Dozen UK companies given VIP fast-track contracts to supply PPE to NHS paid idled staff at taxpayers’ expense

Firms handed £1.3bn in Covid contracts claimed £1m in furlough grants

In summary, Evusheld should retain activity vs Omicron despite 10-100-fold decreased activity. But the BA.1.1 version (+R346K) is expected to further decr cilgavimab activity and we should keep a close eye on this variant and monitor for breakthrough infections on Evusheld 7/7

However, position 346 is a site of resistance for cilgavimab and R346K will further decrease its activity based on in vitro data (https://nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04388-0…, COV2-2130 = cil in figure below) 6/7

Based on the neut curves above and the PK data (https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.12.472269v1…), tix/cil should be maintained above the IC90s for at least 6 months vs Omicron, which is reassuring. 5/7

It turns out that tix/cil is at baseline far more potent than sotrovimab as nicely outlined by neut curves in this paper (https://nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04386-2…). Even with the bigger loss of activity of tix/cil vs Omicron, the IC50s end up at a similar point compared to sot (red lines) 4/7

Based on the NIH OpenData portal of aggregate in vitro data against Omicron, tix/cil has 10-100-fold decreased activity (greater loss of activity for tix than cil), but sotrovimab only has a 2-4-fold loss of activity. So how are both considered likely still active vs Omicron? 3/7

Tix/cil (Evusheld) are 2 mAbs that bind non-overlapping RBD epitopes + have Fc changes to make them long-lasting. In the ph3 PROVENT trial, tix/cil given to high-risk uninfected pts resulted in a 77% reduction in symptomatic COVID-19 infxn. It's FDA-authorized for PrEP 2/7

There's a lineage of Omicron that's gained the R346K mutation (BA.1.1). This one could spell some trouble for the AZ mAb (tixagevimab/cilgavimab, Evusheld) that's being used for pre-exposure prophylaxis. If you want to learn about tix/cil vs Omicron, read on 1/7

So far BA.2 a small minority of cases in England but it is gaining & will likely be dominant by end of Feb. (UKHSA and Denmark both report it's got a growth advantage). Not sure how it squares up vs BA.1.1 which is also growing in share (but slower). Here is London pic. 2/2

Update on growth of Omicron subvariant BA.2 in England from Wellcome Sanger data. Growing in all regions. The main Omicron variant we've had so far is BA.1. There is then its child BA.1.1 with an extra mutation and its brother BA.2 which is pretty different to BA.1. 1/2

Connecticut Cases down 72% from last week (lower test resulting). Positive rate 7.3%, lowest since 12/20. Hospitalizations down 29%. 46% are fully vaccinated. FWIW - my hospital is 67% down from peak census. Good news!

cases are down but deaths have not peaked yet

10.31234/osf.io/mux5s

COVID-19 remains a leading cause of death in the United States, despite wide availability of vaccines. Distance may pose an overlooked barrier to vaccine uptake. We analyzed the association between distance to vaccine sites and vaccination rates. Zip codes farther away from vaccine sites had consistently lower vaccine uptake. This effect persisted after controlling for potent covariates (e.g., partisanship, vaccine hesitancy), as well as in multiverse analyses testing across more than 1,000 specifications. Suggesting that the effect was not explained by reverse causality (i.e. proximity driven by demand), the distance effect maintained in analyses limited only to retail locations (e.g., CVS), whose location was set pre-pandemic. Findings suggest that reducing distance to vaccine sites as a powerful lever for encouraging COVID-19 vaccination.

Distance to Vaccine Sites is Associated with Lower COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake

10.31234/osf.io/xu8k3

A social environment, such as relational mobility which represents availability of opportunities to develop new relationships in society, cultivates an individual’s psychology or behavior in interpersonal situations and their social network. Generalized trust, which represents trust among people in general, is a psychological tendency to expand individuals’ social ties in a fluid society. Using the data of 158 students, we analyzed whether an individual’s belief of generalized trust measured by a psychological scale, behavioral trust in a Trust Game, and perception of relational mobility affected the social network in which they were embedded. We conducted a survey to assess psychological measures and social networks under the COVID-19 pandemic for first-year university students. After approximately six months, we subsequently conducted the Trust Game for the same students. We found that generalized trust correlated with the number of outdegrees (i.e., the nomination of close friends). In contrast, behavioral trust and the perception of relational mobility were not associated with generalized trust and any social network measures. The results support the argument that the belief of generalized trust functions as an adaptive psychological mechanism to expand individuals’ relationships in their social networks.

