3 problems and solutions
Many people in the Netherlands have been vaccinated, but we are now in a new outbreak. How is that possible? The medical journal JAMA discusses various problems and shows that the vaccines still protect against greater misery.
Problem 1: Vaccinated people who contract corona are still contagious to others
Last summer it was discovered that after vaccination you can not only still contract corona, but that you can also spread quite a few virus particles. It can even be as much as in an unvaccinated person.
Solution: vaccines make you shorter contagious
The number of virus particles in a vaccinated person with corona decreases faster than in an unvaccinated person. So you are contagious for a shorter time thanks to vaccination. Fully vaccinated people infected with the coronavirus are less likely to infect others. This is apparent from various studies in England among 150,000 people who had been in contact with almost 100,000 people with corona. Vaccinated people passed on the virus about half as often.
Problem 2: Vaccinated people can still get covid
This problem is more difficult to investigate than you think, because older people are vaccinated more often, but can also become more seriously ill. So in hospitals you see people of different ages with and without vaccination, which raises the question of whether the vaccines help.
Solution: protect vaccines against severe covid-19
The American researcher Tenforde and his group have solved this by comparing groups of people with corona who have the same age, vaccine date, type of vaccine, strength of the immune system and corona variant. So comparing apples to apples. This showed that the vaccines indeed protect 85 percent against hospitalization due to Covid-19. This study concludes: if you contract corona while you are vaccinated, you get less severe symptoms, you have less risk of hospitalization and you recover faster. This also applies to the delta variant. However, two other problems came to light: the vaccines work less well in a weakened immune system and the effect decreases over time.
Problem 3: Vaccine efficacy is declining
The effectiveness of the RNA vaccines decreases after a few months. The Pfizer vaccine in particular appears to be considerably reduced after six months. Studies show that the vaccine protects at least half as well.
Solution: vaccines work better after a boost
Israel led the way in vaccination, where it was apparent early on that the Pfizer vaccines worked well. Now it also turned out to be a leader in the ‘elaboration’ of the vaccines, because the number of infections increased again. Israel started as one of the first countries with a boost vaccine and it is now showing good results. This booster vaccine provides new protection against infection, hospitalization and death from Covid-19.
People with a weakened immune system have been offered a booster for some time. The booster vaccination is now being prepared in the Netherlands for the elderly and residents of care institutions.
Knowing more? Read the complete article in the custard magazine JAMA (in English) here.
