mRNA Boosters Don’t Block Omicron, South African Study Shows(bloombergquint.com)
bloombergquint.com
mRNA Boosters Don’t Block Omicron, South African Study Shows
https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/mrna-boosters-don-t-block-omicron-south-african-study-shows
65 comments
It is a fear mongering headline, but if you’re only preventing severe disease, it’s correct in that it’s not blocking the virus.
It's clearly dishonest to use the phrasing "don't block" when they know full well many people will interpret it as "don't work" at a quick glance.
Its clearly dishonest to claim that vaccines "work" when you know that most people will read that as "blocks transmission and infection"
If that's not enough, change the definition of "vaccines". Surely that should convince everyone!
Edit: they did that:
Aug 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g...
> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
Today: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm
> Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.
If that's not enough, change the definition of "vaccines". Surely that should convince everyone!
Edit: they did that:
Aug 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g...
> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
Today: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm
> Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.
> If that's not enough, change the definition of "vaccines"
If “vaccine” meant “thing that 100% stops you from ever even getting infected”, most vaccines throughout the history of vaccination wouldn’t meet that definition.
But that’s not, and has never been, the definition – so nothing needs to be changed.
>> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
That doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means (so-called “sterilizing immunity”). A 20-fold reduction in hospitalization is by any read protecting you from a disease.
If “vaccine” meant “thing that 100% stops you from ever even getting infected”, most vaccines throughout the history of vaccination wouldn’t meet that definition.
But that’s not, and has never been, the definition – so nothing needs to be changed.
>> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
That doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means (so-called “sterilizing immunity”). A 20-fold reduction in hospitalization is by any read protecting you from a disease.
>If “vaccine” meant “thing that 100% stops you from ever even getting infected”
Not taking sides but that's exactly how most people think about vaccines.
Not taking sides but that's exactly how most people think about vaccines.
An unsourced “I claim most people have this misunderstanding, therefore the claim that vaccines work must be responsive to this incorrect understanding (plus some vague mishmash of implications about conspiracies to change the definition of vaccination, or something)” doesn’t strike me as a terribly productive line of argument to be honest.
Hmm ... yeah I'm sorry my HN comments have low ROI.
Most people have a yearly interaction with the flu vaccine, where it's made perfectly clear that you can still get the flu, but it will be mild and the efficacy is something like 60-80%. (At least this is what my pharmacist has told me every time I get the flu shot)
Outside of healthcare institutions, there's little pressure to get it, and popular opinion is that it's not very effective.
Yet it's still fairly popular, even with that mentioned popular opinion. According to CDC, 63.8% of under 17yo got it, and 48.4% over 18yo (season 2019-2020). These are numbers with little pressure.
That is popular in isolation (when was the last time 64% of Americans agreed on anything??), but not for something that some feel should have a universal mandate.
For something that doesn't really hospitalize most people and the vaccine isn't 95%+ effective? I'd say it's a great success given how popular it actually is
From what I've read, sterilizing immunity from vaccines may simply be a myth, and vaccines thought to have this property don't stand up to scrutiny.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz...
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz...
Oh yes. This is a good lesson in complexity for the whole society. Instead of a binary works/doesn't work people have learned that there are different kinds of vaccines, that not all vaccines prevent the spread of a disease, that some vaccines need more than one shot to increase efficiency, that vaccinated people can still die from the disease they were vaccinated against, that some vaccines need to be taken seasonally to be effective and so on.
(This is from someone who is taking a vaccine orally everyday (that doesn't "block transmission and infection" as it is allergy-related.)
(This is from someone who is taking a vaccine orally everyday (that doesn't "block transmission and infection" as it is allergy-related.)
A vaccine taken daily is so far from the typical associations that it is similar to the insistence by biologists to call a tomato a fruit. How something functions for the practicing human is different from how something functions in that human, the person is more likely to associate how it functions "for" them.
The Salk polio vaccine was about 60-70% effective and is certainly a vaccine. Please don’t confuse your misunderstanding of what a vaccine is with an attempt to change the definition.
