Getting a booster is no panacea, but not getting one may be a fatal mistake. That, at any rate, is the finding of a set of Israeli studies in the New England Journal of Medicine, one published in October, the other published just a few days ago. An excerpt from the abstract of the “Conclusions” section of the latter:

Across the age groups studied, rates of confirmed Covid-19 and severe illness were substantially lower among participants who received a booster dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine than among those who did not.

Read both articles all the way through for all of the relevant provisos and qualifications, but I think it’s fair to summarize both by saying that they jointly found that boosters reduced the incidence of both serious morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19, inclusive of all variants but Omicron (about which it’s too early to tell). Continue reading →