A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) details how effective COVID-19 boosters are for adults at preventing COVID-related hospitalizations, and emergency department (ED) and urgent care visits nationwide. Dr. Anupam Kharbanda, chief of critical care service at Children’s Minnesota, co-authored this study. The report compared fully-vaccinated people ages 18 to 65 who either did or did not receive an mRNA (Pfizer or Moderna) booster dose, and examined what level of clinical care they needed after contracting COVID-19. The data was first gathered when the Delta variant was the dominant COVID-19 variation, and then again during the Omicron variant surge. The study showed booster effectiveness at:
- Preventing COVID-19 related emergency departments/urgent care visits: Delta 94% | Omicron 82%
- Preventing COVID-19 related hospitalizations: Delta 94% | Omicron 90%
- Approximately 50% for non-boosted, fully-vaccinated, patients for either variant.
About the VISION Network
Dr. Kharbanda is part of the VISION Network; a CDC-funded group of experts in emergency medicine, infectious disease and critical care from hospitals across the United States. This team contributes data on COVID-19 vaccine safety and effectiveness from their individual clinical facilities to publish in CDC studies. The data for this new report on COVID-19 booster effectiveness does not include data from patients younger than 18 or from Children’s Minnesota. But, Dr. Kharbanda says he expects similar vaccine effectiveness results for kids who are fully-vaccinated and boosted. That data is currently being collected and should be released later this year.
Dr. Kharbanda and the VISION Network also co-authored a study that explained how immunocompromised adults are less protected from severe COVID-19 outcomes. This report was published by the CDC in November 2021, and outlines that the immunocompromised should receive a third primary mRNA vaccine dose.