Generalized and behavioral trust: Correlation with nominating close friends in a social network

10.31234/osf.io/mqyu2

Humans live in a fundamentally social world. The behavior and judgments from friends, colleagues, television hosts and social media feeds drive our purchase decisions, induce lifestyle changes, and determine voting preferences. People tend to be more sensitive to social information when they are unsure about their own beliefs, and assign more weight to social information when its source is highly confident. However, little is known about the relative impact of the confidence of self and others on social information use, and how they jointly shape social transmission. Here we show with two incentivized decision-making experiments that the confidence of others had a substantially larger impact on social information use than people’s own confidence. In tasks involving perceptual decisions (experiment 1; N=203) and US election predictions (experiment 2; N=213), participants could adjust their initial judgments upon observing judgments of others and were rewarded for accuracy. Adjustments were most strongly impacted by the confidence of others, particularly when participants’ own confidence was low. Furthermore, confidence also affected adjustment heuristics: confident others prompted participants to compromise more often, rather than to stick with their initial judgments. Our results highlight how giving more weight on the confidence of others can be a double-edged sword: it can accelerate learning when confidence is related to accuracy, but it also leaves people vulnerable to sources who confidently share misinformation.

Confidence of others trumps confidence of self in social information use

10.31234/osf.io/5qc3z

Conformist social influence is a double-edged sword when it comes to vaccine promotion. On the one hand, social influence may increase vaccine uptake by reassuring the hesitant about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine; on the other, people may forgo the cost of vaccination when the majority is already vaccinated – giving rise to a public goods dilemma. Here, we examine whether available information on the percentage of double-vaccinated people affects COVID-19 vaccination intention among unvaccinated people in Turkey. In an online experiment, we divided participants (n = 1013) into low, intermediate, and high social influence conditions, reflecting the government’s vaccine promotion messages. We found that social influence did not predict COVID-19 vaccination intention, but psychological reactance and collectivism did. People with higher reactance (intolerance of others telling one what to do and being sceptical of consensus views) had lower vaccination intention, whilst people with higher collectivism (how much a person considers group benefits over individual success) had higher vaccination intention. Our findings suggest that advertising the percentage of double-vaccinated people is not sufficient to trigger a cascade of others getting themselves vaccinated. Diverse promotion strategies reflecting the heterogeneity of individual attitudes could be more effective.

Does social influence affect COVID-19 vaccination intention among the unvaccinated?

10.31234/osf.io/dvb5x

Individuals oftentimes lack personal control over risks and depend on powerful others to manage a risk for them. This lack of control could lead individuals to derive risk evaluations from beliefs about the trustworthiness of powerful others, which might explain the vital effect of trust on risk perception. Three studies (total N = 1,961) provide evidence for the proposed moderation of the trust-risk association by personal control in diverse contexts (i.e., COVID-19, meat consumption, and climate change). In line with the assertion that risk evaluations can be derived from beliefs about others being willing and able to avert a risk, Study 2 and 3 show that beliefs in the benevolence of powerful others but no other trustees or trust attributions drive the effects of trust on risk perceptions depending on personal control. The findings remained significant when partialling out the effects of potential confounding variables, such as perceived knowledge, the affect heuristic, responsibility diffusion, and political orientation. Unlike previous research, perceived knowledge did not moderate the association of trust with risk perceptions. Moreover, the data indicate that trust in powerful others managing a risk can partially backfire in people who lack personal control by indirectly thwarting behavioral risk responses and policy support for managing the risk. The present findings highlight that trust attributions can serve as information for evaluating risks that are beyond an individual’s sense of control.

Trust is good, control is better: The role of trust and personal control in response to risk

Omicron viruses can be divided into two major groups, referred to as PANGO lineages BA.1 and BA.2 or @nextstrain clades 21K and 21L. The vast majority of globally sequenced Omicron have been 21K (~630k) compared a small minority of 21L (~18k), but 21L is gaining ground. 1/15

Norman has NOIDea Covid is almost entirely notified by labs not GPs. Norman is an embarrassment to @QMUL

Connecticut Cases down 19%. Positive rate is 6.6%, similar to early December. We are at comparable case levels to last winter. Hospitalizations down 32%. Deaths continue to decline, down 22%.

