Children See ‘Rapid’ Decline In COVID-19 Immunity After Receiving Vaccine: Research
New research conducted at UNC Chapel Hill reveals that children ages 5 to 11 years old experienced a “rapid” decline in COVID-19 immunity after receiving the coronavirus vaccine.
The large study, published as correspondence in the New England Journal of Medicine, focused on 887,193 children in North Carolina, of whom 273,157 received at least the initial two-dose primary series of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine between the dates of November 1, 2021 and June 3 2022 — accounting for 30.8% of the total. Out of the 887,193 children, 193,346 COVID infections were reported in the study between the dates of March 11 2020, and June 3, 2022.
The data appears to show children experienced a rapid decline in immunity after receiving their COVID-19 vaccination, even if they already had a natural immunity from a prior infection.
In Chart A, representing children vaccinated with the initial Pfizer dose in November and December 2021 through green and blue lines, COVID-19 immunity appears to sharply rise following vaccination, as intended. However, within only five months, the efficacy of the vaccine seems to dramatically drop.
By April and June, Chart A seems to show, the COVID-19 vaccine would appear to have a negative effect on children’s immunity against the virus.
In Chart B, the data appears to suggest that immunity levels drop following COVID-19 vaccination regardless of whether or not the children had natural immunity from a prior coronavirus infection. Like the first chart, the data from Chart B appears to suggest that COVID-19 immunity becomes negative within a matter of weeks.
Based on data from Chart C, which represents the effectiveness of natural immunity among unvaccinated children who were reinfected with one of the varying strains, a general decline in immunity over time is still observed, but seemingly at a lesser rate.
When Chart C’s data is compared with Chart D, which represents the same among vaccinated children instead, the subjects appear to experience a sharp decline in immunity despite having been reinfected and, ostensibly having natural immunity.
The data could suggest that vaccine use may lower the body’s ability to naturally defend itself from COVID-19, thus creating the potential for an indefinite dependence on booster jabs to prevent infection. However, the data is from correspondence with the journal and does not represent peer reviewed research.
Valiant News reached out to a co-author of the NEJM study, Dr. Danyu Lin, for comment on how his research may implicate calls for COVID-19 booster shots.
“We indeed observed rapid waning of vaccine effectiveness against omicron in children,” Lin told Valiant News, though he advised that “the data were very sparse at the end, so there was great uncertainty at the tail of the curve.”
Lin explained that the COVID-19 vaccine is less effective against preventing infection than it is at preventing hospitalizations and deaths among children aged five to 11, a demographic that was generally untouched by the first, pre-vaccine wave of the virus.
However, the doctor agreed that his research seems to outline the importance of booster jabs for those who received the initial vaccine injections.
“It’s indeed important to have boosters,” Lin told Valiant News.
- Source : Andrew White