We're down to 30-40% protection against infection for two dose Pfizer-BioNTech. Is it a vaccine if you need a booster every 6 months the vaccine only protects against severe infection?
More important than petty arguments is how this virus was sold to the public. Pfizer-BioNTech suggested 95-100% efficacy after 30 days. Now we're gaslighting people into saying protecting against severe infection was always the goal.
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577
More important than petty arguments is how this virus was sold to the public. Pfizer-BioNTech suggested 95-100% efficacy after 30 days. Now we're gaslighting people into saying protecting against severe infection was always the goal.
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577
Nope. You’re mixing numbers. Both the trials and independent national studies found vaccines like the Pfizer-BioNTech one to be about 95% effectiveness against severe disease and hospitalisation, not infection.
It was never claimed that they’d completely prevent infection.
New variants like Beta, Delta, and Omicron have varying levels of escape from both vaccination and prior infection, which means effectiveness at preventing severe disease or hospitalisation against those variants has decreased, requiring a booster.
Nor is this unusual, as the flu vaccine also needs to be constantly adjusted to take new variants into account.
It was never claimed that they’d completely prevent infection.
New variants like Beta, Delta, and Omicron have varying levels of escape from both vaccination and prior infection, which means effectiveness at preventing severe disease or hospitalisation against those variants has decreased, requiring a booster.
Nor is this unusual, as the flu vaccine also needs to be constantly adjusted to take new variants into account.
No, the data from the first clinical trials for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines showed 95% efficacy against symptomatic infection. You had Fauci, Birx and countless other talking heads in the media implying or stating outright that the vaccines conferred sterilizing immunity.
Of course, we know now that the variants have evolved some degree of immune escape, that the vaccines no longer prevent infection while still being effective against severe disease, but that's not what the "experts" originally claimed. It's disappointing to see the Hacker News crowd buying into the gaslighting that vaccines are only ever meant to prevent hospitalization. That was not the scientific consensus 2 years ago, and still isn't.
Of course, we know now that the variants have evolved some degree of immune escape, that the vaccines no longer prevent infection while still being effective against severe disease, but that's not what the "experts" originally claimed. It's disappointing to see the Hacker News crowd buying into the gaslighting that vaccines are only ever meant to prevent hospitalization. That was not the scientific consensus 2 years ago, and still isn't.
The scientific consensus, as summarised in this Nature article announcing the news, seems pretty clear on what was being looked at and that the trials focused on severe disease outcomes.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03166-8
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03166-8
Nope. The Nature article was written well before the actual results and studies were released. The studies are unequivocally clear that the primary goal of the studies (at that time) were to measure prevention against symptomatic infection.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577
I don't understand what you're trying to claim, are you trying to say that the trial results were falsified? Because there's no other way your insistence on this makes sense. That journal article accurately reports on the findings of the Phase III trial, which did show spectacular success against the wild type.
In simple terms, had SARS-CoV-2 not mutated, and we were still dealing with the original wild type, then this pandemic would have been over months ago. They were that all-round effective.
The emergence of variants is what has caused the pandemic to continue, as many scientists warned. As I showed with the Nature article, general scientific consensus was optimistic but cautious and warned about waning immunity and variants.
You seem to think this is all some kind of gotcha, when it's really about adapting to a changing situation and an evasive virus.
In simple terms, had SARS-CoV-2 not mutated, and we were still dealing with the original wild type, then this pandemic would have been over months ago. They were that all-round effective.
The emergence of variants is what has caused the pandemic to continue, as many scientists warned. As I showed with the Nature article, general scientific consensus was optimistic but cautious and warned about waning immunity and variants.
You seem to think this is all some kind of gotcha, when it's really about adapting to a changing situation and an evasive virus.
>Nope. You’re mixing numbers. Both the trials and independent national studies found vaccines like the Pfizer-BioNTech one to be about 95% effectiveness against severe disease and hospitalisation, not infection.
Nope. Please click and read either of the links I sent.
Here, I'll quote them for you.
>The trial enrolled 2,260 adolescents 12 to 15 years of age in the United States. In the trial, 18 cases of COVID-19 were observed in the placebo group (n=1,129) versus none in the vaccinated group (n=1,131).
