Support Shots as Omicron Crests Keep Americans Away

The booster vaccines of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines not only reduce the number of infections with the infectious Omicron variant, but also keep infected Americans out of hospitals, according to data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The extra doses are 90 percent effective at preventing hospitalization with the variant, the agency reported. Booster shots also reduce the likelihood of going to an emergency room or urgent care clinic. The data also showed that extra doses were most beneficial against infection and death among Americans age 50 and older.

Overall, the new research shows that vaccines are more protective against the Delta variant than Omicron, which lab studies have found can partially inhibit the body’s immune response.

CDC director Dr. “These reports add further evidence to the importance of staying up to date on Covid vaccines,” Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing on Friday.

While data from Israel and other countries suggest that boosters may help prevent serious illness and hospitalizations, at least in older adults, it was unclear whether extra doses would have this effect in the United States, where vaccination and immunity differ. from elsewhere in the world.

The three studies published Friday are by far the most comprehensive and credible assessments of the role that supportive footage has played in the US pandemic. As each of the Delta and Omicron variants came to the fore, the researchers reviewed millions of cases, as well as tens of thousands of hospitalizations and deaths.

“These numbers should be very believable,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University, of the numbers released Friday.

Detailed reports came with hints that the Omicron surge may be receding. The country is reporting 736,000 new cases daily, up from more than 800,000 last week, and hospital admissions have dwindled.

Yet the virus continues to spread in many states, with more than 2,000 deaths still occurring within a few days.

Two of the studies were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Report. In a studyIn , the researchers analyzed hospitalizations and visits to emergency rooms and emergency care clinics in 10 states from August 26, 2021 to January 5, 2022.

The authors found that vaccine efficacy against hospitalization with the Omicron variant dropped to only 57 percent in people who had received their second dose more than six months ago. The third shot increased this protection to 90 percent.

This second study It examined nearly 10 million cases of Covid and more than 117,000 associated deaths recorded in 25 state and local health departments between April 4 and December 25, 2021.

Cases and deaths were lower in people who received the booster dose compared to those who were fully vaccinated but did not receive the supplement, and were much lower than those seen in those who were not vaccinated, the researchers reported.

The study found that booster doses made much greater gains in protection in people aged 65 and older, followed by those aged 50 to 64. The researchers did not provide data on the benefits of vaccines in younger people.

in the third Study published in the journal JAMA, data from more than 70,000 people who requested testing showed that a third dose provided greater protection against symptomatic infection than two doses or none. Full vaccination and boosters were less protective against the Omicron variant than Delta.

On Thursday night, the CDC published additional data on its website showing that there were unvaccinated Americans 50 and older in December. nearly 45 times more hospitalized than those vaccinated and shot a third time.

Together, the studies form strong evidence that boosters are a valuable defense against Omicron. Yet less than 40 percent of fully vaccinated Americans are eligible for the booster shot. took one.

It’s too soon to know whether protection from extra vaccines will weaken, said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at Emory University.

“We just have to admit that all these predictions of Omicron third dose protection will be people who have been strengthened fairly recently,” he said.

CDC now recommends supporting shots For anyone 12 years and older, five months after receiving two doses of mRNA vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, or two months after receiving a single dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

In discussing booster vaccine recommendations for all American adults, scientific advisers from the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC have repeatedly complained about a lack of data specific to the United States.

There are differences between Israel and the United States – for example, Israel defines severe disease — they said this makes it difficult to interpret the relevance of Israeli data for Americans.

Some members of the Biden administration supported the use of booster doses even before the agencies’ scientific advisers had a chance to review data from Israel. Federal health officials intensified the support campaign for everyone after the arrival of the Omicron variant.

The benefit of booster vaccines in Americans younger than 50 was a hot topic of debate this fall. At the time, several experts argued: third shots were unnecessary for younger adults because two doses of the vaccine worked well.

Some of these experts were not convinced by the new data.

Director of the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital Vaccine Education Center and member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee, Dr. Paul Offit said even months ago that even older adults and people with weakened immune systems would benefit from extra doses of the vaccine. .

But “where is the evidence that the third dose benefits a healthy young person?” He asked.

“If you are trying to stop the spread of this virus, vaccinate the unvaccinated,” he added. “We’re trying to protect more of what is already protected.”

But other experts they changed their minds in favor of boosters with the advent of the highly contagious Omicron variant. They said that even if two doses are enough to keep young people out of hospitals, the third dose could limit the spread of the virus by preventing infections.

“Both are data-driven, legitimate positions,” said John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.

But at this point the discussion is over: “We use boosters in everyone and that’s what happens.”