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Vaccinated people who have a breakthrough case of Omicron will have better protection against COVID-19 variants than vaccinated people who receive a booster shot, two new studies show.
The University of Washington, working with Vir Biotechnology of San Francisco, looked at blood samples of vaccinated people who had breakthrough cases of Delta or Omicron and compared the samples with three other groups: people who caught COVID and were later vaccinated, vaccinated people who were never infected, and people who were infected and never vaccinated.
The vaccinated people who had a breakthrough case of Omicron produced antibodies that helped protect against coronavirus variants, whereas unvaccinated people who caught Omicron didn't produce as many antibodies, the study showed.
BioNTech SE, the German biotechnology company, found that people who'd been double and triple vaccinated and then became infected with Omicron had a better b-cell response than people who'd gotten a booster shot but had not been infected. B-cells help produce antibodies.
The University of Washington research team also came up with similar findings about b-cells. Both studies were published recently in bioRxiv. Papers hosted on bioRxiv have not yet been peer-reviewed.
