CDC says vaccine protection drops for older Americans, although they still work very well for younger

• The CDC released new data on Friday suggesting that seniors do not have the same protection against hospitalization as others.

• According to a study, the effectiveness of the vaccine against hospitalization is only 75% in adults aged 75 and over, while it is 90% in those under 75.

• The reports, taken together, provide a compelling case for booster shots for older Americans.

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U.S. health officials are releasing new data that suggests older people should start lining up for booster shots in just a few weeks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shared two new data sets on Friday showing that the immunity people over 65 got from their first COVID-19 vaccines may be starting to wane.

The declines are most pronounced among people aged 75 and older, who, according to a CDC report, are increasingly at risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19, even when they are completely vaccinated.

Taken as a whole, the reports suggest that vaccines still work very well in their primary task of keeping people under 65 alive and out of hospital – but for the elderly, vaccine protection is not. also strong.

Reports provide an argument for offering boosters to older Americans soon. They also suggest that while more than 80% of adults over 65 are already fully vaccinated, this may not be enough to protect them from serious illness.

Reports investigated how well vaccines prevent serious illness and hospitalization

The first report followed 1,175 veterans hospitalized at five different VA medical centers across the country, taking into account their age and vaccination status.

The study only included veterans who had been fully vaccinated with two injections of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, excluding anyone who mixed brands or received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Almost all of these study participants (93%) were male (most veterans are), but veterans were also “older, more racially diverse” and had a higher prevalence of problems. underlying health than the general population of the United States, the CDC study authors wrote. This makes Veterans an important group to study, as they may be among the most vulnerable vaccinated patients.

The story continues

Encouragingly, the study found that even among veterans, vaccine protection against hospitalization remained high (at 95%) for fully vaccinated people under 65 – even with the Delta variant dominant over the course of the year. summer, causing some mild infections in vaccinees.

In veterans over 65, however, vaccine protection against hospitalization was much lower (around 80%), suggesting that older people are not as well protected against infection as others with two. injections on board.

The second study measured how well the three vaccines licensed in the United States (Pfizer, Moderna and J&J) protect people from hospitalization with COVID-19, looking at more than 32,000 hospital and emergency room visits in nine US states during the summer.

Data from this study suggests that vaccines are about 86% effective against hospitalization overall, but that figure drops to 76% in adults 75 years of age or older.

When people over 75 were excluded from the equation, vaccines were almost 90% effective in preventing hospitalization.

This type of decline in vaccine effectiveness in the elderly had not been seen as much in previous studies, conducted before Delta took over.

It is difficult to know for sure what is causing the decline. Immunity to the vaccine may decline for the elderly, who were vaccinated earlier during the initial deployment. But it is also possible that the Delta variant makes the efficacy of the vaccine lower in this group. The drop could be due to “a combination of factors,” the authors of the CDC report said.

“It can actually be very difficult for us to disentangle the time since vaccination and the impact of the Delta variant, especially in some populations that we know have been vaccinated earlier,” said Sarah Oliver of the CDC during ” meeting of independent vaccine advisers on August 30. .

An argument for older people to get reminders

Last month, the White House said everyone would be eligible for boosters eight months after vaccination, with initial booster shots targeted at the elderly and healthcare workers in late September. President Biden said Thursday that “as soon as they are cleared, eligible people will be able to get a recall immediately, at tens of thousands of locations across the country.”

But official decisions on when and who to stimulate must come from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as well as the CDC.

So far, they have only recommended boosters for immunocompromised people in the United States, calling for more data to support, for example, strengthening older Americans.

The two new reports released today suggest that the elderly may soon use another injection. Older people generally do not have a robust response to vaccines of all kinds because their immune systems are not as strong.

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