>A total of 43,548 participants underwent randomization, of whom 43,448 received injections: 21,720 with BNT162b2 and 21,728 with placebo. There were 8 cases of Covid-19 with onset at least 7 days after the second dose among participants assigned to receive BNT162b2 and 162 cases among those assigned to placebo; BNT162b2 was 95% effective in preventing Covid-19 (95% credible interval, 90.3 to 97.6). Similar vaccine efficacy (generally 90 to 100%) was observed across subgroups defined by age, sex, race, ethnicity, baseline body-mass index, and the presence of coexisting conditions.
>The first primary end point was the efficacy of BNT162b2 against confirmed Covid-19 with onset at least 7 days after the second dose in participants who had been without serologic or virologic evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection up to 7 days after the second dose; the second primary end point was efficacy in participants with and participants without evidence of prior infection. Confirmed Covid-19 was defined according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) criteria as the presence of at least one of the following symptoms: fever, new or increased cough, new or increased shortness of breath, chills, new or increased muscle pain, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, diarrhea, or vomiting, combined with a respiratory specimen obtained during the symptomatic period or within 4 days before or after it that was positive for SARS-CoV-2 by nucleic acid amplification–based testing, either at the central laboratory or at a local testing facility (using a protocol-defined acceptable test).
>Major secondary end points included the efficacy of BNT162b2 against severe Covid-19. Severe Covid-19 is defined by the FDA as confirmed Covid-19 with one of the following additional features: clinical signs at rest that are indicative of severe systemic illness; respiratory failure; evidence of shock; significant acute renal, hepatic, or neurologic dysfunction; admission to an intensive care unit; or death. Details are provided in the protocol.
Primary goal, symptomatic infection. Secondary goal, severe infection.
Please stop the gaslighting.
Nope. Please click and read either of the links I sent.
Here, I'll quote them for you.
>The trial enrolled 2,260 adolescents 12 to 15 years of age in the United States. In the trial, 18 cases of COVID-19 were observed in the placebo group (n=1,129) versus none in the vaccinated group (n=1,131).
>A total of 43,548 participants underwent randomization, of whom 43,448 received injections: 21,720 with BNT162b2 and 21,728 with placebo. There were 8 cases of Covid-19 with onset at least 7 days after the second dose among participants assigned to receive BNT162b2 and 162 cases among those assigned to placebo; BNT162b2 was 95% effective in preventing Covid-19 (95% credible interval, 90.3 to 97.6). Similar vaccine efficacy (generally 90 to 100%) was observed across subgroups defined by age, sex, race, ethnicity, baseline body-mass index, and the presence of coexisting conditions.
>The first primary end point was the efficacy of BNT162b2 against confirmed Covid-19 with onset at least 7 days after the second dose in participants who had been without serologic or virologic evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection up to 7 days after the second dose; the second primary end point was efficacy in participants with and participants without evidence of prior infection. Confirmed Covid-19 was defined according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) criteria as the presence of at least one of the following symptoms: fever, new or increased cough, new or increased shortness of breath, chills, new or increased muscle pain, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, diarrhea, or vomiting, combined with a respiratory specimen obtained during the symptomatic period or within 4 days before or after it that was positive for SARS-CoV-2 by nucleic acid amplification–based testing, either at the central laboratory or at a local testing facility (using a protocol-defined acceptable test).
>Major secondary end points included the efficacy of BNT162b2 against severe Covid-19. Severe Covid-19 is defined by the FDA as confirmed Covid-19 with one of the following additional features: clinical signs at rest that are indicative of severe systemic illness; respiratory failure; evidence of shock; significant acute renal, hepatic, or neurologic dysfunction; admission to an intensive care unit; or death. Details are provided in the protocol.
Primary goal, symptomatic infection. Secondary goal, severe infection.
Please stop the gaslighting.
That accurately reflected the results of the trial, which reflected performance against the original wild type. Do you dispute them?
