You don’t say — Moderna, Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines less effective in seniors with chronic health woes

Dec. 20 (UPI) — The Moderna and Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are less effective at protecting older, less healthy adults against infection than they are for younger, healthier recipients, a study published Monday by the Annals of Internal Medicine found.

However, they still prevent severe illness and death from the virus in the majority of older recipients, the data showed.

Seniors who were fully vaccinated with either of the two-dose shots had 69% protection against infection within seven days of their last inoculation, lower than the roughly 90% figure reported in earlier studies, the researchers said.

Still, the vaccines provided 86% protection against death from the virus up to three months after receipt of the second dose, according to the researchers.

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“Vaccine effectiveness against infection is only around 69% during longer follow-up after vaccination in an elderly population, which is much lower than vaccine effectiveness levels previously reported,” study co-author Dr. George Ioannou told UPI in a text message.