Vaccines that reduce infection & disease are needed to combat the pandemic. Here, @tianyangmao @BenIsraelow et al. describe our new mucosal booster strategy, Prime and Spike, to induce such immunity via nasal delivery of unadjuvanted spike vaccine (1/) https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.24.477597v1

The boundaries of responsible behavior are less clear than they once were.

The COVID Jerk

In the latest @ONS estimates of #LongCovid (up to 2nd Jan 2022), only 87 thousand of the 1.33 million cases were admitted to hospital with their acute Covid19 infection.

Two years into a pandemic that turned us all into amateur virologists, we’ve learned that the best-spreading coronavirus variant will outcompete any slowpokes. But something curious happened with Omicron: The more transmissible version didn’t take off first. The virus that the world came to know as Omicron — and that ignited outbreaks in countries around the world — is just one lineage that made up the broader Omicron grouping. It’s known officially as BA.1. For some time, its sister viruses, including one named BA.2, didn’t seem to be doing much.

Omicron’s sister variant spreads faster. So why did the one we call Omicron hit first?

Can you test negative for COVID but still have it? This is why it seems to take so long for a rapid test to turn positive.

If You Think You Have COVID But Your Rapid Test Is Negative, Here’s Why

10.1038/s41590-021-01126-6

Delayed dosing intervals are a strategy to immunize a greater proportion of the population. In an observational study, we compared humoral and cellular responses in health care workers receiving two doses of BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine at standard (3- to 6-week) and delayed (8- to 16-week) intervals. In the delayed-interval group, anti-receptor-binding domain antibody titers were significantly enhanced compared to the standard-interval group. The 50% plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT50) and PRNT90 titers against wild-type (ancestral) severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and Alpha, Beta and Delta variants were higher in the delayed-interval group. Spike-specific polyfunctional CD4+ and CD8+ T cells expressing interferon-γ and interleukin-2 were comparable between the two groups. Here, we show that the strategy of delaying second doses of mRNA vaccination may lead to enhanced humoral immune responses, including improved virus neutralization against wild-type and variant SARS-CoV-2 viruses. This finding has potentially important implications as vaccine implementation continues across a greater proportion of the global population.

Delayed-interval BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccination enhances humoral immunity and induces robust T cell responses

10.31235/osf.io/m7c3p

In this study, I ask why, despite historically high rates of participation in childhood vaccination campaigns, large numbers of US parents are now planning to refuse or delay getting Covid-19 vaccines for their children. Combining insights from the theory of moral panics with pre-pandemic research on parents who refuse vaccines, I argue that to understand the high levels of concern about Covid-19 vaccines for children, we need a theory of “moral calms.” Drawing on interviews with 80 mothers of young children whose vaccine decisions I have tracked since 2018, I find that early public health and media messaging created a “moral calm” around children and Covid-19. These messages led many mothers—particularly mothers who perceived their families as “naturally healthy”—to see their children as being at low risk of contracting, transmitting, and suffering serious consequences from Covid-19. As a result, many mothers came to see Covid-19 vaccines as unnecessary, even if they had previously vaccinated their children. Seeing vaccines as unnecessary then made mothers more susceptible to misinformation about Covid-19 vaccine risks and ultimately weakened their desire to vaccinate their children as soon as possible. I conclude that moral calms can, ironically, lay the groundwork for moral panics. By weakening people’s concerns about a larger threat, they facilitate efforts to raise concerns about other smaller or nonexistent threats. I discuss how the theory of moral calms may help to explain other moral panics, and I consider the implications of these findings for efforts to reduce or prevent vaccine refusal.