However, scientific consensus was that we may not see such great results in the real world, especially if variants emerged. That was all highlighted in the Nature article I posted, which came out at the same time.
I don't understand why this is so difficult for people to understand. Mutations always change the game, but the commentary (and hope) was that the vaccines would continue protecting against severe disease, hospitalisation and death even with new mutations. That has broadly been the case.
However, scientific consensus was that we may not see such great results in the real world, especially if variants emerged. That was all highlighted in the Nature article I posted, which came out at the same time.
I don't understand why this is so difficult for people to understand. Mutations always change the game, but the commentary (and hope) was that the vaccines would continue protecting against severe disease, hospitalisation and death even with new mutations. That has broadly been the case.
>However, scientific consensus was that we may not see such great results in the real world, especially if variants emerged. That was all highlighted in the Nature article I posted, which came out at the same time.
They were not released at the same time. Check the dates. Your Nature article was written almost two months before the actual studies were released. It was based on preliminary evidence. It's not a rebuttal to the actual studies. The actual studies are a rebuttal to the Nature article.
>I don't understand why this is so difficult for people to understand
Likewise. Why do you insist on lying and perpetuating lies?
They were not released at the same time. Check the dates. Your Nature article was written almost two months before the actual studies were released. It was based on preliminary evidence. It's not a rebuttal to the actual studies. The actual studies are a rebuttal to the Nature article.
>I don't understand why this is so difficult for people to understand
Likewise. Why do you insist on lying and perpetuating lies?
I could bring up dozens of other examples of prominent scientists and public health professionals saying the same thing after the final Phase III results were published, but frankly I have to wonder if you’re worth the time it would take to collate them given the way you keep using pejorative terms like ‘gaslight’ and ‘lie’ in this discussion.
You’re starting from a predefined agenda and seeking evidence to fit, which is no way to go about things.
You’re starting from a predefined agenda and seeking evidence to fit, which is no way to go about things.
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> If that's not enough, change the definition of "vaccines". Surely that should convince everyone!
Where have you ever seen a definition of the word "vaccine" saying or even implying that it "blocks transmission and infection"?
Where have you ever seen a definition of the word "vaccine" saying or even implying that it "blocks transmission and infection"?
From above:
Aug 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g...
> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
Today: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm
> Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.
I think this is what people are referring to.
Aug 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g...
> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
Today: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm
> Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.
I think this is what people are referring to.
“Protecting from disease” was always recognised in the medical community as meaning you’d not get the severe symptoms of the disease, not that you could not get infected at all and not pass it onto others.
Few, if any, vaccines have blocked infection. They work by preventing the onset of severe disease and usually by severely blunting infectiousness.
Few, if any, vaccines have blocked infection. They work by preventing the onset of severe disease and usually by severely blunting infectiousness.
How exactly do you think we eradicated smallpox and polio?
Neither vaccine was fully sterilising. In fact current US CDC advice if going to a country with a polio outbreak is to get a booster.
In both those cases the vaccines just blunted the transmission rate enough for r0 to drop below 1. We were also lucky that the responsible viruses had very stable mutation rates & no animal reservoirs unlike SARS-CoV-2. That meant they mostly died out over time once the transmission rate was reduced.
In both those cases the vaccines just blunted the transmission rate enough for r0 to drop below 1. We were also lucky that the responsible viruses had very stable mutation rates & no animal reservoirs unlike SARS-CoV-2. That meant they mostly died out over time once the transmission rate was reduced.
Even if the polio vaccine isn't fully sterilizing, would you put our current COVID vaccines in the same league? Imagine we're living in the 60s right now, and we have a polio or smallpox vaccine with 70%+ uptake in the adult population, but the infection rate remains virtually unchanged. Would you consider this good enough?
I mean, take this quote from Dr. Fauci himself:
> As a physician and as a scientist and a public-health person, I think it is not entirely correct to make this very strong dichotomy between waning protection against hospitalization and death and waning immunity against infection and mild-to-moderate disease. It is an assumption that it’s okay to get infected and to get mild-to-moderate disease as long as you don’t wind up in the hospital and die. And I have to be open and honest: I reject that. I think we should be preventing people from getting sick from COVID even if they don’t wind up in the hospital.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/fauci-boo...
