The New CDC Study Shows Limited/Poor Effects From Boosting on Hospitalization
There is an important new pre-print study of Omicron in California (by Kaiser/UC Berkeley/CDC). Out of 70,000 cases tracked:
70% of cases turned out to be omicron (i.e. the large majority).
the death rate for omicron was .002%, whereas for delta it was .08%. THAT SHOWS OMICRON BEING 40 TIMES LESS DEADLY THAN DELTA
omicron cases had a 70% *lower* chance of ending up in ICU compared to delta.
out of nearly 17k delta patients, 11 ended up on ventilators, whereas no omicron cases did (despite there being many *more* omicron cases).
natural immunity is still OUTRAGEOUSLY more effective than vaccine immunity. Look at the last page of study — did I get the math right that natural immunity is more than 26 times as effective as 3 jabs at protecting from infection for omicron, and 46 times for delta? (Yes — natural immunity with a jab looks to be *more* effective, but natural immunity alone is so powerful that you're just splitting hairs by adding the jab. Get an additional shot if you want, but don't feel you really need to.)
Boosting - Is it Helpful?
The study also shows boosting isn't looking *obviously* helpful at reducing hospitalizations.
(I just neatened up the presentation of data from the bottom of p.18.)
Of course, it's complicated.
Older and more vulnerable people are more likely to be boosted, and of course their health overall will be more delicate and prone to issues. They'll also be more anxious about COVID — so might go in and end up staying overnight to be observed, even if they're doing pretty well.
So I'm NOT saying the vaccines make you more prone to hospitalization. But it is true to say that those who are boosted are having as many or more hospitalizations (per capita) as the unvaccinated.
This is *not true* for those with 1 or 2 doses — they get hospitalized less than the unvaccinated for delta or the same for omicron (not more).
There could be demographic reasons for that as well (those who stopped after 1/2 doses are younger, healthier?).
But still... It's worth nothing that boosters might not be the magic bullet we're making them into. We need to keep tracking this over time.
Of course, what does the NY Times say, defying what the study itself shows?
As usual, the answer to every question — no matter the data — is vaccines vaccines vaccines...
"'Vaccines are quite helpful,' Dr. Lewnard said. He and his colleagues found that Californians who were vaccinated were 64 to 73 percent less likely to be hospitalized than unvaccinated people."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/health/california-omicron-hospitalizations.html