A new study by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has showed that booster shot protection declines even after taking the third dose of a vaccination within 10 weeks, despite global demands for booster injections to defend against the new COVID-19 variant Omicron.
As of Thursday, the UK had reported a total of 1,19,789 daily COVID-19 instances, the second time daily cases had surpassed 1,00,000.
Protection against Omicron appears to wilt more quickly than Delta in persons who are boosted, according to scientists at the UKHSA. After 10 weeks, they discovered a reduction of 15 to 25%.
“Repeated vaccine effectiveness analyses continue to show that symptomatic Omicron disease has a lower vaccine effectiveness than Delta.”
“With increasing time after the second dose, and by 10 weeks after the booster dose, there is evidence of waning protection against symptomatic disease, with a 15 to 25% reduction in vaccine effectiveness after 10 weeks,” the UKHSA noted in its latest technical brief.
“However, vaccine effectiveness against severe disease is more likely to be sustained, especially after a booster dose,” according to the brief.
Neutralization data, real-world vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic sickness, and the risk of reinfection all show strong immune evasion properties in the case of Omicron, according to the researchers.
Furthermore, when a person is diagnosed with Omicron, the likelihood of hospitalization appears to be lower than when a person is diagnosed with Delta.
However, health officials feel that these people are unlikely to be at a higher risk of serious illness. The investigation found that those who catch Omicron are 50 to 70 percent less likely to need hospital treatment than those who catch prior versions.