The Moral Calm Before the Storm: How a Theory of Moral Calms Explains the Covid-Related Increase in Parents’ Refusal of Vaccines for Children

10.1101/2022.02.02.22270302

Elderly individuals are at high risk for severe COVID-19. Due to modest vaccine responses compared to younger individuals and the time elapsed since prioritized vaccinations, the emerging immune-evasive Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is a particular concern for the elderly. Here we longitudinally determined SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing serum activity against different variants in a cohort of 37 individuals with a median age of 82 years. Participants were followed for 10 months after an initial two-dose BNT162b2 vaccination and up to 4.5 months after a BNT162b2 booster. Detectable Omicron-neutralizing activity was nearly absent after two vaccinations but elicited in 89% of individuals by the booster immunization. Neutralizing titers against the Wu01, Delta, and Omicron variants showed similar post-boost declines and 81% of individuals maintained detectable activity against Omicron. Our study demonstrates the mRNA booster effectiveness in inducing anti-Omicron activity and provides critical information on vaccine response durability in the highly vulnerable elderly population.

Durability of Omicron-neutralizing serum activity following mRNA booster immunization in elderly individuals

Nuvaxovid is similar to flu jab and may have reduced side-effects, which could persuade vaccine holdouts

Novavax Covid vaccine approved for use in over-18s in UK

Infection-induced immunity is helpful But really doesn't seem to last that long And as virus becomes endemic You are looking at constant reinfections Or you could just get vaccinated And avoid all the heartache and misery of having to get infected over and over again Fin

So let's be clear about a few things Is infection-induced immunity real? Absolutely Does it help prevent future infections/hospitalizations? Probably...for a while For first 90 days or so? Almost surely Beyond that? probably not that much 9/10

Now fans of infection induced immunity might argue that these folks just aren't getting reinfected So as proportion of unvaccinated folks with infection-induced immunity rises You should see a fall in infection rates among unvaccinated people We see the opposite 8/10

So is that what we see? A closing of the gap over time? In fact, the opposite Obviously, a lot of other stuff also going on, including which variants are dominant, etc. During each moment in the pandemic, it is better to be vaccinated And over time, the gap is widening 7/9

Over time, as more unvaccinated people got infected, If infection-induced immunity was great We'd expect gaps in population-level hospitalization start to close Because unvaccinated would increasingly be made up of previously-infected folks (as they are now at 60-70%) 6/8

Imagine that infection-induced immunity was AS GOOD as vaccines What would we see? Early, when unvaccinated were largely immunologically naïve (i.e. not previously infected) We'd see a large gap in population-level hospitalization rates between vaxxed and unvaxxed 5/9

My best estimate is that 3 months after an infection, certainly 6 months after infection Immunity from infection starts to break down Which is why we are seeing a lot of unvaccinated people get reinfected, sick, and end up in the hospital But let's do the counterfactual 4/5

One possibility is that hospitalizations are happening in the dwindling group of unvaccinated who haven't been previously infected Means true benefit of the vaccines is even higher (by a lot) But much more likely, it means infection-induced immunity is not holding up 3/8

We see large gaps in hospitalizations between vaccinated and unvaccinated But unvaccinated are not immunologically naïve At this point, probably 2/3 have been previously infected And yet, we still see 50X differences in hospitalizations between vaccinated and unvaccinated 2/7

You all know the data demonstrating dramatically higher hospitalization rates for unvaccinated folks But one key point often not discussed? Around 60%-70% of unvaccinated adults have already been previously infected Which tells us a lot about infection-induced immunity Thread

"It’s not against the rules to be disagreeable or wrong."

On Substack, COVID misinformation is allowed to flourish

10.31234/osf.io/5hvqc

One important objection to vaccination programmes involving coercive measures such as re-strictions on unvaccinated people’s access to public space, or even nudging, is that they are paternalistic. We believe this objection is weaker than is often assumed. We defend this belief by: 1) introducing a novel distinction between individual and collective paternalism; 2) showing that, across a range of circumstances, vaccination programmes involve collective, not individu-al, paternalism; and 3) arguing that collective paternalism is not wrong for the reasons that, arguably, individual paternalism is.

Collective paternalism and vaccination programmes

10.31234/osf.io/azsbn

Chris Bail's diagnosis of the major social media platforms, in his book “Breaking the Social Media Prism,” is correct. Social media platforms are wicked environments that promote distorted maps of where users stand in relation to others' opinions. We propose that a more detailed distinction between behavioral and informative interventions could benefit Bail’s proposed and future solutions. Informative interventions are needed within wicked environments in order for behavioral interventions to work as intended. Only the combination of both intervention types can enable people to navigate these environments effectively.

