Need to get a COVID booster?

COVID-19 Booster Shot is now available to everyone in the United States over the age of 18. Collected here are some data points about why they exist. I strongly recommend it By many public health professionals before the holidays.

Boosters appear to have individual advantages, primarily in terms of preventing infection, in addition to the potential to block infection and yet another highly infectious mutation.

For example, according to Federation of American Scientists epidemiologists Eric Feigl-Ding, ScD, Pfizer / BioNTech boosters raise neutralizing antibody levels to nearly five times the levels after the second dose.

“This doesn’t just make you equal to your dose 2 level again,” Feigl-Ding said. Today’s MedPage.. “This is a catapult to the stratospheric level that was previously inaccessible.”

These data are October 21st communication, Mainly from Pfizer / BioNTech researchers The New England Journal of Medicine. The sample size was small, with just over 20 participants, but it was shown that neutralizing antibody levels increased significantly after booster administration.

For wild-type disease, the geometric mean titer (GMT) increased from 387, one month after the second dose, to 2,119, one month after the third dose, between the ages of 18 and 55. It also increased for people aged 65-85.

The increase was more modest relative to Delta, but was still significant, with GMT rising from 241 one month after dosing 2 to 1,321 one month after dosing 3. Again, the increase from age 65 to age 85 was similar.

These laboratory-based findings appear to be clinically resilient, at least according to Pfizer’s self-reported data.so October 21 Press Release, The company reported that the relative effectiveness of the booster was 95.6% compared to the double dose series. There were only 5 COVID cases in the booster group and 109 cases in the non-booster group.

Getting Moderna data is a bit tricky, but September 1st press release Announced the first submission of booster data to the FDA (company) Resubmitted the application Just two days before the FDA approved Booster for All, the neutralizing antibody titer “had significantly dropped before boosting in about 6 months.”

“The booster dose of mRNA-1273 at a dose level of 50 mcg significantly exceeded the neutralizing titer of the Phase 3 benchmark,” the release said.

so FDA Briefing Document At a meeting of the Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Board (VRBPAC) on October 14, neutralizing antibody levels were shown to increase significantly after booster immunization of both wild-type virus and delta mutants with Modenashot. I did.

For wild-type disease, GMT increased from 1,027 28 days after the second dose of 100 mcg to 1,803 after a 50 mcg booster (although the primary series contained data for 1,053 individuals). , The booster data contained only 149 people)).

For Delta, GMT jumped from 54.8 before vaccination to 872 after boosters between the ages of 18 and 64, and increased similarly for those over the age of 65.

There are no publicly available clinical data on the effectiveness of Moderna boosters.

Regarding hospitalization and death, experts mainly noted that even just two doses of the mRNA vaccine did their job and protected against these consequences. Data from an Israeli study on the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine suggested that booster shots help protect against severe illness and death.

Israeli study of about 1.1 million people over the age of 60 Reported in New England Journal of Medicine On October 7, people who received booster immunization were found to have a lower incidence of both infection and serious illness.

From July 30th to August 31st, the number of infections in non-immunized individuals was 4,439, which was severe compared to 934 infectious diseases and 29 serious illnesses in those who received booster immunity. There were 294 cases of illness.

Another Israeli case-control study Released on October 29 Lancet Similar results were shown when including young patients (median 52 years). It contains data from Clalit Health Services, which provides mandatory medical insurance for more than half of Israel’s population. This is about about 728,000 people who matched the boosted and unboosted controls.

Vaccine efficacy is 93% for hospitalization prophylaxis (231 events in the non-boosted group vs. 29 events in the boosted group), 92% for the prevention of severe illness (157: 17 events), and 81% for the prevention of death. It was (44 to 7). event).

Event rates may seem small overall, but there are significant differences between those groups. Still, it seems that regulators are paying attention to infection rates.In him Thanksgiving blog post, NIH directors Francis Collins, MD, PhD said they shouldn’t wait to get a booster.

“Boosters are the best way to prevent a possible winter surge,” he said.