For anyone who has followed Geert Vanden Bossche since the pandemic started, this is not even news. The good doctor predicted exactly this outcome from day one, but as is par for the course these days, the article manages to completely avoid any mention of him.

The reason for the continuing decline in bivalent boosters limiting infection is likely due to “immune imprinting,” the idea that the immune response to either previous infection or to receiving a vaccine limits an individual’s future response to new variants. The immune system thus prefers to recall existing memory cells rather than produce new responses when the old and new variants are closely related. We produce antibodies that fight the older strains more effectively than the evolving ones that now dominate.

Thus, new strains that develop will continue to rapidly evade the antibodies produced by repeated vaccinations and we will continue to get diminishing returns. The more we try and prevent new infections with more and more booster shots, the less effective they will likely become in preventing infections themselves.