The 4th dose of vaccine reduces the risk of dying from Covid-19 by 78%

Health workers give people a Covid-19 vaccine. (Source: AFP/VNA)

The study of Clalit health insurance group took data of over 563,450 patients aged 60 to 100, divided into two groups: group I received only 3 doses of the vaccine and group II agreed to receive a fourth dose of vaccine (accounting for the fourth dose). 58%).

The results of tracking data from January 10 to February 20 showed that during this period, 232 people in group I died, a sharp increase compared to 92 people in group II. The Clalit experts concluded that the risk of death in the fourth dose group was reduced by 78%.

Dr Doron Netzer, director of Clalit’s Department of Public Health, said that the study’s results are important because most people are thinking that the Omicron variant causes only mild symptoms, so there is no need for a vaccine. supplement.

Meanwhile, another study by health insurance group Maccabi also tracked the effectiveness of the booster vaccine in 100,000 people over 60 years old in Israel between January and March 2022.

The results showed that the 4th dose of the vaccine was 73% more effective than the previous 3 doses in preventing the risk of severe Covid-19 disease. However, even the 3rd dose was very effective, when less than 1% of elderly people who received the 3rd dose were severely infected with Covid-19.

In addition, research by Maccabi shows that the 4th dose also helps reduce the risk of infection. Accordingly, after about 3 weeks of being injected, the risk of Covid-19 infection in those who received the 4th dose was reduced by 64% compared to those who only received the 3rd dose.

However, this rate decreased to 29% after 10 weeks, indicating that the effectiveness of the additional vaccine dose decreased significantly over time.

Experts say that more research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the fourth dose of the vaccine over a longer period, as well as the effectiveness of a vaccine against different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Currently, the majority of Israelis only use vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, while sub-branches of the Omicron variant have appeared in this country.

Up to now, in Israel, 6.1 million people have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 4.4 million people have received three injections. Although the Israeli Government announced a gift of 30 USD/person for those over 60 years old to get the 4th injection, so far only 750,000 people have agreed to receive the additional injection.