Mixing Covid Vaccines Gives Good Protection, Study Suggests (bbc.com) 49
A mix-and-match approach to Covid vaccines -- using different brands of jab for first and second doses -- gives good protection against the pandemic virus, a UK study has found. From a report: The Com-Cov trial looked at the efficacy of either two doses of Pfizer, two of AstraZeneca, or one of them followed by the other. All combinations worked well, priming the immune system.
This knowledge could offer flexibility for vaccine rollout, say experts. The trial results also hint that people who have already received two doses of AstraZeneca vaccine could have a stronger immune response if they were given a different jab as a booster if recommended in the autumn.
The UK's deputy chief medical officer, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, said there was no reason to change the current successful same dose vaccine schedules in the UK, however, given vaccines were in good supply and saving lives. But he says it might be something to look at in the future: "Mixing doses could provide us with even greater flexibility for a booster programme, while also supporting countries who have further to go with their vaccine rollouts, and who may be experiencing supply difficulties."
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They have Stupid Powers.
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I'm sure there's a fascinating reason why people are still insinuating that these vaccines haven't been thoroughly vetted for efficacy and safety.
Re:Super Powers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus somehow skipping over the fact that if these vaccines were so terribly dangerous, the morgues would be overflowing given that hundreds of *millions* of people have been vaccinated with them at this point.
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The fact that they are apparently regard the vaccine as more dangerous than the virus puts the validity of anything else they have to say in proper perspective.
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So, how many long-term studies have been done on a vaccine that is less than a year old?
It is LIKELY very safe. But I have had the virus, and I KNOW that it won't kill me.
I am not anti-vaccine, but every vaccine that I have ever had has had years (or decades) of testing.
This is the FIRST time that RNA (or even DNA) based vaccines have ever been used on a large scale. What could possibly go wrong?
But if you want to be a lab rat, go right ahead. For the elderly, get it. It is a simply risk vs. reward calc
Re: Super Powers? (Score:2)
Or you could take a college-level biology class and learn what mRNA actually is and does in the body so that your stance isn't quite so alarmist.
Protein synthesis of the same structure as the virus's exterior, not even the attenuated viral mechanisms found in traditional vaccines. And the original mRNA payload dissolves within hours.
But hey, what's another willing disease vector during a pandemic limiting the effects of herd immunity. Good on you, Mr. "I'll wait until the babies are born."
P.S. Babies have b
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Really? Women have conceived SINCE getting the vaccine and have given birth, since the vaccine really only became available in December? So you are saying that if you get pregnant AFTER getting the poke, you will go into premature labor? Wow, what a great advertisement.
DO THE DAMN MATH. The vaccine FIRST became available (in VERY limited quantities) back in DECEMBER. It has clearly not been 9 months.
Yes, I *KNOW* what the mRNA codes for. That is not the point. There have been side effects to the vacc
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Really? Women have conceived SINCE getting the vaccine and have given birth, since the vaccine really only became available in December? So you are saying that if you get pregnant AFTER getting the poke, you will go into premature labor? Wow, what a great advertisement.
DO THE DAMN MATH. The vaccine FIRST became available (in VERY limited quantities) back in DECEMBER. It has clearly not been 9 months.
Yes, I *KNOW* what the mRNA codes for. That is not the point. There have been side effects to the vaccine. The incidents are rare, but they exist. Once again, repeat after me: "if you are at risk, get the vaccine." I know that I am not at risk.
Yeah, you do you. But keep your laws off of my body. My body, my choice. Or is that phrase no longer relevant since politics clearly should be more important than my own sovereignty over my own body? Yeah, I know. Those phrases are different and don't matter, because you say so.... I should just take your word on what is best for me.
I'm with ya buddy. What if I'm 100 years old. Are there any side effects for old people that don't show up for 30 years?
I'm going to wait until there are some 130 year old survivors who were vaccinated. Then I'll know the science is settled...
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Clearly another person who lacks reading comprehension. This is a PERSONAL DECISION. If you are elderly and at a heightened risk, go ahead and take it.
But I guess that, along with being an ass, reading comprehension is another one of your weaknesses.
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It's a risk:reward calculation either way, independent of your age.
Plus, if you knew a thing or two about biology and virology, you'd even understand how ridiculous your fears are.
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Really? I know quite a bit about biology. Yes, I know that the mRNA just codes for the surface proteins. But you don't know what you don't know, and that goes for biology as a whole. It was once believed that our genome was full of junk DNA. Guess what? It isn't junk. It was once believed that the appendix had no purpose. Yup, it does.
Doctors used to prescribe smoking for pregnant women.
