Vaccine effectiveness against Omicron drops to zero within six months but natural immunity remains robust for at least a year, a new study from Qatar has found.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at all symptomatic PCR-positive Covid infections in Qatar during the Omicron wave from December 23rd 2021 to February 21st 2022. As can be seen in the chart below, it found that protection from natural immunity (the blue dots on the left) endured at a level of around 50% for at least a year, meaning the infection rate in the previously infected was half that in those not previously infected. However, two vaccine doses of either Pfizer or Moderna (light green dots in middle) dropped to zero effectiveness or below within six months. A third dose (dark green dots on right) appeared to restore some protection in the short term, but it was dropping fast even during the short follow-up period. The authors, aware of the short follow-up time, explain that “most persons received their third dose less than 45 days earlier, perhaps explaining the relatively high effectiveness”.
The study was a test-negative case-control study, a type of study known to exaggerate vaccine effectiveness (owing to, for example, the vaccinated being more susceptible to Covid-like illness that isn’t Covid, such as colds and flu). This means the true picture may be significantly worse than found in this study. Recall that an earlier Qatar study on the Delta variant had already found vaccine effectiveness wane to negligible levels within seven months, and Omicron is much better at evading vaccine protection than Delta.
The cases were matched to controls to take into account differences of age, sex and epidemic phase. The study only included symptomatic positives, which is a plus as it avoids most false positives. It also excluded any tests that occurred within 14 days after a second dose or seven days after a third dose rather than counting them in another category, which avoids miscategorisation issues. There will however be some survivor bias as anyone vaccinated who gets infected in the post-jab exclusion period doesn’t count towards the vaccinated case total, leaving fewer susceptible people in the vaccine arm.
One point of note is that the authors observe that the protection offered by being both vaccinated and previously infected turns out to be exactly equal to the protection you would expect if the two forms of protection had an independent effect:
Because previous infection reduced the risk of infection by 50% and booster vaccination reduced it by 60%, the reduction in the risk of infection for both combined, if they acted fully independently, would be 1−(1−0.5)×(1−0.6)=0.8, which is an 80% reduction, just as observed. Although this effect needs to be further investigated, this finding may suggest that the combined effect of these two forms of immunity against omicron infection reflects neither synergy nor redundancy of the individual biologic effects of each.
One interpretation of this is that the vaccines and previous infection give different, independent forms of immunity, with the vaccine form waning quickly and the previous infection form enduring.
Another interpretation, however, is that the vaccine protection is an illusion created by survivor bias (the exclusion of those infected during the post-jab period), which is why it quickly fades and is wholly additive to natural immunity.
Meanwhile, the U.K. Government has updated its official estimate of vaccine effectiveness against Omicron. The latest UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance report shows Pfizer third-dose vaccine effectiveness dropping to negligible levels within 20 weeks (five months; see below).
This, again, is a test-negative case-control study, so is generous to the vaccines – we know the raw data, back when UKHSA used to publish them, showed infection rates many times higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated in many age groups. So when even this study shows negligible vaccine effectiveness you know they’ve accepted they can’t hide it anymore.
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excellent idea. The basis should be the return of formal debating in which people have to propose motions with which they may disagree and the result judged dispassionately, not by a vote on the floor but by teachers marking the structure of the arguments. Not easy I know but it’s a great challenge.
Teachers marking? I assume you haven’t met many teachers!
Are teachers the ‘professionals’ for whom the Education Secretary is seeking a 9% pay rise? Those lily livered pond life who were happily complicit in denying a proper education to our children, driven by their unions who are now threatening to strike?
They need to have their salaries reduced, not enhanced and their right to strike withdrawn.
Unprincipled bastards
It’s going to be a bit of an effort when you get the full idea of what TEACHERS think the kids should be taught.
Appalling must watch video from an Irish teaching union
https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1542463974117183488
With thanks to Ivor Cummins
I hesitated to click on this because I knew it would infuriate me, but I did. Unbelievable.
When I was 7 or 8 I identified as a boy. I worse boys clothes, had a boys hair cut, climbed trees and skinned my knees and even belonged to the local cub group because it was run by my mother and it was more convenient for her to take me with her. I despised brownies as sissies. Guess what? I was a tomboy, and like most other tomboys I grew out of it at puberty. God knows what would have happened to me these days! Come to think of it, tomboy is a word you don’t hear now either. (Probably deemed offensive or something)
Years ago, before I mistrusted the BBC, the author Val McDermid, (who I dislike due to her stance on Independence, masks, vaccines etc), made this point beautifully……basically, as a girl she was a tomboy, preferring football and traditional “boy” pursuits. She later found herself attracted to her own sex and has always been in lesbian rather than heterosexual relationships.
