According to Science Daily, during the first Omicron wave, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, analyzed intra-cell transmission of COVID-19 in California jails and observed that recent vaccination and boosting helped restrict viral dissemination.
The study shows that vaccination and boosting are effective in reducing transmission even in circumstances where many people are still becoming sick. Furthermore, it shows the synergistic benefits of booster shots and the additional protection afforded by vaccination for those who have already been exposed to the sickness. Every extra dosage reduces the probability of transmission by 11%.
“A lot of the benefits of vaccines to reduce infectiousness came from people who had received boosters and people who had recently been vaccinated,” said Nathan Lo, MD, Ph.D., a faculty research fellow in the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at UCSF and the senior author of the study published in Nature Medicine on January 2, 2022. Our discoveries have the potential to significantly improve the healthcare system in jails.
The researchers examined aggregated, anonymized data from California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). From December 15th, 2021, to May 20th, 2022, data on 111,687 people, 97% of whom were men, were gathered on their COVID-19 test results, vaccination status, and addresses.
Breakthrough infections were prevalent, despite the fact that 81% of patients had completed the first vaccine series. Despite this, deadly diseases were infrequent. There were 22,334 confirmed instances of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron just over five months later; 31 people were hospitalized, but no deaths were linked to COVID-19.
When vaccinated and unvaccinated persons were compared, those who suffered a breakthrough illness were 28% less likely to transfer it. There was a 6% increase in transmission risk for every five weeks that went after a previous vaccine. Natural immunity from a prior infection may have had a protective effect since reinfected people had a 23% lower chance of spreading the virus than uninfected people (33%).
Those who had protection from both sickness and vaccine lowered transmission by 40%. The natural immunity that develops in the face of an infection provided half of the defense, while prophylactic efforts such as vaccination provided the other half.
Researchers were startled to see the disease spread so quickly throughout the community despite high vaccination rates, but it was encouraging to discover that immunization provides some extra protection to people who have already been afflicted.
According to the findings of Lo’s team, “despite the benefits you discover in vaccination and prior infection, there is still a significant rate of transmission in our study,” as lead author Sophia Tan put it. Reminding convicts to get their booster shots on time is just as important as raising the vaccination rate among prison personnel, which was just 73% at the time of the study.
The present rate of growth can be accelerated. Only 59% of residents and 41% of staff had gotten all of the dosages advised by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) based on age and health status at the time of the research.
People are least infectious two months after receiving a vaccination, according to Lo, implying that booster shots and large-scale, carefully scheduled immunization campaigns may help lower transmission during epidemics. Because the danger of infection remains high among these persons, innovative interventions are required.
