@coyote
I ask because it was reported for a while that the vaccine reaches peak efficiency a good while after taking the second dose, not immediately. Can't remember what the expected time span was after that booster shot, and can't really find anything conclusive after a quick search. So not sure, but I expected there would be some protection after 1-2 weeks after the booster. So I guess he's in the 5% unlucky for whom it just doesn't work.

@alyx Maybe.. Could be a faulty test, could be a worthless vaccine, or he could just be part of the 5%. I'm gonna just put this out there: I don't believe they even have the ability to test efficacy good enough yet, the PCR has been shown to be error prone, and case numbers have been inflated as a result. Are they exposing the guinea pigs to COVID after the vaccine? No, I don't think so. To be frank, I'm willing to put money down on "oops the vaccine is less effective than we thought, time for ROUND 2"

@coyote
I just hope they don't pull a Fauci and decide to announce after a while that "well, we knew that the vaccine had only 70% efficacy rate, but we said 95% so people didn't panic and were encouraged to vaccinate".

@alyx Big agree.

@CuluraChimera @coyote
I don't think this case is a mutation issue. The problem is, the vaccine doesn't take effect immediately anyway. Even after the booster shot, you still have to wait a decent amount of time before you can expect your immune system to be ready.

A second potential problem is that, as for any vaccine out there, there is a small percentage chance that the vaccine does nothing for you.

Mutation rate might be a problem too, but so far, from my understanding, the current mutations in the wild should not effect the efficacy of the vaccine.

@alyx @coyote idk if it's been long enough to tell. I guess we'd need to see if the immunity works for the uk/south African variants

@CuluraChimera @coyote
Don't know about the African variant, but from my understanding they've investigated the UK strain enough to be confident that the vaccine should work.