I mean, take this quote from Dr. Fauci himself:
> As a physician and as a scientist and a public-health person, I think it is not entirely correct to make this very strong dichotomy between waning protection against hospitalization and death and waning immunity against infection and mild-to-moderate disease. It is an assumption that it’s okay to get infected and to get mild-to-moderate disease as long as you don’t wind up in the hospital and die. And I have to be open and honest: I reject that. I think we should be preventing people from getting sick from COVID even if they don’t wind up in the hospital.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/fauci-boo...
It's a different type of virus. We have never, ever, successfully achieved the level of immunity against a rapidly mutating airborne virus as we have with SARS-CoV-2. Our greatest successes, Polio and Smallpox, were both extremely stable and without animal reservoirs, making vaccination much more straightforward.
You're demanding perfection and insisting that anything that falls short is worthless. That makes no sense.
You're demanding perfection and insisting that anything that falls short is worthless. That makes no sense.
I'm not saying the vaccines are worthless, I'm saying there is a trend of public figures gaslighting and making excuses for their ineffectiveness against Omicron, by redefining commonly accepted notions of what a vaccine is intended to do and pretending our goal all along was to merely prevent severe disease. The goal, as we've seen with past mass vaccination campaigns that worked, should be to stop the spread. Period. We need new vaccines, not fourth or fifth shots of the same thing.
By lowering its R0 below 1. Which doesn't not require "sterilizing" vaccines (which is good, since neither the smallpox nor polio vaccine eliminated infection or transmission with anything close to 100% effectiveness).
If I don't get very sick, I'd say they work.
The only people moving the goal post are the anti-vaxers. Ok, they reduce the severity of the disease...but..but..but COVID is still spreading so I will write off vaccines entirely.
The only people moving the goal post are the anti-vaxers. Ok, they reduce the severity of the disease...but..but..but COVID is still spreading so I will write off vaccines entirely.
The CDC is redefining words in front of our eyes, the anti vaxxers are merely pointing this out.
Seems like a prudent move when a certain segment of the population believe the prior definition gives them an excuse to not get vaccinated.
Will they? I think most people mostly care about themselves, therefore your argument is not sound.
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I wonder why many people would think that?
"You're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations" - Joe Biden
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn...
"You're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations" - Joe Biden
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn...
I would read that as "not preventing infection".
Are they preventing infection?
Are they preventing infection?
It's partially blocking the virus.
Summarizing that as "it's not blocking the virus" is misleading.
Summarizing that as "it's not blocking the virus" is misleading.
The offensive line partially blocked the defense while their QB got sacked.
UK Health Security Agency's COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report for January 13, 2022: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
Pages 13 to 18 are what relates the most to this.
"These estimates suggest that vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease with the Omicron variant is significantly lower than compared to the Delta variant and wane rapidly. Nevertheless, protection against hospitalisation is much greater, in particular after a booster dose, where vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation is around 85-90%%. Further data is needed to estimate the duration of protection against hospitalisation."
Pages 13 to 18 are what relates the most to this.
"These estimates suggest that vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease with the Omicron variant is significantly lower than compared to the Delta variant and wane rapidly. Nevertheless, protection against hospitalisation is much greater, in particular after a booster dose, where vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation is around 85-90%%. Further data is needed to estimate the duration of protection against hospitalisation."
This is what you get when you keep vaccinating/hyper-targeting against wild-type spike protein only for a mutating virus.
It’s been kind-boggling to me that we haven’t been continuously updating the vaccines. Low turnaround time is one of the great benefits of mRNA vaccine technology and yet here we are crossing our fingers that evolutionary pressure doesn’t do what exactly evolutionary pressure always does. In some ways we’re creating a perfect environment to breed better Covid strains by applying “gentle” pressure against its imperfect initial form.
It’s kind of amazing that we’ve figured how to take a reactionary approach (waiting until vaccine “failure” to start updating it) to what is normally a proactive policy (vaccination).
