Data suggest third COVID vaccine dose reduces infection, hospitalizationA third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine appears to counteract waning vaccine protection in the short term, according to a preliminary case-control analysis of more than 500,000 coronavirus tests in Israel.In the retrospective study, published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine, a team led by Maccabi Healthcare Services researchers found a 1.8% SARS-CoV-2 infection rate after a booster dose, compared with 6.6% after two vaccine doses.
Participants receiving the booster also seemed to be at lower risk for hospitalization.The study involved 306,710 Israelis 40 years and older who received two or three doses of the vaccine and did not have a previous