Science gave us Thalidomide. That went well, didn't it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Yes, we don't know everything. But we improve our knowledge every day. We do have setbacks, but our advances outpace them by magnitudes.
Life isn't safe. It never was. No matter what we pretend. Anything you do is a risk. Anything you don't do as well. The goal is to understand the risks you're taking and taking the ones with the fewest negative outcomes.
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Your risk/reward calculation isn't accounting for the risk unvaccinated people present as a possible vector for the virus to spread/mutate to/in children and other unvaccinated people. You also seem to be giving equal weight to what science knows about the virus/vaccines and some vague speculation on possible long-term side effects.
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I have already HAD the virus. If I had not, I would likely get the vaccine. But my body ALREADY KNOWS how to fight it off...
I do freely admit that there is (in my mind) a 99% chance that the vaccine is safe. But not 100%. It does not help that any news about side effects is actually censored by big tech. There is a narrative to push, so any knowledge that says otherwise must be suppressed. I don't trust the process.
But,"my body, my choice" and "keep your laws off of my body." But you do you... If yo
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I do freely admit that there is (in my mind) a 99% chance that the vaccine is safe. But not 100%.
Find me a vaccine anywhere in the world that has a 0% side effect rate.
It does not help that any news about side effects is actually censored by big tech. There is a narrative to push, so any knowledge that says otherwise must be suppressed. I don't trust the process.
You mean like when a dozen patients out of millions developed blood clots and the press didn't cover it at all? Your baseless conspiracy theories are irrelevant.
But,"my body, my choice" and "keep your laws off of my body."
When pregnancy becomes a public health hazard, transmissible via aerosolized droplets, I'll be sure to post here to congratulate you on your pithy analogy.
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Pregnancy is not a public health hazzard. Abortion is. Each abortion, by definition, requires the death of a human with unique DNA that will never be seen again.
Me not getting the vaccine MIGHT, MAYBE result in an illness (that might or might not result in death) of another person who CHOSE to not get the vaccine.
An abortion is GUARANTEED to kill a person.
But on the plus side, if this becomes mandatory, then the door is wide open for government making decisions for people's health. So this sets a good pr
exposing people to mRNA and DNA?! (Score:2)
This is the FIRST time that RNA (or even DNA) based vaccines have ever been used on a large scale.
Not only is the exact thing you're thinking about wrong (synthetic mRNA vaccines have been used in small scale tests in the past: rabies, Zika, cytomegalovirus, and influenza have had experimental candidate. It's not the tech which is new, it's the scale at which it is currently deployed. Hence all the "producing it fast enough to beat the pandemic" troubles we have now. The production lines don't exist in sufficient numbers, yet).
But if you take a step back and look at the broader picture, you comment is
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Mixing experimental vaccines, I'm sure I have seen that movie!
While waiting for my Moderna appointments early this year, I gratuitously took some extra vaccinations to keep my socially distanced, unchallenged immune system from getting flabby: flu, pneumonia, tetanus, and the new two-shot Shingrix.
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Scared?
Other than legalisms and bureaucracy (Score:1)
was there ever a legitimate medical reason to believe that like-kind vaccines (mrna and viral vector) couldn't be mixed to yield the same result?
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depends what the mrna codes for, could be different. and the body's defenses to "dead virus vax" could be yet another thing. Not impossible to believe that one would be more effective than another against mutant variations.
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The immunology of this is actually pretty clever and not as obvious as you might think. There was a great piece on this earlier this year on Radio 4, but I can't find it now to link to. This article hints at some of it: https://geneonline.news/en/is-... [geneonline.news]
Canada's already actively doing this (Score:5, Informative)
They are actively mixing Pfizer and Moderna to the public now, dosing based on availability. That doesn't stop people from vaccine shopping, but the difference is being likened to a "Coke vs Pepsi" decision. Aside from under-18s, both types of mRNA vaccines are being offered as if they're interchangeable now. The message is, get what you can as soon as you can.
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Wolverine was Canadian... I'm an Atlantic Canadian though.. I'll probably end up like some sort of Aquaman instead.
But seriously, can't re-iterate enough, 'get what you can as soon as you can' holds strong. My rather small province was mostly Pfizer, but I'd have taken whatever they had in a heartbeat for my shots.
Re:Canada's already actively doing this (Score:5, Funny)
Probably followed by a "New Vaccine" vs "Vaccine Classic" fiasco. :-)
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Probably followed by a "New Vaccine" vs "Vaccine Classic" fiasco. :-)
Does that make the Sinovac one Coke Zero?
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Is this in the UK? Interesting, that's a pretty recent change. I got my 2nd dose last week (AZ both times) and they were strict about homologous dosing at that point. But then we had the switch to grab-a-jab at the weekend too, and it certainly feels like the drum-beat of infections is really speeding up now -- self-isolation is happening absolutely everywhere suddenly from exposure to Delta -- so I think they are now switching much more aggressively to the policy you describe.
