A leading epidemiologist says the evidence is clear – two doses of a vaccine against COVID-19 does not provide adequate protection against the virus, and the definition of fully vaccinated should be broadened to three doses.

It comes as New South Wales recorded 804 new infections in the past 24 hours, a 10 week high.

21 of those cases were the new Omicron variant.

Professor Mike Toole from The Burnett Institute says recent data out of the UK proves that two vaccine doses is not adequate.

“The vaccines we’ve received in Australia do not provide much protection against Omicron,” he said on 6PR Mornings.

“The data from the UK showed that 15 weeks after your second dose of AstraZeneca, you virtually have no protection against Omicron.

“If you’ve had two doses of Pfizer, 15 weeks later, you have around about 35 per cent protection, so that’s still very low.

“Now that’s against symptomatic infection, we probably would expect it’s higher against severe disease, because that is mediated by what we call cell immunity.

“However, after a booster dose of Pfizer, that protection goes up to 75 per cent.”

Third doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine are available to anyone over 18 who completed their primary two-dose course of vaccination at least five months ago.

“We should no longer use the word booster,” Professor Toole said.

“It’s now clear that we need three doses of a COVID vaccine, not matter what vaccine it is … so I’ll think we’ll start using the term ‘the third dose’.”

Press PLAY to hear the full interview below 

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