4th COVID-19 vaccine dose triples protection against severe illness in people over 60: Israeli study
A new comprehensive Israeli study has found that a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose triples the protection against severe illness in people aged 60 and over, compared with three-dose protection, the Israeli Health Ministry said Tuesday.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was conducted by the ministry, three leading Israeli universities and the Sheba Medical Center, Israel's largest hospital.
Using the ministry database, the researchers extracted data on 1,252,331 persons who were 60 years of age or older and eligible for a fourth dose.
It was conducted during a period in which the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 was predominant, between January 10 and March 2 in 2022.
Except for the three-fold lower severe illness rate among the fourth-dose vaccinated, it was found that the protection did not decline throughout the study's eight-week period.
The rate of verified COVID-19 cases among the fourth-dose vaccinated people was twice as low as the three-dose group, but protection against confirmed infection appeared short-lived, according to the study.
