'Goldmine' U.K. study may hint why Israel has had a larger issue with waning vaccine protection

A "goldmine" of data published by Public Health England on Tuesday provides a look at who may need COVID-19 booster shots, the Financial Times' John Burn-Murdoch reports.

Breaking down the numbers in a series of charts, Burn-Murdoch explains that both the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines, which are the predominant shots in the United Kingdom, have generally held up well against symptomatic coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths even as the Delta variant took over. There are indications of waning immunity over time, though the declines are more significant among older people and especially older people with underlying health conditions.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.