The importance of informative interventions in a wicked environment

10.31234/osf.io/h5qgk

The emergence of the Covid19 pandemic has caused the shutdown of university activities on campus in the UK. There has been a migration of learning, teaching and assessment (LTA) into online virtual environments. This in turn resulted in a spike in cyber-attacks across educational businesses, as they seemed more vulnerable due to inadequate security systems that would facilitate online learning. In this research, the impact of the corona virus pandemic on the security behavior of academic businesses is uncovered. This is done by comparing the pre-pandemic annual cyber security survey with the peak and post-pandemic survey, i.e., 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively. Findings from this research demonstrate that the pandemic brought about a rise in cyber-attack, which made universities prioritize security, and add defensive measures to ease online learning. Overall, the post-pandemic statistics suggests that educational businesses have improved their systems with adequate security measures, which makes the migration to online learning safe. That said, cyber attackers are innovative and will continue to impose a threat to these institutions. Therefore, improving security systems is a continuous process even when the pandemic put under control significantly or even eradicated.

Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Online Security Behavior within the UK Educational Industry.

10.31234/osf.io/hcxqz

Facemasks have become integral to everyday life. We propose that exposure to facemasks with a solidarity-related cultural symbol can activate cultural values such as mutual trust and increase corresponding interpersonal perceptions, thereby enhancing collective resilience in the Covid-19 pandemic. In three (two of which preregistered) studies, we examined whether exposure to facemasks with a solidarity-related cultural symbol predicts positive interpersonal perceptions, and whether this depends on death awareness. Across studies, exposure to facemasks with a cultural symbol (either pride flag or National Health Service) increased positive interpersonal perceptions, an index of solidarity, in people for whom this symbol represents a meaningful social identity. This was found whether participants were reminded of death, a neutral experience, or a negative experience. Importantly, in Study 3, exposure to facemasks with a solidarity-related cultural symbol (vs. surgical) led to greater increases in positive interpersonal perceptions when death awareness was high. Together, our findings suggest that wearing facemasks with a cultural symbol that relates to solidarity can be a vehicle for shaping people’s personality impressions of others. Applied directions for the activation of people’s social identities via facemask selection to promote collective resilience in the Covid-19 pandemic are discussed.

Can culture beat Covid-19? Evidence that exposure to facemasks with cultural symbols increases solidarity

10.31234/osf.io/ktr4y

The Covid-19 pandemic is an unforeseen occurrence that took the world by storm. Governments and businesses were unprepared, hence the large-scale impact it continuously has on the planet. It has permanently revolutionised how we live, work and interact with technology. With this new way of living, businesses and governments had to adapt to a new form of survival, and so did cybercriminals; there was a surge in cyber threats due to our newfound dependence on technology. This paper emphasises the common types of cyber threats and the targeted industries. These attacks were more successful because people were uneasy and desperate, which gave the criminals more incentive to attack businesses. To avoid being a cyber target, I have provided recommendations against future threats.

Impact of Covid-19 on cyber Security

for completeness, i'm adding test positivity (left: blue line) in Iran (currently ~20%) and daily hospital admissions per 100K individuals over the last 30 days across all 31 provinces (right: red lines) highlighting Qom (1), Tehran (2), and Hormozgan (3) End2/

only around 25% of the population has received a booster jab (mostly sinophram or home-grown vax). also, bear in mind that a very high percentage of the population have already been exposed to the virus at least once over the last 18-20 months.

cases & hospitalisations are rising very sharply in many provinces and there's likely a very significant level of under-reporting too. Qom one of the provinces with the highest per capita death during the past waves is experiencing yet another sharp increase in hospitalisation 2/

after the daily covid-19 cases in Iran dropped to record-low numbers last month, it is now back in full swing due to omicron! map on the left (mostly coloured in blue) shows the situation in late december and the one on the right is from 2 days ago (many in amber or red). 1/

here is BA.2 growth in Denmark.

