91-year-old Margaret Keenan gets her Covid-19 booster vaccine
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The roll-out of the coronavirus vaccines in Britain has managed to stem the rising tide of hospitalisations and deaths from COVID-19 by slashing the risk of severe disease. However, certain cohorts are afforded greater protection than others from the vaccines, new evidence suggests. That’s because a previous Covid infection enhances your protection from two shots of a coronavirus vaccine.
That’s the conclusion of the latest analysis from the ZOE COVID Study, which investigates real-world vaccine effectiveness.
It has found previous COVID-19 infection together with being double vaccinated, increases an individual’s protection against COVID-19 to as much as 94 percent.
ZOE’s research found two doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca (AstraZeneca) provided 71 percent protection against infection up to six months after vaccination, while protection was increased to 90 percent among those who previously tested positive for COVID-19.
Two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA (Pfizer) gave 80 percent protection up to six months after vaccination, which increased even further to 94 percent with a previous COVID-19 infection.
This is one of the largest real-world vaccine effectiveness studies, drawing on over 1.2 million test results.
The analysis found that a previous COVID-19 infection without vaccination gave only 65 percent protection, showing vaccination on average provides better protection and the addition of vaccination significantly increases protection.
The research also found that the protection from a previous COVID-19 infection alone did not wane for up to 450 days after being infected, which was independent of vaccination status.
This is unlike vaccine protection which ZOE has observed probably begins to wane after three months.
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This means individuals who have had two doses of vaccine on top of a previous infection are likely to maintain higher levels of protection from COVID-19 for longer than those who were not infected with COVID prior to their vaccination.
How the team gathered their findings
The ZOE COVID Study launched an App feature on Dec 11, 2020 to enable logging of COVID-19 vaccines and monitor real-world side-effects and effectiveness in its cohort of over a million active users.
ZOE used data from vaccines which were logged from Dec 8, 2020 to Jul 31, 2021 and from infections which occurred between May 26, 2021, when the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) became dominant, and Jul 31, 2021.
The research analysed data for up to six months as there isn’t yet enough data beyond this point.
Therefore, this latest analysis is not suggesting that protection stops after six months, as more time passes and more data is gathered ZOE will continue to monitor and analyse vaccine effectiveness and immunity.
Professor Tim Spector, lead scientist on the ZOE COVID Study app, comments on the latest data: “Regardless of which vaccine is administered, this latest research shows that having a natural COVID-19 infection before double vaccination does mean greater protection.
“This is really positive news for overall immunity levels in the UK and means that large numbers of people will have effective and long lasting protection from COVID-19. This is also strong evidence to support the need for vaccination, even for those who have already had COVID-19.
“When it comes to a booster jab, it’s my opinion that if you’re not in one of the eligible groups for a booster yet, but have a previous infection and two vaccines, you shouldn’t be too worried as your protection will be very high.”
Prof Spector added: “It’s likely that there will be high levels of uptake in those who are double vaccinated and are invited for a booster, so it’s more important we focus on those who remain unvaccinated, which is still too high, and we are quickly falling behind the rest of Europe.”
Who can get the vaccine
People aged 18 and over (or turning 18 within three months) can get a first and second dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
Most children and young people aged 12 to 17 are currently only being offered a first dose.
If you’re aged 16 or over you can:
- Book your COVID-19 vaccination appointments online for an appointment at a vaccination centre or pharmacy
- Find a walk-in COVID-19 vaccination site to get vaccinated without needing an appointment
- Wait to be contacted by your GP surgery and book your appointments with them.
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