'Wildly misleading' headlines are creating a panic over a new study on vaccines and the B.1.351 variant first identified in South Africa

Variant panic-porn has been turned up to 11 after a new study out of Israel found that the B.1.351 variant first identified in South Africa can “break through” the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Here’s a sample of the headlines flying around tonight:

South African variant can 'break through' Pfizer vaccine, new study in Israel finds https://t.co/hF4SxhW34t

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) April 11, 2021

Except, the tone of these headlines is all wrong. The study they’re reporting on is “actually excellent news” and there appears to be a misconception on what vaccine resistance really means.

From The Atlantic’s Zeynep Tufekci:

If anyone is going to write about the latest Israel/variant study, I suggest noting: this informative thread by one of the co-authors; that it's actually excellent news; and that vaccine resistance is NOT analogous to antibiotic resistance (which seems to be a common conflation). https://t.co/jAJm9go2Bq

— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 11, 2021

Here’s the summary from the study:

These results overall suggest that vaccine breakthrough infection is more frequent with both VOCs, yet a combination of mass-vaccination with two doses coupled with non-pharmaceutical interventions control and contain their spread.

But these bad headlines are everywhere:

I've already been sent an alarming headline by a respectable organization, and see below.? A co-author is on Twitter explaining it it, folks! Come on. FWIW, the study itself made me feel *better* about both the mRNA vaccines and the threat of B.1.351 (which we should track). pic.twitter.com/Z11qY0gv2d

— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 11, 2021

And:

It's already making all rounds in the media. pic.twitter.com/Vc3kuPyt9z

— Jonathan Cartagena ?? (@jcartagenatrail) April 11, 2021

What on earth? Again, we should keep an eye on variants especially in those (yeay, rare!) vaccine breakthrough cases (which are known from the trials) but THAT STUDY WAS EXCELLENT NEWS OVERALL ON THAT ASPECT. These headlines are wildly misleading. h/t @TheHeidenator pic.twitter.com/SakwpQJx7S

— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 11, 2021

Full thread from the researcher here:

1. We wanted to test what type of variant infects the very few vaccinated individuals who go on to become infected with SARS-CoV-2. To this end, we generated a case-control cohort: every vaccinee was matched with a non-vaccinated individual infected with the virus

— SternLab (@SternLab) April 10, 2021

2. Two categories interested us: (i) those fully immunized, 7+ days post the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, (ii) those partially immunized, between 14+ days after the first dose and before 7 days after the second dose.

— SternLab (@SternLab) April 10, 2021

3. All in all – most infections in both categories were from the “British” variant B.1.1.7. However, we noted 8 cases of infection with the “S.A” variant B.1.351 in fully immunized individuals, as compared to only 1 infection in the control (non-immunized).

— SternLab (@SternLab) April 10, 2021

4. Furthermore, focusing on the partially immunized, we noted more breakthrough by the “British” variant”. We think this might explain why during the early stages of the vaccination rollout in Israel, it took a while till vaccination effects were noted and cases began to drop

— SternLab (@SternLab) April 10, 2021

5. To summarize: we see evidence for reduced vaccine effectiveness against the British variant, but after two doses – extremely high effectiveness kicks in. We see evidence for reduced vaccine effectiveness against the S.A. variant, but it does not spread in Israel.

— SternLab (@SternLab) April 10, 2021

6. We think that this reduced effectiveness occurs only in a short window of time (no B.1.351 cases 14+ days post 2nd dose), and that the S.A. variant does not spread efficiently. Thus, even more of a reason to get vaccinated and drive down cases to zero!

— SternLab (@SternLab) April 10, 2021

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