Vaccine effects suffer ‘sharp drop’ over time

New health report details the need for booster shots over vaccine effects decline

Vaccinations against Covid-19 are key in the fight against the pandemic, but new findings show they lose some of their effectiveness against the virus over time. The Vaccination Effectiveness Working Group, promoted by the Ministry of Health, has a new report that confirms this. The 30-page document has been highly anticipated by epidemiologists, vaccinologists, and health managers. 

One of the conclusions lain out in the paper is regarding one of the most vulnerable groups during the pandemic, elderly care home residents. People who received their vaccination from May this year onwards are still showing a level of 96% effectiveness against infection, symptomatic infection, hospitalisation and death. However, for those how had their dose in March, the effectiveness decreases by “58%, 64%, 65% and 77% for infection, symptomatic infection, hospitalization and death, respectively, which could indicate a loss of immunity over time since vaccination.”

Overall, the results show that there has been a significant drop in the effectiveness of vaccination, both against infection and against more serious events such as hospitalization or death, in people residing in nursing homes, which could be due to to a loss of immunity of people vaccinated in February and March, when they were mostly vaccinated in residences, since protection in people vaccinated between April and May has remained at high levels “, says the report in the section 4.

This information ties in with the need for booster shots as we head into the winter. Spain has approved this vaccination plan already and has begun dispensing the doses. The report suggests that younger recipients don’t experience such a sharp decline in protection over time. They have a high level which is “maintained over time even after several months of vaccination and after the arrival and expansion of the delta variant at the end of the year.”

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