New study: COVID booster significantly delays end of infection

 

New study: COVID booster significantly delays end of infection

31% boosted people still contagious 10 days post-infection vs. 6% unvaccinated.

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has demonstrated that people who are triple-vaccinated (boosted) against COVID recover significantly more slowly from COVID infection and remain contagious for longer than people who are not vaccinated at all.

The study did not deal with the severity of illness with or without a vaccine.

Researchers swabbed infected people and cultured the swabs, repeating the process for over two weeks until viral replication was not observed.

At five days post-infection, less than 25 percent of unvaccinated people were still contagious, whereas around 70 percent of boosted people were still carrying viable virus particles. For those partially vaccinated, around 50 percent were still contagious at this point.

Even more strikingly, at ten days post-infection, one-third of boosted people (31 percent) were found to still be carrying live, culturable virus. By contrast, just six percent of unvaccinated people were still contagious at day 10.

In other words, people who have received a booster shot are five times more likely still to be contagious at ten days post-infection than are unvaccinated people.