The updated COVID-19 vaccine booster shots provide virtually no protection against infection and quickly waning shielding against hospitalization, a new study has found.
Protection against infection peaked at just 28.8 percent, well below the 50 percent threshold for success established by U.S. and World Health Organization officials, researchers in North Carolina reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The Moderna and Pfizer boosters performed better against hospitalization or death, a proxy for severe illness, hitting 67.4 percent after two weeks.
But that protection quickly waned, going below 50 percent after two more weeks.
Dan-Yu Lin and other researchers from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health and doctors with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services conducted the observational study, drawing from state-level databases on COVID-19 vaccination and clinical outcomes such as hospitalization….