It’s kind of amazing that we’ve figured how to take a reactionary approach (waiting until vaccine “failure” to start updating it) to what is normally a proactive policy (vaccination).
We know our mRNA vaccines are safe and they worked great against Delta. Also Omicron is not a vaccine-optimized Delta, it is completely different strain that has evolved from an early variant.
A vaccine targeting Delta probably wouldn't have fared better against Omicron. In fact, it could have been even worse.
While making a new variant-optimized vaccine is easy and takes about a week, and maybe they have already done it. But it still takes months to test it and to produce it at scale. One thing for sure, it wouldn't have been ready for the current wave.
I think one reason we don't have an omicron-specific vaccine underway is that we came out lucky with this variant. It is less deadly and vaccines are still effective against severe disease. If anything, the spread creates natural immunity. My guess is that the next big wave, which I hope will never happen, will not be Omicron but instead a new variant that escapes immunity offered by an Omicron pre-infection or vaccine.
I think people are now looking for a more generic anti-coronavirus vaccine, capable of protection against all variants of SARS-CoV-2, and possibly other coronaviruses like SARS. But it is not as simple as copy-pasting the genetic code of the spike protein like with current vaccines.
A vaccine targeting Delta probably wouldn't have fared better against Omicron. In fact, it could have been even worse.
While making a new variant-optimized vaccine is easy and takes about a week, and maybe they have already done it. But it still takes months to test it and to produce it at scale. One thing for sure, it wouldn't have been ready for the current wave.
I think one reason we don't have an omicron-specific vaccine underway is that we came out lucky with this variant. It is less deadly and vaccines are still effective against severe disease. If anything, the spread creates natural immunity. My guess is that the next big wave, which I hope will never happen, will not be Omicron but instead a new variant that escapes immunity offered by an Omicron pre-infection or vaccine.
I think people are now looking for a more generic anti-coronavirus vaccine, capable of protection against all variants of SARS-CoV-2, and possibly other coronaviruses like SARS. But it is not as simple as copy-pasting the genetic code of the spike protein like with current vaccines.
> We know our mRNA vaccines are safe and they worked great against Delta.
Yes and no. We also knew that the mRNA vaccine’s neutralizing antibodies were something like 8x less effective against delta, but there was still enough left in the oomph budget to work. At least initially (at some point, your immune system wanes and that 8x less might become a bigger issue).
Moderna was working on a spike-specific booster toward the original South African variant (I guess because it’s spike protein was sufficiently different to worry), but I think it died off because delta took over.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/moderna-test-bo...
My issue is that the trend was looking unfavourable, but we did nothing about it except pray.
Yes and no. We also knew that the mRNA vaccine’s neutralizing antibodies were something like 8x less effective against delta, but there was still enough left in the oomph budget to work. At least initially (at some point, your immune system wanes and that 8x less might become a bigger issue).
Moderna was working on a spike-specific booster toward the original South African variant (I guess because it’s spike protein was sufficiently different to worry), but I think it died off because delta took over.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/moderna-test-bo...
My issue is that the trend was looking unfavourable, but we did nothing about it except pray.
> One thing for sure, it wouldn't have been ready for the current wave.
The reality is it isn’t ready for the current wave. It was easy enough to create, but the process of testing it and producing it at scale just haven’t been optimized. We should have been able to expect better from the $133 trillion global economic system.
The reality is it isn’t ready for the current wave. It was easy enough to create, but the process of testing it and producing it at scale just haven’t been optimized. We should have been able to expect better from the $133 trillion global economic system.
My understanding is that existing inactivated (whole-virus) vaccines perform worse than mRNA-based spike-targeting vaccines when it comes to neutralization. Here's a small study comparing BNT162b2 and Coronavac[1].
[1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.13.21267668v...
[1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.13.21267668v...
It’s a good study and worth reading.
Relevantly, it looked at omicron.
A few points:
> Third, we have not assessed the T cell immunity against the Omicron variant, which correlates with disease severity.
