Evidence of concerning decline of COVID-19 vaccination in older persons

We searched the official data of the Italian Extraordinary Commissioner for the COVID-19 Emergency (last update on November 20, 2023), to obtain information on the percentage of subjects aged 60 years or older who received multiple doses of the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic in Italy. Although the percentage of elderly people who had received the primary vaccination cycle with either COVID-19 vaccine was very high (between 93.1 and 95.8%), the percentage of those who had received the first, second, and especially third booster vaccination gradually declined over time, and amounted to 87.1–89.3%, 20.4–45.7%, and only 1.2–6.3%, respectively. The results of this analysis have important clinical and social implications. The evidence that less than 7% of the total population aged 60 years or older had received the third booster vaccination at the end of November 2023 should prompt national governments and Institutes of Health to communicate more strongly the importance of regularly administering the COVID-19 booster vaccination to the more vulnerable population groups.