The Korean government announced on Monday that it planned to provide booster shots to the fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in the fourth quarter.
An Israeli study showed that a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine is indeed effective in preventing Covid-19 infection.
On Friday, the Israel Ministry of Health released the study results, which compared the infection risk between 1,144,690 people aged 60 or older who received a booster shot in the July 30-Aug. 22 period and those without a third after the two full doses.
The results showed that the booster dose lowered the Covid-19 infection risk by approximately 11 folds. In addition, the booster shot also reduced the chance of progressing to severe illness by 10 folds.
The latest outcomes are better than the data presented by Israel’s Health Ministry earlier.
On Aug. 22, the Health Ministry had said that the protective effect against Covid-19 infection after a third dose was four times higher than after two doses. A third dose also boosted the prevention of serious illness and hospitalization by five or six times.
In another study by Israel’s Maccabi HealthCare Services on 149,144 people who received a booster jab, the third dose was 86 percent effective to prevent Covid-19 infection and 92 percent effective to avert serious illness. The study was released on Aug. 18.
“Our findings give clear indications of the effectiveness of a booster dose even against the currently dominant Delta variant,” the research team of the Israel Ministry of Health said. “The results of such a policy are of importance for countries that seek strategies to mitigate the pandemic.”
Judging that the effect of the booster shots has become visible in Israel, the Israeli government expanded recipients of booster jabs to those aged 40 or older on Aug. 19 and further broadened the eligible age group to people aged 12 or more on Sunday.
About 2 million (20 percent) out of Israel’s 9.3 million population have received the third dose as of Monday.
In early June, new daily cases in Israel had fallen to a single-digit but rose rapidly to around 10,000 in August.
As most of the elderly Israelis aged 60 or more were fully vaccinated in January and February, the vaccines’ effect might have waned, and the Israeli government has been giving booster shots to the seniors since July 30.