The new COVID-19 vaccine boosters barely provide any protection against infection, according to a new study. The boosters, from Pfizer and Moderna, were just 30 percent effective in preventing infection, researchers with the Cleveland Clinic found. The effectiveness falls below the 50 percent effectiveness required by the World Health Organization and originally recommended by the FDA. U.S. regulators have since stopped requiring any clinical efficacy at all.
The researchers analyzed data from clinic employees since Sept. 12, shortly after the boosters were authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the prevention of COVID-19. Out of the nearly 52,000 workers, about 10,800 received one of the bivalents. Researchers pinpointed the time to COVID-19, or time to a positive test, and compared the boosted population to those who were vaccinated but did not receive a bivalent as well as the unvaccinated.
Researchers ultimately estimated the effectiveness at 30 percent, even though the BA.4/BA.5 subvariants were in circulation during the study period. The new boosters contain components of the original Wuhan virus strain and a sublineage of the BA.4/BA.5 subvariants. Laboratory testing indicates the boosters perform worse against newer variants, including the dominant BQ.1 and BQ1.1 strains.