Fauci: ‘Dramatic Data’ From Israel Support COVID-19 Boosters

COVID booster shots are showing good efficacy in Israel, Anthony Fauci, MD, chief medical advisor to President Biden, said Thursday at a briefing held by the White House COVID-19 Response Team.

Researchers have found that, even with the country’s very high vaccination rate, “we see new PCR-positive infections and new severe COVID cases in fully vaccinated people during the Delta wave in Israel from June 1 up to August 1. So clearly, Delta is dominant, and is responsible for new cases, including severe disease,” said Fauci, who is also director of the NIAID.

Booster Clearly Helped

A third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved in Israel for people age 60 and older. A total of 1.1 million people received that booster shot between July 30 and August 22, “and a rather substantial positive impact was seen,” Fauci continued, referring to a preprint study by Yinon Bar-On, of the Weizmann Institute of Science, and colleagues published in MedRxiv.

“Twelve days or more after the booster dose, there was a greater than tenfold diminution in the relative risk of both confirmed infection and severe disease,” Fauci said.

The chances of testing positive with two doses versus three doses of the Pfizer vaccine was looked at in another preprint study published on MedRxiv by Tal Patalon, MD, of Maccabi Healthcare Services, and colleagues. In that study, among “more than 150,000 people in the first 3 weeks of August, they found after 7 to 13 days up to a 68% reduction in the risk of infection” if a third dose was given, Fauci said.

“And after 14 to 20 days, a 70% to 84% reduction in the risk of infection. There is no doubt from the dramatic data from the Israeli study that the boosts that are being now done there and contemplated here, support very strongly the rationale for such an approach.”

During a question-and-answer session, Fauci was asked whether support in the U.S. for booster shots was sending a message to other wealthy nations encouraging them to keep their extra doses for boosters rather than donating them to other countries who need them.