90-95% effective (initial promise)
- https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7018e1.htm
- https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7112e1.html
100% effective against severe disease (initial promise)
Waning immunity
- https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7107e2.htm
- “Three-dose monovalent mRNA VE against COVID-19 -associated hospitalization decreased with time since vaccination. Three-dose VE during BA.1/BA.2 and BA.4/BA.5 periods was 79% and 60%, respectively, during the initial 120 days after the third dose and decreased to 41% and 29%, respectively, after 120 days from vaccination.” https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7142a3.htm?s_cid=mm7142a3_w
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36322837/
- “Our findings suggest the need to reconsider the value and strategies of vaccinating healthy children in the omicron era with the use of currently available vaccines”
- “Among children, the overall effectiveness of the 10-μg primary vaccine series against infection with the omicron variant was 25.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 10.0 to 38.6). Effectiveness was highest (49.6%; 95% CI, 28.5 to 64.5) right after receipt of the second dose but waned rapidly thereafter and was negligible after 3 months”
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4224504
- “but showed clear waning during the Omicron period, although VE estimates were substantially higher (above 80% to week 25, dropping to 40% by week 40) than against infection”
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35675841/
- Key findings:
- COVID mortality less than flu
- No protection against hospitalizations
- No protection against mortality
- Vaccinated had increased risk of being on mechanical ventilation
- Key findings:
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35675841/ (“By analyzing results of more than 460,000 individuals, we show that while recent vaccination reduces Omicron viral load, its effect wanes rapidly. In contrast, a significantly slower waning rate is demonstrated for recovered COVID-19 individuals.”)
- Possible negative efficacy
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36151099/
- This one takes some time to analyze
- ” For Omicron, the odds of infection were 1.10 (95%-CI: 1.00-1.21) times higher for unvaccinated, 2.38 (95%-CI: 2.23-2.54) times higher for fully vaccinated and 3.20 (95%-CI: 2.67-3.83) times higher for booster-vaccinated contacts compared to Delta. “
- Note that for unvaccinated, Omicron and Delta were almost the same (1.1x higher). But for fully vaccinated Omicron was 2.38x higher, and for booster-vaccinated Omicron was 3.2x higher than Delta. So, prima facie it appears as if each successive vaccination dose made it worse for secondary attack rate during Omicron compared to Delta.
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34384810/
- Infection-enhancing antibodies have been detected in symptomatic Covid-19
- Antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) is a potential concern for vaccines
- Enhancing antibodies recognize both the Wuhan strain and delta variants
- ADE of delta variants is a potential risk for current vaccines
- Vaccine formulations lacking ADE epitope are suggested
- CDC Director Walensky: “too much optimism”
- “When the CNN feed came that it was 95% effective, the vaccine, so many of us wanted it to be helpful, so many of us wanted to say, ‘Ok this is our ticket out.’ So, I think we had perhaps too little caution and too much optimism for good things that came our way. I really do. I think all of us wanted this to be done. Nobody said waning, when, of these vaccines don’t work. Oh well maybe they don’t work at all, it’ll wear off. Nobody said that if the next variant it doesn’t, it’s not as potent against the next variant.
- https://livestream.com/accounts/7945443/events/10161457/videos/229680766?fbclid=IwAR3qV7glhmwq9v9lnT3wPRp08oQ9rCcIoBFNaYZLfg4E2r3AdsEllHcLi84
- From July 2020:
- UCSF drops out of vaccine development due to rapidly waning antibodies