“COVID-19 VACCINE BOOSTERS SAVE LIVES”

Yes, they really do! And The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is proud to report that fact. Two large studies conducted in Israel compared severe disease and death among individuals vaccinated against COVID-19 and those who were not.

The death rate in the booster group was 0.16 per 100,000 persons per day compared with a rate of 2.98 per 100,000 persons per day in the non-booster-receiving group. I’m not well-versed in statistics, but my calculation says you are 18 times more likely to die from COVID-9 if you have not received your booster shot! Eighteen times!

Once again, these studies were done in Israel, which must have an extraordinary public health infrastructure. One study involved 840,000 people aged 50 and over, 90% of whom received Pfizer vaccines and boosters, and the other, 4.7 million people aged 16 years and older. In addition to much lower death rates, booster shots, across all ages, resulted in “substantially lower rates of severe illness” as well. 

JAMA concluded that COVID-19 boosters “have a relative effectiveness of 90% to 95% against severe disease or death.” And “the absolute effectiveness of two vaccine doses is 90%, and the absolute effectiveness of two doses plus a booster is 99-100%!”

The hope among health officials is that the exceptional efficacy of booster doses will encourage those individuals who have not been boosted to receive the shot. “Increasing primary vaccination….throughout the world will make the most difference in preventing severe COVID-19 illness and death.” 

Dr. G’s Opinion: These data are very compelling. People need to be vaccinated now to protect themselves as well as others. Resistance is your right, of course, but when you see the effects this virus has had on our fellow man, our economy, and the world itself, how could you not comply. I do understand that people have all sorts of reasons to refuse vaccination, but are those reasons really that important? I’m not an alarmist. I haven’t really feared this virus any more than I feared patients with meningitis, encephalitis, or chicken pox, to which I was exposed multiple times. I had been vaccinated for every disease imaginable and was very cautious around people with these diseases. But mine was a controlled environment. I gowned and gloved up if there was even the slightest suspicion a patient had a contagious illness. People today, don’t have the advantage of foreknowledge with COVID-19. You’ve been exposed before you know it, then it’s too late. You’re probably gonna get sick! You need to protect yourself from those unavoidable chance exposures that catch you unprepared, and lead to very regrettable consequences. So GET VACCINATED AND GET BOOSTERED!!! It’s the smart thing to do.

References: Biotech Innovations: Studies suggest COVID-19 vaccine boosters save lives. JAMA 2022 Jan 11;327(2):115.