Decline in the Effectiveness of the Vaccine from 90% to 40-50% Is ‘Pretty Significant’
Decrease points to need for third vaccination booster, prominent vaccinologist says
Public health professionals are seeing evidence of a marked reduction in the effectiveness of the vaccines against COVID-19. It indicates that a booster shot for vaccinated people is crucial.
That's according to a prominent American scientist, pediatrician, and advocate in the fields of global health and vaccinology.
Cases of COVID-19 are surging again in the United States, fueled by the more-virulent Delta variant and those — particularly on the political right — who are refusing to get vaccinated.
Some states, like Florida, are seeing its highest numbers of COVID-19 cases of the pandemic.
“Well, what we are seeing is a decline in the effectiveness of the vaccine, and a lot of the studies are coming out of Israel, one out of the Mayo Clinic, showing that against infection, the effectiveness of the vaccine has gone down from over 90 percent to 40 to 50 percent. So far, it’s keeping up pretty well in terms of keeping people out of the hospital, but I think the worry is that with that decline from 90 to 40 percent — which is a pretty significant decline — that that’s the tip of the spear, and we'll start seeing a pretty precipitous rise in hospitalizations among vaccinated individuals,” said Dr Peter Hotez, director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Texas Children's Hospital endowed chair in tropical pediatrics, and university professor of biology at Baylor University. “We’re even hearing anecdotes from physicians that 10-20 percent of their hospitalized patients are vaccinated.
“So, you know, it’s not too surprising given the fact that when we rolled out these vaccines, they were only given a three-to-four-week interval between first and second dose. That’s how the Phase 3 trials were done. That was done for a very good reason,” Dr Hotez added. “If you remember back in December and January, we were losing 3,000 American lives a day and there was a crisis, and so we had to get people fully immunized in as quick a time as possible. It made sense and it actually saved a lot of lives.
“But the trade-off was, by doing that short interval, three to four weeks, you get a big decline in durability and length of protection. So, in some ways, that kind of sealed the deal that this was going to be a three-immunization vaccine,” he said.
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