Devastating COVID vaccine booster results, Israel data: "Six-Month Follow-up after a Fourth Pfizer (BNT162b2) Vaccine Dose" (Canetti and Regev-Yochay); additional immunologic advantage of the fourth

dose was much smaller and had waned completely by 13 weeks after vaccination. This finding correlated with waning vaccine effectiveness among recipients of a fourth dose, see Fig 1 (A, B, C) below

SOURCE:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2211283

Yet if you read the conclusion you would think the vaccine was successful and it is another example of the authors writing their ‘wishful’ thinking while the data shows the drug or vaccine has failed and is dangerous. My colleague and friend Dr. Howard Tenenbaum reminded me of this.

“In this prospective cohort study, a third dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine led to an improved and sustained immunologic response as compared with two doses, but the additional immunologic advantage of the fourth dose was much smaller and had waned completely by 13 weeks after vaccination. This finding correlated with waning vaccine effectiveness among recipients of a fourth dose, which culminated in no substantial additional effectiveness over a third dose at 15 to 26 weeks after vaccination. These results suggest that the fourth dose, and possibly future boosters, should be timed wisely to coincide with disease waves or to be available seasonally, similar to the influenza vaccine. Whether multivalent booster doses will result in longer durability remains to be seen.”

Does this make sense to you?

Among the participants who had not had previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, 6113 were included in the analysis of humoral response and 11,176 in the analysis of vaccine effectiveness (Fig. S1 and Tables S2 and S3). Antibody response peaked at approximately 4 weeks, waned to levels seen before the fourth dose by 13 weeks, and stabilized thereafter. Throughout the 6-month follow-up period, the adjusted weekly levels of IgG and neutralizing antibodies were similar after receipt of the third and fourth doses and were markedly higher than the levels seen after receipt of the second dose (Figure 1A and 1B and Table S4).

The cumulative incidence curve is shown in Figure S2, and vaccine effectiveness is shown in Figure 1C. Receipt of the fourth BNT162b2 vaccine dose conferred more protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection than that afforded by the receipt of three vaccine doses (with receipt of the third dose having occurred at least 4 months earlier) (overall vaccine effectiveness, 41%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 35 to 47). Time-specific vaccine effectiveness (which, in our analysis, compared infection rates among participants who had not yet been infected since vaccination) waned with time, decreasing from 52% (95% CI, 45 to 58) during the first 5 weeks after vaccination to −2% (95% CI, −27 to 17) at 15 to 26 weeks.