Non-antibody immune response is understudied. I suspect antibodies are just easy to measure, but, unfortunately for my academic record, there’s more to immune responses than just antibodies.
> Fourth, since all Coronavac recipients had an MN titer of <10 against the Omicron variant and the GMT against the ancestral virus is only 21.73, an accurate fold-reduction in neutralizing antibody titer cannot be determined.
Takeaway is that mRNA vaccines are very immunogenic in general. Hard to say if a more immunogenic coronavac would fare well against omicron or not.
Relevantly, it looked at omicron.
A few points:
> Third, we have not assessed the T cell immunity against the Omicron variant, which correlates with disease severity.
Non-antibody immune response is understudied. I suspect antibodies are just easy to measure, but, unfortunately for my academic record, there’s more to immune responses than just antibodies.
> Fourth, since all Coronavac recipients had an MN titer of <10 against the Omicron variant and the GMT against the ancestral virus is only 21.73, an accurate fold-reduction in neutralizing antibody titer cannot be determined.
Takeaway is that mRNA vaccines are very immunogenic in general. Hard to say if a more immunogenic coronavac would fare well against omicron or not.
Pretty good result really that it still protects against severe disease. We got lucky to get a variant that spreads super fast but is less dangerous and still protected a bit by our vaccines.
Emphatically agreed.
Not saying there aren't potential deficiencies with this technology that was more or less completely untried until recently and still hasn't been evaluated long term, but if people insist on trying to make the wrong action work by doing lots of it, what's to expect.
I was hoping this would be about results from clinical trials using the updated sequences. That will be interesting, not least whether a broad cocktail can defend against all the major strains simultaneously.
Not saying there aren't potential deficiencies with this technology that was more or less completely untried until recently and still hasn't been evaluated long term, but if people insist on trying to make the wrong action work by doing lots of it, what's to expect.
I was hoping this would be about results from clinical trials using the updated sequences. That will be interesting, not least whether a broad cocktail can defend against all the major strains simultaneously.
I can tell you first-hand that either it does, or some people are naturally immune.
My family of 4 including me just spent 10 days in a hotel room. One(A) was too young to be vaccinated, one(B) was too young to be boosted but was vaccinated earlier in 2021. One(C) was vaccinated also earlier in 2021 but was unable to get a booster due to scheduling issues. One(D) got a booster in December.
3 of us(A,B,C) tested positive via antigen for Covid. The youngest(A) was asymptomatic. The one(D) that was boosted had several negative tests including PCR and never exhibited symptoms. (B) and (C) were symptomatic and (C) still has a sore throat going on 21 days now.
The booster works and COVID-19 is not something you want to take your chances with.
My family of 4 including me just spent 10 days in a hotel room. One(A) was too young to be vaccinated, one(B) was too young to be boosted but was vaccinated earlier in 2021. One(C) was vaccinated also earlier in 2021 but was unable to get a booster due to scheduling issues. One(D) got a booster in December.
3 of us(A,B,C) tested positive via antigen for Covid. The youngest(A) was asymptomatic. The one(D) that was boosted had several negative tests including PCR and never exhibited symptoms. (B) and (C) were symptomatic and (C) still has a sore throat going on 21 days now.
The booster works and COVID-19 is not something you want to take your chances with.
Is there any website where we can track the development of "better vaccines"? For example India approved needle free (hypospray!) vaccine Zycov D.
https://www.ndtv.com/business/cadila-healthcare-surges-on-re...
https://www.ndtv.com/business/cadila-healthcare-surges-on-re...
I've found [1] to be a good resource for this.
[1]: https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/
[1]: https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/
The BioNTech investor relation website has some information: https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-det...
But I'd not consider it a valuable source for tracking the progress.
Edit: It's also from 2021-12-08 - probably way too old to be meaningful, a lot of knowledge has been acquired since then.
But I'd not consider it a valuable source for tracking the progress.
Edit: It's also from 2021-12-08 - probably way too old to be meaningful, a lot of knowledge has been acquired since then.
They block hospitalization, severe disease and death.
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So really, nothing new here. The vaccine works, we just like writing headlines that confuse people and generate clicks.