What are the dynamics of Covid vaccination in older adults? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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More than 300 people a day are still dying of Covid infection, the most recent data indicate, and the majority of them are older people. Sean Leng, a geriatrics expert at Johns Hopkins, says his recent study looking at how older people respond to vaccination demonstrates some good news.

Leng: By the time we run our Covid vaccinations study we included 82 people in the study, the average age is 84-85, the youngest was like 75, but the oldest one is 99 years old. Those people were already in our influenza immunization study so we do have a broad sample. Before the vaccine was given we measured four different parameters of the antibody response. All those older individuals still mount a very robust antibody response, by all four measures. :32

Leng says the issue really is how long this response lasts, necessitating boosters. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.