Frankly, I think nothing will
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Doh! You said "Canada" in your subject line. I was too busy reading the text...
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There's a booster trial going on in the UK, headed up by a team from the University of Southampton. They're recruiting volunteers who received full vaccinations in January and February this year to receive a booster vaccination. They're trying three different protocols -- one dose of the same vaccine, half a dose of the same vaccine (to reduce the amount of vaccine needed for a booster program) and the third option is to give a full dose of a different vaccine. The double-blind option is a meningococcus vac
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In Canada everybody 12+ who wanted a first dose already got one. Most people got Pfizer. Canada now has an excess of Moderna, so is using it as second doses for people who got Pfizer or AZ as a first dose.
Also Moderna is not yet authorized for minors.
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What are the medium- and long-term complications of getting Moderna? (Nobody knows.)
Of course but when is it the last time we used a vaccine on 100+ million people, only to find out that it was a bad idea after side effects discovered 6 months to 10 years later?
And what are the medium- and long-term complications of COVID-19? (Nobody knows.). Short term complications are known to be quite bad for enough people.
So at this point, given what we know, taking a vaccine (including two doses of AZ) is the safest choice.
If you get both, then you're exposed to the potential long-term complications of two vaccines instead of just one.
Not really, since you are not getting two doses of the two vaccines. There is
Too late. Delta variant will hit a few states (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason those five states are singled out is due exclusively to the low number of people who are vaccinated. Currently, less than 35% of the people in those states are fully vaccinated compared to almost half of the entire U.S. population. These states also voted for the con artist. Coincidence?
With the Delta variant being both more highly transmittable and more deadly, expect daily covid deaths to rise from the current ~250 to over 1,000 by the end of the year and into the next.
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I believe most vaccinated are in the few populous cities, like NOLA and Baton Rouge here in LA, but the unvaccinated are mostly in the more isolated and rural areas, so that may keep number low/slower than having that many un-vax'ed in densely populated areas.
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Unless something drastically changes....that contact isolation ship has sailed and isn't coming back.
I don't think the US would put up with any more of that....I just don't see it happening.
yes and no (Score:3)
it has become apparent the Delta variant will have an impact on select communities in certain states. Those states being Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Wyoming.
From the actual data which is actually apparent is that no such thing is likely, not many people travel those states, and the population is extremely dispersed making any such spread very unlikely.
Delta will not do much in those states for the same reason Covid didn't have much reach - and anyone who travels around much in those states has either likely already had Covid, or will have gotten vaccinated making further spread extremely unlikely.
You can't just point to a single variable in a complex system and make predictions based solely on that.
These states also voted for the con artist.
Oh now I see, you aren't making your predictions based on data, scientific evidence, or even rational thought - you are making predictions based on your own bigotry. Sad.
I do agree with your assessment when it comes to Wyoming, but the other states aren't as sparsely populated as WY is. Moreover, there's a lot of traffic (trucking) going between Texas and FL/GA (through those states) with the inevitable stops. That's one vector of transmission.
Here in Florida we have lots of counties with very bad vaccination numbers (and incidentally near zero ICU capacity) that also see a lot of traffic, but in trucking as well as people (mostly vaccinated) making trips to Orlando and L
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Here in Florida we have lots of counties with very bad vaccination numbers (and incidentally near zero ICU capacity
Are you sure about that? Would really love a link to something that says that, but I can find absolutely zero current info claiming anything like that for Florida that is newer than three months old or so, if that...
You are not even fucking trying.
https://data.democratandchronicle.com/covid-19-vaccine-tracker/florida/12/ (as of July 1st) [democratandchronicle.com]
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/437546-florida-lags-in-vaccinations-as-new-covid-19-variant-threatens/ as of June 30 [floridapolitics.com]
https://www.news4jax.com/news/florida/2021/06/22/young-rural-residents-to-keep-florida-from-reaching-presidents-70-vaccination-goal/ as of June 22 [news4jax.com]
https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/healthcare/2021/06/14/rural-north-florida-county-vaccination-rates-lag-c [gainesville.com]
So when can we get a Pfizer dose if we got J&J (Score:1)
I got the J&J vaccine, because it was all they were giving out and I was sold on it being 'good enough'. Now I want to upgrade and get some more protection, when/how is that gonna happen?
Sounds like normal UK propaganda to me (Score:3)
A UK study published by the BBC, who recently stated it would not expose lies for "fear it would undermine public faith in democracy" Id like to see a study from a country that is not poisoned with propaganda and led by liars before commenting.
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