In a new study from Weill Cornell Medicine and elsewhere, researchers found that even unrelated vaccines could help reduce the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They found that the generalized immune-boosting properties of many vaccines can cross-protect patients against multiple pathogens.
Before COVID-19-specific vaccines became available, many public health experts and immunologists suggested immunizing vulnerable populations with other vaccines to provide some degree of protection.
In the study, the team used the COVID-19 International Modeling Consortium (CoMo) system, a sophisticated computer modeling platform they’d built in response to the pandemic to test this.
Using the winter 2020-21 COVID-19 wave that struck the United States after holiday season reopenings, the team modeled the likely effects of a non-COVID-19 vaccine intervention at different times and targeting different populations.
While they did not specify particular vaccines, the researchers chose values for cross-protection consistent with data from earlier studies on measles, influenza, tuberculosis and other immunizations.
They found that an unrelated vaccine that provided just 5% protection against serious COVID-19, and was delivered to only a small portion of the population, would have caused a substantial reduction in caseloads and hospital usage.
While COVID-19 severity correlates tightly with age, an experimental scenario that modeled vaccinating everyone over the age of 20 was more effective than strategies targeting only the elderly.
That could be because younger people tend to have more social contacts across age groups, making them more likely to spread the virus to more vulnerable populations.
The timing of the vaccinations also mattered, with delivery during the rising phase of the wave of infections having the biggest impact.
This modeling study shows the potential power of all vaccines in keeping the immunological system primed and healthy, and reinforces the need for everyone to keep their vaccination history up to date, particularly during a pandemic.
If you care about COVID, please read studies about a major cause of COVID-19 death, and vitamin deficiency that could strongly increase risk of COVID-19.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about the most effective method to reduce COVID-19 spread, and results showing these two anti-inflammatory drugs could boost recovery from severe COVID-19.
The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was conducted by Dr. Nathaniel Hupert et al.
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