Booster against Omicron: How well does the corona vaccination protect?

Experts provide answers

Created: 01/12/2022, 05:43 AM

By: Patrick Mayer

In this corona pandemic, the focus is on the vaccination card.

© IMAGO / Lobeca

The omicron variant raises questions: How well do the vaccinations against the mutation of the coronavirus work?

Are there any differences between the vaccines?

A search for clues.

Munich / Marburg - The Omikron variant is on the advance.

In Germany.

In Europe.

In the world.

According to initial findings, the corona mutation is much more contagious, but the course of the disease should usually be milder - especially in people who have been vaccinated.

But: How well do vaccinations protect against Omikron?

Which vaccine offers particularly good protection against infection with the virus variant?

summarizes the findings:

Omikron: How well does a corona vaccination protect against it?

For weeks, one thing has been emerging in the coronavirus pandemic: the vaccinations only protect against infection with the Omikron variant to a limited extent. But: The likelihood of severe disease progression is apparently many times lower in vaccinated people than in unvaccinated people. "The pure protection against infection with Omikron will always be suboptimal with the current vaccines", the news portal

quotes the immunologist Carsten Watzl: "The vaccines still do what they are supposed to: They protect against severe courses, and we are currently seeing that at Omikron. "

To put it into perspective: Watzl is the General Secretary of the

from Marburg in Hesse.

In a recent post on Twitter, he referred to "new data on the effectiveness of vaccination against a severe COVID-19 course with Omikron".

In other words, how likely is it that vaccination will prevent or at least reduce the risk of hospitalization for an Omicron infection.

Up to six months after the second dose, in his opinion, immunization by vaccination offers 72 percent protection - even against hospitalization that may be necessary.

Omikron: Does a booster vaccination (even) better protect against the corona variant than two vaccinations?

According to Watzl, the protection after a booster vaccination is even 88 percent. The

report refers to a current analysis by the British health authority UKHSA. Elderly and old people in particular would have a high level of protection against serious disease progression through booster vaccinations - even after being infected with the Omikron variant. Three months after the booster vaccination, the protection against hospitalization for people aged 65 and over is around 90 percent.

And: Most recently, virologist Christian Drosten from the Berlin Charité referred to study data from the

in Copenhagen ("

.

In the study, 11,937 Danish households with 27,874 household members were examined for an omicron spread.

A secondary infection was found in 6,397 people, i.e. a second infection with the coronavirus.

31 percent of the said cases were attributed to Omikron, 21 percent to Delta.

In the video: With a spade against an omicron - How well does the corona vaccination protect?

The abstract says: "The study found an increased transmission in unvaccinated people and a decreased transmission in those with booster vaccinations compared to fully vaccinated people." Simplified is the assumption of science that after a booster vaccination, more antibodies in a person circulating against the virus.

Omikron: Does a certain vaccine protect better than others against the corona variant?

But are there differences in the effectiveness of the previous vaccines against Omikron?

again quotes the immunologist Carsten Watzl. "Moderna is the slightly better of the two mRNA vaccines - simply because it uses the higher dose," explains the Marburg scientist. In his estimation, vaccinated people who received the Moderna vaccine were “a tick” better protected against Omikron than those who were vaccinated, for example, who were given the vaccine from Biontech.

In the same report it is pointed out as a precaution that blanket statements about differences in the effect of the vaccines at Omikron are currently not possible, according to Sebastian Ulbert, a vaccine expert from the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology in Leipzig.

Ulbert explains: "In the few studies so far on protection against Omikron, contagions or infections with mild symptoms were mainly considered."

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