Thread by @EricTopol

Covid vaccines are essential and have had a profoundly positive impact.
There's controversy as to whether boosters will be useful for age <60.
New data highlights significantly less protection vs symptomatic infections and, to a lesser extent, hospitalizations /1

Summary of the recent data for vaccine effectiveness vs symptomatic infections. At 2 months, this was well over 90% for mRNA vaccines, but by 4-6+ months has declined to between 44-70%.
All ages.
Data for Pfizer, Moderna, and AZ /2

The Qatar data were just published @NEJM

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1445856967860228102

Here are the ICATT data (age <65), presented at the recent CDC ACIP meeting /3

These are the recent studies for mRNA vaccine effectiveness (VE) vs hospitalizations. In early months post-vaccination, >90% would be expected. The decline is much less than vs symptomatic infections and more pronounced in age 65+ /4

Whether symptomatic infections are important to suppress, the 1° endpoint of the 💉clinical trials, is now the crux of the debate. These can be pretty severe, at the brink of hospitalization, & pose a risk for #LongCovid. There's also a risk for them to transmit, but it's low /5

Concern on this last point, #LongCovid, and this decision
wsj.com/articles/long-… by @StephArmour1 @felschwartz w/ @PeterHotez commentary /6