But of course, we don’t need VAERS data to work out if there is an increased rate of miscarriage after vaccination! There have been *so many* formal studies on this! (Which I guess this person doesn’t know about?) All showing no increased risk. 11/11

I’ve no doubt there are other reasons that this is not a sensible way of calculating the URF, but these are the two that jumped out at me. 10/

(It would also require people vaccinated a year ago who have conceived in the interim and had a miscarriage today to report it. This is most unlikely to be vaccine-related, but at least in this case the vaccination happens before the miscarriage.) 9/

So for that URF to be correct, it would require people to report miscarriages to VAERS that happened *before* they were vaccinated. 8/

But no matter because I’m not sure it would much have helped, because there’s another problem. Timing. The US military data will report miscarriages at any time in pregnancy whereas the VAERS data only reports events after vaccination. 7/

One major problem with this I’ve already touched upon. It makes more sense to calculate miscarriage rates in people who are pregnant, rather than *allll* women. The data to do that was available, they just didn’t look it up 6/

The figure of 49 has come from calculating the per woman rate of miscarriage in the US army, assuming that the per woman rate in VAERS would be the same as it, and dividing one by the other. 5/

So let’s look at how this figure has been calculated. It comes from the idea that VAERS data underreports miscarriages by a factor of 49x, so you need to multiply the VAERS reports by 49 to see how many miscarriages there actually were. 4/

So even if *every single person* who received the vaccine before 20 weeks miscarried, and we somehow failed to notice, that’s still an overestimate of the rare by at least 2x. (Spoiler alert: Obviously it’s a bigger than 2x overestimate…) 3/

Quite apart from being not plausible, it’s straight up impossible. Miscarriages by definition happen before 20 weeks and about half of those vaccinated were vaccinated after 20 weeks. It was too late for them to have a miscarriage. 2/

Let’s begin by taking the 172,000 number at face value. About 190,000 ppl have been vaccinated during pregnancy in the US. So if that were true it’s a miscarriage rate of 90%… 1/

Authorities reintroduce requirement a week after government relaxed restrictions

Schools in England reinstate mask wearing rules as Covid cases soar

I doubt he'll ever explain to anyone why he used Sept 1 numbers when he had rerun them himself in late Sept. How about it, @MartinKulldorff ? He'd probably claim he submitted the piece many weeks in advance, as if we're not in the era of the web where links can be changed easily.

...and he really should posted numbers from early October, to include more of the massive fall Southern wave. It's not as if this age-adjusted calculation requires hours of super-computer time ... 9\

... so he links to shamefully stale data which incorrectly shows NY/NY still number 1, even though he himself had redone the calculation on Sept 27 after I emailed him to correct him. He certainly cannot claim ignorance ... 8\

..or, if you prefer not to click the link, I'll save you the trouble...he uses the grossly out-of-date Sept 1 rankings which don't include the massive fall Southern wave ?!? ...7\

....and what rankings does he use? You can click the "age-adjusted Covid mortality link" in his piece to find out ...6\

Now, it would be bad enough if that were the end of it and this was just a story of him not knowing that the current rankings now showed low-lockdown states as #1 and #2...but weeks later (Oct 12) he publishes an Op-Ed and links to age-adjusted rankings 5\

To his credit, he reruns the calculation himself and confirms what I told him and posts it in this tweet. Texas and Mississippi have indeed surpassed NY/NY... 4\

I email him and inform him that he's wrong and that Texas and Mississippi have since surpassed NY/NJ and he acknowledges me here with the h\t... 3\

He's apparently using this out of date Sept 1 calculation by @DrJBhattacharya . Anyone closely following the data at the time should know there was a huge covid death wave in Sept in the South and therefore Sept 1 rankings were likely out-of-date ... 2\

Here's an example of how Martin Kulldorff (one of the leading anti-lockdown epidemiologists) uses data. Bear with me- this is a multi-part story. On Sept 27, he makes the false claim that NY and NJ have the highest age-adjusted covid mortality... 1\

One of the puzzles of the pandemic economy is the ongoing labor shortage, with business owners struggling to find workers amid the so-called "Great Resignation." But new research points to another — and more troubling — factor that helps explain the nation's shrinking workforce: long COVID. 

A cause of America's labor shortage: Millions with long COVID

New and noteworthy data for vaccine effectiveness vs hospitalization, posted @CDCgov https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#covidnet-hospitalizations-vaccination… For age 65+, last week December, per 100,000 people Unvaccinated 239.7 2-dose vaccinated 26.8 3-dose (booster vaccinated) 4.8 That's 98% reduction, 3-dose vs unvaccinated