Boosters useful?

Vaccination study shows: Protection significantly weaker after three months

Created: 04/26/2022Updated: 04/26/2022 05:22

By: Anna Lorenz

How useful is the booster?

A new study on the vaccine by Biontech/Pfizer brings sobering results.

© Christophe Papke Westend61/imago

A current study on the vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer brings sobering results: the protective effect against a severe course of corona decreases significantly after three months.

Pasadena - Double vaccinated and boosted after three months, that's the triad in the fight against the corona virus so far.

While some people have now had a vaccine against Covid-19 injected for the fourth time, the vast majority of citizens in this country are currently protecting themselves against a severe course with three vaccinations.

Especially in view of the highly contagious virus variant Omicron, politicians and experts urgently recommend up-to-date vaccination protection.

An objection by critics to provoke an endless loop of vaccination is now fueled by a study from the journal "The Lancet Respiratory Medicine".

Protection against omicron: Corona vaccination from Biontech significantly less effective after three months

"Covid-19 booster shots with Pfizer/Biontech significantly improve protection against omicrons, although this protection appears to diminish after three months against emergency department visits and even hospitalizations," concludes epidemiologist Sara Y. Tartof.

She was the lead author of the study, which was conducted by California-based healthcare and health insurance company Kaiser Permanente and funded by Pfizer.

The study evaluated 11,123 hospital admissions and emergency department visits that did not result in hospitalization for an acute respiratory infection for the period from December 2021 to February of this year.

The researchers found that three doses of Biontech vaccine provided 85 percent protection against courses requiring hospitalization for the omicron variant.

After this period, however, the protective effect dropped significantly;

only about half (55 percent) of those boosted did not require clinical care.

The cases of emergency room admissions behaved in parallel: while the number of people who had been boosted and whose vaccination was not three months ago was still 23 percent, 47 percent of those who were ill whose vaccination was three months ago or more were admitted to the emergency room.

The relationship was similar for the delta variant, but the efficacy was rated higher than for the omicron variant at all time points.

US study: vaccination against omicron - does the booster provide protection against the corona virus?

As a result, the study showed that within the first three months after vaccination with the vaccine from Biontech, protection against a severe course in the event of an infection with the omicron variant was significantly higher than after this period.

However, basic protection is still evident.

As this video shows, the booster also massively shortens the symptoms of a corona infection:

With regard to the decrease in antibodies, STIKO has long recommended a second booster for people over 70 years of age or those with certain previous illnesses.

Although the general obligation to vaccinate in Germany initially seems passé, Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) also urgently advises a fourth vaccination for people over 60 years of age.

The vaccination cannot make you immune;

but even critical voices from science point out that vaccination protection is definitely useful and important.