U.K. Study : 2 Covid19 Vaccines less effective against Delta variant
Vaccines against Covid-19 are less effective against the delta variant, a large U.K. study showed in results that may fuel a push for booster shots for fully vaccinated people.
Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE’s messenger RNA vaccine lost effectiveness in the first 90 days after full vaccination, though that shot and the one made by AstraZeneca Plc still staved off a majority of Covid infections.
The results are likely to fuel calls to give booster shots to the fully vaccinated even as countries around the world still lack enough supply for first immunisations.
Pfizer’s shot remained less effective in comparison with AstraZeneca at preventing infections with a high viral burden in roughly 4.5 months after the second dose, said Koen Pouwels, an Oxford senior researcher who helped lead the study.
“The higher levels of virus that we’re seeing in these infections in vaccinated people are consistent with the fact that unvaccinated people are just going to be at higher risk, I’m afraid,” said Sarah Walker, a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at Oxford, who helped lead the study.
However, Penny Ward, a visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King’s College London, who wasn’t involved with the study said that no vaccine is completely protected against infection with the delta variant.
U.S. – All Americans who received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, regardless of age, will need COVID-19 booster shots eight months after getting the second shot, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday. President Joe Biden said at a Wednesday briefing that his administration has been preparing for this eventuality and has enough supply, adding that the booster shots, which are free, will be available at about 80,000 vaccination locations across the country.
