Study: Chinese COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Doesn’t Work Well Either

Simian Practicalist
1 day ago
2 min read

A Chinese study by X. Deng et al titled “Safety and antibody responses to inactivated COVID-19 vaccines among elderly patients with COPD: a prospective cohort study” published on 11 June 2026 shows that the Chinese Covilo (inactivated) vaccine doesn’t seem to work that well either.

The paper is 13 pages long, with the main text at about 11 pages. The remaining are acknowledgements and references.

The trial for the vaccine was conducted between 12 August 2021 and 6 November 2022, testing its safety and effectiveness on the elderly with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) against healthy controls (HCs).

All participants received at least one dose. The study included 410 patients with COPD aged ≥60 years, 80 HCs aged 18–59 years and 108 HCs aged ≥60 years.

Blood samples were taken before the first dose (T0), 28–35 days after the second dose (T1) and 3 months after the second dose (T2); then for the COPD group, 28–35 days after the third dose (T3) and 6 months after the third dose (T4); for the HC groups, at 6 months (T3) and 12 months (T4) after the second dose.

In short, for the COPD group, the induced NAbs levels were not as good at T2 compared to the HC groups. Even the levels for the HC groups don’t look that impressive in the longer term.

Though the induced NAbs level at T1 was comparable to HCs, the durability was significantly inferior to 18–59 HCs at T2, suggesting that primary series of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines only provided limited short-term protection for COPD patients.

For the COPD group, the third dose (booster) got a good response initially but this waned rapidly.

The homogeneous boosting with Covilo administered after a three-month interval significantly and rapidly increased antibody levels and SCRs, though did not sustain long-term persistence within six months.

None of this is surprising but it is interesting as a comparison between the inactivated and mRNA platforms. And it seems this inactivated vaccine does no better after a few months.