More Good News For Folks Who Got The AZ/mRNA Vaccination Mix And Match.

TheData

AreVille

From the abstract of a paper by a German group published in the Lancet, yesterday:

...The heterologous (mix and match) ChAdOx1 nCov-19–BNT162b2 (AstraZeneca/Pfizer) immunisation with 10–12-week interval, recommended in Germany, is well tolerated and improves immunogenicity compared with homologous ChAdOx1 nCov-19 (double AZ) vaccination with 10–12-week interval and BNT162b2  (double Pfizer) vaccination with 3-week interval...

So that's good, from a personal point of view, for those here in British Columbia that made that choice.

But it could also turn out to be good from a larger, global point of view as well.

Again, from the expertly peer-reviewed, published paper cited above:

...Heterologous (mix and match) vaccination has been widely discussed to mitigate intermittent vaccine supply shortages and to improve immunogenicity and efficacy of existing COVID-19 vaccines. Our study offers real-world evidence supporting the safety and immunogenicity of heterologous ChAdOx1 nCov-19–BNT162b2 (AZ/Pfizer) vaccination, which is currently recommended in several countries...

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On those points #3 and #4 that could be clearly and consistently explained to help the vax hesitant make the right choice (i.e. protection for those who suffer breakthrough infection from developing severe illness), Ed Tubb of the Toronto Star has had a look at the latest unvaxxed, partially vaxed, and fully vaxed hospital and ICU numbers from Ontario. The level of protection, from a whole population perspective, for fully vaxed vs. not vaxxed are startling (10 fold better for hospitalization, 50 fold better for ICU).....Importantly, these ratios are not age adjusted which, as Mr. Tubb points out, likely means the protection ratios are likely even better for those not at high risk due to advanced age.


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