“A major misconception is that the vaccines are holding steady to protect against severe disease, hospitalizations, and deaths,” Topol wrote Monday in the Guardian. “They are not. When a booster was given during the Delta wave, it fully restored protection against these outcomes, to the level of 95% effectiveness. But for Omicron, with a booster (or second booster) the protection was approximately 80%. While still high, [that] represents a major, fourfold” rise in ineffectiveness, from 5% to 20%.