People with booster jab 93% less likely to die from Covid than unvaccinated: Report

People who have been triple-vaccinated against Covid-19 are 93 per cent less likely to die from the the virus than the unjabbed, according to the latest official figures.

A report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) looked at 70,000 coronavirus deaths in England between July and December 2021, reports the Daily Mail.

The death rate was 23.6 per 100,000 for the fully boosted, compared to the 356.5 per 100,000 rates in the unvaccinated during the period.

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Adjusting for age, statisticians found having two doses also reduced the risk by 81 per cent during the same period.

The period does not cover the full Omicron wave, which may influence the findings. The new variant has made two doses significantly weaker, but Omicron itself is much milder than past strains.

In the ONS report, people were classified based on how many jabs they received and whether there had been more or less than 21 days since their last dose.

The risk of dying was consistently lower every month from September for people who had a booster since third doses started being rolled out.

More than 37.4 million people in the UK have now had their Covid booster, with 80 per cent of those eligible over-18s coming forward for a third dose.

ONS statisticians looked at all of the more than 69,000 people aged 10 or over who died with Covid in England last year to calculate their risk of dying based on how many doses they had.

The most vulnerable over-90s saw an 89 per cent fall in risk after getting a booster, with death rates falling from 3,237.1 per 100,000 in the unvaccinated to 343.2 per 100,000 in the triple-jabbed.

For much of 2021, mortality rates for a death involving Covid for people who had received two doses of vaccine remained well below the equivalent figures for unvaccinated people, the ONS found.

But rates among double-jabbed people started to increase at the end of last year, jumping from 92.0 deaths per 100,000 in October to 221.1 in November and 367.7 in December.

This may have been driven by a change in the composition of the double-jabbed group, with most older people have received a booster or third dose by this point, the ONS said.

It might also be connected to "waning protection from prior vaccination", the report said.

They found the rate was 462 per 100,000 in people not vaccinated during December when Omicron caused a surge in cases across the country.

But in people who had a booster at least 21 days before, the rate was reduced 94 per cent to just 24.5 per 100,000.

For comparison, the rate was 377.7 per 100,000 (18 per cent less) in people who had just one jab.

And it was 367.7 per 100,000 (20 per cent less) in those who had two jabs.

The rate was nearly six times higher in the double-jabbed compared to their six-month death rate from July to December, which was 67.2 per 100,000.

Experts warned Omicron's slightly higher vaccine escape and waning immunity from the second dose would result in more deaths if people did not get their boosters at the time.