Fourth doses of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are only “partially” effective for the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the authors of an Israeli trial said on Monday.
A team from Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv began conducting a trial last month on fourth doses of vaccines, inoculating 154 hospital personnel with Pfizer-BioNTech jabs and 120 other volunteers with Moderna doses.
Preliminary results of the trial “have shown that the vaccines are safe and have shown to produce substantial antibodies, but are only partially effective in defending against the Omicron variant,” the hospital said in a statement.
Professor Gili Regev-Yochay, who leads the study, said that while there was an increase in antibodies after administering a fourth dose, it nonetheless “only offers a partial defense against the virus” for those infected with the Omicron variant.
The vaccines were “extremely effective against the earlier variants,” Regev-Yochay added.
Israel was among the first nations to launch mass immunization campaigns for its population.
It then began offering booster shots in the summer last year and has since given to green light to fourth shots for older and vulnerable populations.
More than 537,000 Israelis have received a fourth dose of vaccine, Israeli Ministry of Health data showed.
More than 80 percent of Israel’s adult residents have received two vaccine shots and more than half have also been given a booster.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government on Monday said that it was reducing the quarantine period for positive cases from seven to five days, as a record number of infections threatens to overburden the economy.
“This decision will enable us to continue safeguarding public health on the one hand and to keep the economy going at this time on the other, even though it is difficult,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a short video message sent by his office.
Faced with skyrocketing infections fueled by the Omicron variant, Israel has become the latest nation to reduce quarantine periods, after similar moves by France, Spain, Argentina, the US and the UK.
Israel shuttered its borders after discovering one person infected with the Omicron variant in November last year, but reopened earlier this month, despite a spike in infections.
In total, more than 1.7 million infections have been recorded since the start of the pandemic in Israel, including more than 8,300 deaths, government data showed.
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