AK, IN, MH, and SP conducted contract research (testing of vaccinee sera for neutralising activity against SARS-CoV-2) for Valneva unrelated to this work. GMNB served as an advisor for Moderna and Pfizer, and SP served as an advisor for BioNTech, unrelated to this work. AD-J served as an advisor for Pfizer, unrelated to this work. All other authors declare no competing interests. During the preparation of this work the authors used ChatGPT (OpenAI) to assist with grammar and style corrections. After using this tool, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the content of the publication. AD-J acknowledges funding by the European Social Fund (ZAM5-87006761) and, together with GMNB, by the Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony (Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur; 14-76103-184, COFONI Network, project 4LZF23). SP acknowledges funding by the EU project UNDINE (grant agreement number 101057100), the COVID-19-Research Network Lower Saxony (COFONI) through funding from the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony in Germany (14-76403-184, projects 7FF22, 6FF22, 10FF22) and Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (COVIM, 01KX2121). The funding sources had no role in the design and execution of the study, the writing of the manuscript, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The authors did not receive payment by a pharmaceutical company or another agency to write the publication. The authors were not precluded from accessing data in the study, and they accept responsibility to submit for publication.