The coronavirus vaccine has been around for nearly a year now and one of the popular vaccines is the Pfizer jab. An analysis of the patients in the United States has found that the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine remain highly effective against severe COVID-19 for at least six months. Moreover the jab also provides protection against the current threat the Delta variant. Some of the earlier data from the clinical trials has shown that the vaccines protect against hospitalization.
Healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente along with Pfizer looked at the records from nearly 3.4 million residents from Southern California. Nearly a third of them were fully vaccinated between December 2020 and August 2021. It was observed that after an average period of three to four months the fully vaccinated people were found to be 73 percent protected against the infection and nearly 90 percent of them were protected against hospitalization.
However, the protection against the Delta variant had fallen by 40 percent over five months, but the protection against hospitalization in the cases from all the variants remained very high during the study. The decrease in the infection defense could be due to the decrease in the effectiveness of the vaccine rather than the delta variant while escaping the vaccine protection. The study has further suggested that looking at the figures, there could be chances that people might need booster doses so that the initial high amount of protection could be continued.
It was in the month of August, 2021 when the United States gave the green signal for a third booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine for people who are 65 years old or above or are having a week immune system. In France, the third dose is already being offered for the elderly citizens. Israel has taken a different step by offering the children above the age of 12 and older, a third dose of the vaccine, five months after they receive the second shot.
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