Some 88% of people who received the third shot of the coronavirus vaccine said they felt “similar” or “better” compared to how they felt in the days following receiving the second vaccine, according to a new report by Clalit Health Services.
The health fund released a first report on the side effects of the third shot, based on data it captured from some 4,500 people over 60 out of the 240,000 of their members who received it.
Some 31% reported one or more side effects.
Some 24% reported pain at the site of injection, 6% swelling in the injection area and 1% swelling in the armpit.
Another 15% of respondents said they experienced at least one systemic side effect.
Some 9% reported fatigue, 6.1% feeling generally unwell, 4.3% headaches, 4.3% muscle pain, 2.1% joint pain, 1.4% fever, 0.7% vomiting or diarrhea and 0.1% rash.
Only 1% of respondents experienced any other symptoms: 0.4% reported difficulty breathing and 0.3% irregular heartbeat or chest pains.
Similarly, only 1% of respondents said they sought medical treatment due to one or more of these side effects.
“Although we do not yet have long-term research on the efficacy and safety of the third dose,” said Prof. Ran Balicer, Clalit’s chief innovation officer, “these findings continue to point to the benefit of immunization now, in addition to careful behavior by older adults and avoiding gatherings in closed spaces during these weeks.”
At the same time, a small number of older people who were vaccinated with a third COVID shot were infected with coronavirus, The Jerusalem Post has confirmed.
The report was first published by N12.
Some 14 people out of more than 400,000 who were vaccinated with a third shot were diagnosed with the virus, among them two who were hospitalized – one in mild condition and the other in moderate condition, according to the Health Ministry.
The individuals were infected seven or more days after receiving the vaccine. The majority were over age 60, but three were under 60 and had received a third dose because they were immunosuppressed.
But Cyrille Cohen, head of the immunology lab at Bar-Ilan University, told the Post that this number should not cause alarm.
“Approximately 15% of daily cases are people over the age of 60,” he explained. “Last week, there was an average of 3,000 to 3,300 new cases per day, which means that around 3,500 people above the age of 60 got infected out of 1.6 million people this age – 0.2% of older people got infected.”
Fourteen out of 400,000 people is even less, roughly 0.0035%.
“I believe it is too early to say anything one way or the other regarding the efficacy of the third vaccine,” Cohen said. “We will have to wait a few more weeks.”
He added that the vaccines were never 100% effective. Even against the original Wuhan strain, the Pfizer vaccine was only 95% effective in preventing symptomatic infection. As such, “we should not be surprised right now.”