago your second vaccination, you are still better protected than people without a vaccination." We can no longer display any data than six, seven or eight months have passed since your second vaccination.
Then there is no study that would allow a statement. "
In this case, it is recommended to give a closer date in order to at least see how high the vaccination protection is currently no longer.
After all, this is a clue.
Vaccination protection calculator should not cause unnecessary uncertainty
It is also possible that a "?" Is displayed instead of a number when entering the data.
This is to prevent a value that is possibly much too low from coming out if there were significant fluctuations in the underlying study, because freshly vaccinated people, for example, have very likely behaved too carelessly and thus many infections were recorded shortly after the prick despite high immune protection .
In order to avoid unnecessary uncertainty among users of the computer, no number is presented at all.
As soon as the study situation provides more background, this problem can be remedied accordingly.
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