New Delhi: With vaccination drive picking up globally, here is a new study throwing light on fully vaccinated people suggesting they are 11 times less likely to die of Covid and 10 times less likely to be hospitalized compared to the unvaccinated people.
The findings have been derived from one of three new papers published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and shared by the US health authorities. The studies have focused on effectiveness of Covid vaccines' against severe outcomes at a time when highly contagious Delta has emerged as the most common variant, according to news agency AFP.
Around 41.5 per cent of the world population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to the estimate of ourworldindata.
What are the findings?
One of the studies suggests Moderna's vaccine has offered a slightly higher level of protection in the Delta period. However, the reasons not yet well understood. The study comes after President Joe Biden came up with an aggressive new immunization plan which called for companies employing more than 100 people to either vaccinate their workers or test them weekly.
At a press briefing CDC director Rochelle Walenksy said studies have shown that vaccination works. The first study was focused on cases in 13 US jurisdictions from April 4 - June 19, the period before Delta was dominant, and compared them to June 20 - July 17.
It discovered that between these periods, a vaccinated person's risk of Covid infection rose slightly: from being 11 times less likely to be infected compared to an unvaccinated person, to five times less likely.
Efficacy against hospitalization was highest for Moderna at 95 percent; then Pfizer at 80 percent; and finally Johnson & Johnson at 60 percent, according to teh report. Overall efficacy against hospitalization was 86 percent for all age groups but this fell to 76 percent for those over 75.
While the protection against hospitalization and death were found to be more stable, but decreased among people aged 65 and above than for younger age groups.
Both CDC and the Food and Drug Administration are looking at the option for booster shots, and it is likely the elderly will be among the first to receive them when the Biden administration starts to roll them out later in September.