A large study in France found that vaccination is super efficient at preventing severe cases of Covid-19, even against the Delta variant.
The study looked at 22 million adults over the age of 50 and found that those who had received vaccinations were 90 percent less likely to be hospitalized or die.
The findings corroborate previous findings from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel, but experts claim this is the largest study of its sort to date.
The researchers compared the results of 11 million vaccinated patients against 11 million unvaccinated subjects using data acquired beginning in December 2020, when France initiated its jab campaign.
They constructed pairs by matching an unvaccinated person with a vaccinated counterpart from the same region, age, and gender, and followed them from the date of the vaccinated person’s second jab until July 20th.
According to Epi-Phare, an independent medicines safety research group that collaborates closely with the French government, the risk of severe Covid in vaccinated patients was lowered by 90% 14 days following a second dose.
Vaccination appears to be nearly as effective against the Delta form, providing 84% protection for those 75 and older and 92% protection for those 50-75.
That estimate, however, is based on only one month of data, as the variation only became prominent in France in June.
“The study should be followed up to include results from August and September,” epidemiologist Mahmoud Zureik, the head of Epi-Phare, told AFP.
The study included vaccination with Pfizer/BioNtech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca vaccines, but not Jannsen, which was approved much later and is significantly less extensively used in France.
The findings also imply that vaccine protection against severe Covid did not decline during the course of the research, which lasted up to five months.
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