AT NO POINT EVER felt that those childhood traits or sexual preferences signified she was the “wrong” gender, simply it was appropriate for boys OR girls to participate in those activities and sexual choices.
In other words; if a female can do ANYTHING she wishes to do as a female, and a man can do the same, where is the validity in the argument “I was born the wrong gender”?
It’s too subtle for the Trans brigade, who would simply and wrongly see @the old bat or Val McDermid climbing their respective trees as children and say, “Oh, look at that poor boy born into a girl’s body, better get that sorted out for them”
One of the most egregious things I’ve recently seen is also in this video. That’s the picture of this amorphous creature whose text says
I was born with the body of a boy but the brain of a girl.
Math is hard, let’s go shopping! anyone? If that’s not sexist, I don’t know what is. I’ve been socialised in the 1980s, ie, well before all these all men/ all women cliches were reintroduced (early 2000s in Germany) and shit like this makes my blood boil. By that time, we decidedly didn’t think it was chic to regard the often cited 50% of mankind as of the lower orders because of the sex difference and I refuse to start doing so just because this would be politically convenient for some people.
There’s a great episode of Little House on the Prairie, where the father, Charles Ingolls, wants to take Laura, his middle daughter, on a hunting expedition. His wife objects, saying it isn’t right for girls to do such things. Charles rejects her idea, stating that he’s sure she’ll grow into a wonderful woman. They go, and Laura saves the day when Charles injures himself, miles from anywhere, with his own gun.
Obviously, these episodes were aired before the Woke Brigade got their teeth into everything.
These watermelon-shaped beings are very strange. What planet to they live on?
This is also very scary
wwwDOTyoutubeDOTcom/watch?v=XA07ta2tJpQ
Neither politicians nor large employers are interested in people able to and courageous enough to engage in sceptical thinking.
The whole point of children’s education now is to turn them into semi-skilled obedient sheep who know their place and keep their mouths shut.
“The whole point of children’s education now is to turn them into semi-skilled obedient sheep who know their place and keep their mouths shut.”
Bang on the nail but the people pushing this are the Davos Deviants. The politicians are just under orders.
The DD’s want a wholly compliant and sheep-like populace because they require SLAVES not sentient, questioning human beings.
I fear some people have yet to perceive the depth of evil being planned – depopulation and enslavement for the survivors. Some run of the mill civil servants and politicians might be given a small sincere, a kapo type position while they have a use, but after that they will be off to the knackers yard.
Apologies – bloody predictive- – ‘sincere’ was of course sinecure.
Take ’em out and teach them at home.
Education is now massively politicised
Health the same.
Best avoid schools. And the NHS.
The problem is certainly one of trusting in authority/the state. In 2003, unlike many sensible British people, I swallowed the WMD nonsense just because I did not believe a government would tell such blatant lies – truth was finally turned on its head in with the Hutton report. Obviously Gilligan told the truth and Blair lied over Dr Kelly and Hutton used technical technical arguments to twist the results – the Chairman and Director General resigned and the BBC was captured, and by degrees most of the mainstream have been swallowed up since. I guess by now the lies are so all enveloping and pervasive that it is simply easier to give up. I suppose it is the first circle of the metaverse.
Hallelujah! What a brilliant sensible idea. Some here may well have seen the attached feature extracted from The Light newspaper issue 21 p23. The kids are the future of the human race, god help us all if free / critical thinking gets completely wiped out.
They taught us some complete twaddle at school – things that turned out to just not be true at all.
The biggest whopper I can think of was this notion that we “the people” are governed by consent and that we have inalienable rights (granted to us by “God”).
It turns out we don’t and that these “rights” are granted to us by the government who can take them away from us whenever they feel like it (“for the greater good”) – even for the most stupidest reasons (like because someone decided to rebrand the flu for example)
It also turns out that the government basically owns our kids because we were stupid enough to “register” them with the government.
I’m dreading my daughters going to school. I suppose I’ll have to try and teach them that many of the pointless things they are learning are “just pretend” and that they should “just write the answers the teacher wants regardless of if they are actually true or not”. I’d encourage them to not believe anything school tells them unless they can prove it themselves. BUT they must never let on to the school that they are doing this.