Booster vaccinations: the value of the third dose

So much stress about a sensational vaccination, who would have expected that?

Even now that the Covid-19 vaccination for adolescents is finally recommended by the Standing Vaccination Commission, which confirms security and creates another prerequisite for further advancing the vaccination rate, confidence is crumbling for many.

The millions of vaccinees are not alone.

Mistrust is also spreading because as the pandemic progresses into autumn, new uncertainties and agonizing questions arise that cannot be completely eradicated even by the vaccination authorities for the time being.

Right at the top is the discussion about booster vaccinations, also known as “boosters”. It has long been clarified whether an additional, third dose (at Johnson & Johnson a second dose) is actually necessary to achieve optimal vaccination protection. The immune system benefits in almost every case. That is not particularly surprising either. For many vaccinations, not least children’s vaccinations, there is a triple scheme. They work most effectively and significantly longer with the booster.

Israel now has the most experience with Covid-19 boosters, and they clearly show that the vaccination protection, which naturally wears off in the months after the second dose because some of the antibodies and immune cells disappear after the first high-performance immune training, is particularly effective in the case of immunocompromised and very old people, radically start up again with the booster dose.

How long remains unclear for the time being.

For the time being, the data situation with regard to the side effects of an additional dose is still thin - this is another reason for the renewed hesitation of the STIKO.

In any case, the immunological benefit is undisputed, especially now towards winter for the risk groups in the population.

Is Israel a role model?

Many millions in our country are immunocompromised, not just transplant recipients, chronic kidney patients or cancer patients undergoing treatment.

Rheumatism or autoimmune patients who are permanently treated with anti-inflammatory cortisone or extremely overweight with risk factors can benefit significantly from the booster.

Israel is therefore going further, much further than some countries in this country - anticipating the STIKO place.

The government in Israel wants all citizens over the age of twelve to receive the booster before winter, and those who do not have it could soon lose their vaccinated status in the Green Passport.

However, setting up strong vaccination incentives and increasing the pressure to close vaccination gaps comes at a price.

Vaccination through the back door is just one of the obvious allegations.

Confidence in the vaccination generally suffers when the message is spread that, without a refresher, one would be less protected from the virus - at least the highly infectious Delta variant - than promised after the clinical trials of the vaccines.

Vaccines protect even without boosters

The opposite is true: the vaccines provide highly effective protection even without a booster and despite the delta.

Anyone who has been fully vaccinated so far and is not one of the risk groups is still five times as well protected from infection and almost thirty times as well protected from Covid 19 disease - including the consequential damage caused by the disease.

This does not change the fact that people with an increased risk of disease, the elderly and those with a weakened immune system due to illness, are convinced that all experts need a booster vaccination as soon as possible because they were the first to be vaccinated.

The situation is different for everyone else.

On the other hand, if you promise to protect the entire population as quickly as possible, like the government in Washington, you are not only risking a new prioritization debate in the country.

He also breaks the promise of solidarity made in the Sunday speeches since the vaccination campaigns began, according to which the pandemic will only be overcome when everyone is protected.

Many African and Asian countries are still so far from containing the disease with vaccination rates in the low single digits that the priorities should be obvious for now. As long as dangerous vaccination breakthroughs do not accumulate in the vaccinated population, the goal should be to close the large vaccination gaps as quickly as possible outside the country's borders, out of pure self-protection. The booster would therefore initially only be recommended to those who are immunologically needy.

Even without a booster, vaccinated people hardly have to fear death from Covid. Unvaccinated people, on the other hand, are not only much more at risk, they are also the greatest source of new, more dangerous variants. Unvaccinated people are also much more contagious. Nobody knows for the time being whether the booster vaccination can also help - and if so, for how long - to reduce the number of cases. But case numbers should no longer be politically relevant for decision-making.