A study released in The Lancet medical journal found that the efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine fell below 50 percent after about six months after the second dose.
The data indicates the decline was not dependent on the strain of the coronavirus causing an infection.
The Pfizer-funded study found that Pfizer’s vaccine was 88 percent effective in the first month after full vaccination but dropped to 47 percent effectiveness at about six months. The vaccine was also found to be highly effective against the delta variant, which was found to be over 90 percent effective in the first months before dropping to 53 percent effectiveness after four months.Researchers determined that the waning immunity had to do with the amount of time since an individual was given the second shot rather than due to the highly infectious delta strain,
However, company representatives assert that the data also shows that the vaccines help prevent hospitalizations and deaths, and the third “booster” shot will offer reliable protection against the serious Delta variant.
However, the study published on Monday states vaccine effectiveness against hospital admission for infections with the Delta variant remained as high as 93% for all ages six months after full vaccination.”Our results provide support for high effectiveness of [Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine] against hospital admissions up until around six months after being fully vaccinated, even in the face of widespread dissemination of the Delta variant,” the researchers said in The Lancet. “Reduction in vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infections over time is probably primarily due to waning immunity with time rather than the Delta variant escaping vaccine protection,” they added.The new study comes just weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a booster dose for a high-risk population. A booster dose will effectively improve the vaccine’s efficacy.”The good news is that we are very, very confident that a third dose, a booster, will take up the immune response to levels that will be enough to protect against the Delta variant,” said CEO Albert Bourla to CNBC.
And while all of this data seems to be positive, the data also reveals the vaccines are not 100% effective against death. A review of the numbers in deep-blue Vermont shows that 76% of September COVID-19 deaths were vaccine breakthrough cases.
Just eight of the 33 Vermonters who died of Covid-19 in September were unvaccinated, the Vermont Department of Heath said Wednesday.Health Department spokesperson Ben Truman said most of the vaccine ‘breakthrough’ Covid-19 fatalities were elderly. Because they were among the first vaccinated, Vermont’s elderly “have had more time to potentially become a vaccine breakthrough case,” he said.Expressed in percentages, 76% of Vermont Covid-19 fatalities were breakthrough cases. As of Tuesday, 88 percent of all eligible Vermonters (age 12 and over) had been vaccinated with at least one shot.At Tuesday’s press conference, the Department of Health September mortality statistics did not show a vaccinated/unvaccinated breakdown. Despite recent emphatic references by Gov. Phil Scott and Health Department Commissioner Mark Levine to a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” the per capita rate of vaccinated breakthrough deaths has risen in recent weeks.
I am going to keep an eye out for reports of illness and death in those who receive the highly touted booster shot. I would not be surprised if such reports started appearing 4-6 months from now, based on the current patterns.
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