Prediction record
50% outcomesocietyUpdated hybrid mRNA COVID vaccines (Wuhan + Omicron BA.4/BA.5) will be released in fall 2022 and be about as effective against new variants as the original vaccine was against the original variant.
A scored record for Peter Zeihan, made on .
Scored record
50% outcomesociety“starting this fall the fda has finally granted approval for the mra vaccine manufacturers to follow the process for approval that is used for the flu virus so all of the mr vaccines that we have are going to have new versions that come out this fall that are hybrid they have some components within them from the original virus that originated back in wuhan back in late 2019 and they will also inoculate you versus omicron ba4 and ba5 so instead of having a vaccine that is two and three generations out of date you're going to get one that probably will be just as effective versus the new variants as the original vaccine was versus the original variant”
Updated hybrid mRNA COVID vaccines (Wuhan + Omicron BA.4/BA.5) will be released in fall 2022 and be about as effective against new variants as the original vaccine was against the original variant.
- Made on
- 2022-09-06
- Outcome
- 50% outcome
- Importance
- 3 / 5
- Contribution
- +2.46
Criterion
- Resolution status
- resolved
- Resolved on
- 2022-12-31
In fall 2022, hybrid mRNA boosters covering original + BA.4/BA.5 are released and shown to be roughly as effective against then-current variants as the original vaccine was against the original strain.
Compound claim with a true half and a false half. The vaccine RELEASE (hybrid Wuhan+BA.4/BA.5 bivalent boosters in fall 2022) happened as predicted (authorized 31 Aug 2022). The EFFECTIVENESS clause is clearly not met: measured relative VE against then-current Omicron sublineages was ~28–56% versus the ~95% original-vaccine-vs-original-strain benchmark. Note a methodological caveat for the scoring stage: published figures are RELATIVE VE (bivalent vs prior monovalent recipients), not absolute VE vs unvaccinated, and the original 95% was absolute vs placebo — so the two numbers are not perfectly like-for-like; nonetheless no evidence supports anything approaching ~95%-equivalent protection, so the 'about as effective' condition fails. resolved_on = 2022-12-31 (deadline), by which both the release and the first real-world effectiveness estimates were available.
Sources
Where in the World: The Turner Cascade and COVID
YouTube ·
Outcome evidence
PART 1 (release) CONFIRMED: On 31 August 2022 the FDA authorized bivalent (Wuhan-original + Omicron BA.4/BA.5) mRNA booster doses from Moderna (ages 18+) and Pfizer-BioNTech (ages 12+); rollout began in early September 2022, exactly the predicted fall-2022 timeframe.
PART 2 (effectiveness) NOT MET: CDC MMWR real-world data (ICATT program) found the bivalent booster's relative effectiveness against symptomatic infection was only ~28–31% at 2–3 months since last monovalent dose (rising to ~43–56% at >=8 months) in Sep–Nov 2022, and ~48–52% against BA.5/XBB in Dec 2022–Jan 2023. This is far below the original vaccines' ~95% efficacy against the original strain in the 2020 trials, so the boosters were NOT 'about as effective against new variants as the original vaccine was against the original variant.'
Benchmark for comparison: Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna original two-dose mRNA vaccines each showed ~95% efficacy against symptomatic COVID (original strain) in their December 2020 Phase 3 trials.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Score contribution
+2.46- Confidence
- 80%
- Outcome
- 50% outcome
- Importance
- 3 / 5
- Contribution
- +2.46
This page displays the scored record as published; the website doesn't recompute or adjust the score.
Provenance
Updated hybrid mRNA COVID vaccines (Wuhan + Omicron BA.4/BA…- Methodology version
- v1.0.0
- Last computed
- July 4, 2026
- Made on
- 2022-09-06
How this profile was built
Scored by independent judges
Predictions gathered and sourced
Independently verified against sources