Sweden's Health Agency recommended on Monday that people aged 80 or above should receive a second booster shot of COVID-19 vaccine, the fourth jab in total, to ward off waning immunity amid the rampant spread of the Omicron variant.
It also warned, as the country removes its pandemic restrictions, that the virus is spreading increasingly among people who are at elevated risk of severe illness.
The country is among the few places to recommend a fourth dose as a booster, beyond the initial shots and one booster that experts say most adults should receive.
Data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week suggested that the added protection from booster shots tends to diminish significantly after about four months, raising the possibility that people who would be at high risk of serious complications or death if they contracted Covid-19 may need another dose.
Before Omicron emerged, officials and scientists debated whether boosters were necessary or advisable for people of various ages as a wide swath of nations authorized them anyway. But there was a broad shift in that thinking as Omicron, which evades immune defenses better than previous variants, swept the world, leading to more support for boosters.
Earlier this month however in neighboring Denmark, health authorities there said that they were considering “winding down” the country’s coronavirus vaccination program in the spring and saw no reason to administer a booster dose to children or a fourth shot to anymore residents at risk of severe COVID-19.
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