Booster Shots Create a 23X Increase in Protective Antibody Levels, Study Suggests (yahoo.com) 375
The Los Angeles Times summarizes the results of a new medical study conducted by Northwestern University researchers on antibody levels protecting against Covid-19 in 974 people. "Those who were immunized against COVID-19 with two doses of an mRNA vaccine and received a booster shot about eight months later saw their levels of neutralizing antibodies skyrocket.
"Among this group of 33 fully vaccinated and boosted people, the median level of these antibodies was 23 times higher one week after the booster shot than it had been just before the tune-up dose." What's more, their median post-booster antibody level was three times higher than was typical for another group of people whose antibodies were measured a few weeks after getting their second dose of vaccine, when they're close to their peak.
And it was 53 times higher than that of a group of 76 unvaccinated people who had recovered from COVID-19 just two to six weeks earlier. Even compared to a group of 73 people who had weathered a bout with COVID-19 and went on to get two doses of an mRNA vaccine, the boosted group's median antibody level was 68% higher.
Study leader Alexis Demonbreun, a cell biologist at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said the data demonstrate that no matter how well protected a vaccinated person may think she is, getting a booster shot is likely to increase her neutralizing antibodies — and with it, her immunity — considerably. And because scientists expect large antibody responses to create more durable immunity, the protection afforded by the booster should last longer than the initial two-shot regimen did...
Among their other findings: After receiving two doses of vaccine, people who'd already had an asymptomatic infection were typically no better protected than vaccinated people who had never been infected.
"Among this group of 33 fully vaccinated and boosted people, the median level of these antibodies was 23 times higher one week after the booster shot than it had been just before the tune-up dose." What's more, their median post-booster antibody level was three times higher than was typical for another group of people whose antibodies were measured a few weeks after getting their second dose of vaccine, when they're close to their peak.
And it was 53 times higher than that of a group of 76 unvaccinated people who had recovered from COVID-19 just two to six weeks earlier. Even compared to a group of 73 people who had weathered a bout with COVID-19 and went on to get two doses of an mRNA vaccine, the boosted group's median antibody level was 68% higher.
Study leader Alexis Demonbreun, a cell biologist at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said the data demonstrate that no matter how well protected a vaccinated person may think she is, getting a booster shot is likely to increase her neutralizing antibodies — and with it, her immunity — considerably. And because scientists expect large antibody responses to create more durable immunity, the protection afforded by the booster should last longer than the initial two-shot regimen did...
Among their other findings: After receiving two doses of vaccine, people who'd already had an asymptomatic infection were typically no better protected than vaccinated people who had never been infected.
Thats nice (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thats nice (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm more interested in what it's retention level is after 4 months. Shots 1 through 3 don't seem to hold up all that well.
Worst case, take the 4th shot 6 months after your 3rd shot, then the 5th shot 6 months later, etc. Everybody taking 2 shots a year is a small price to pay for defeating Covid.
Worser case scenario (Score:4, Interesting)
Worst case, take the 4th shot 6 months after your 3rd shot, then the 5th shot 6 months later, etc.
No, the worst case is that the booster provides minimal to no additional protection for younger people and that, by using up vaccine doses with unneeded boosters we leave enough people elsewhere with no protection that, not only do some of them die but the risk of a variant that evades the vaccine protection is increased.
I would happily take two shots a year to defeat this bloody virus but until we have data that shows that a booster is needed to avoid a serious risk of hospitalization I cannot help but think that the best way to defeat it is to give populations elsewhere their first doses....and frankly vaccine-hesitant populations nearer to home as well.
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No the worst case is we flood the population with a shot that doesn't reduce viral load [archive.ph], doesn't reduce infection or transmission rates [nih.gov], and pressures the virus to mutate into more deadly forms while large numbers of young healthy people getting debilitating life-long injuries and disability, if not dying outright, to that same failed product.
Which is why countries like Ireland where over 90% of the population has been given the shot are still seeing record breaking waves of cases. The only thing a "booster
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Vaccination reduces transmission in three manners:
* Reduces the odds of getting infected. In case this is news to you: people who don't get infected don't transmit
* Reduces the average length of the disease, and correspondingly, the infectious period.
* "Viral load" (usually people just mean cycle count, which isn't the same thing) is NOT the same thing as levels of infectious virus (as opposed to j
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That will literally never happen. Have we defeated the flu? How about colds? No? Then we certainly won't be defeating covid. It's here forever at this point.
The only question is how we deal with it going forward.
We deal with it by vaccinating as many people as we can.
So when they inevitably get it, their immune system has some idea what to do straight away.
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"The flu": four separate genuses (though usually just from two of them) of viruses contaning numerous broad lineages, with Influenza A alone having any one of 17 completely different hemaglutinins and any one of 11 completely different neuraminidases, and many variants thereof. Assuming we're talking about true influenza and not influenza-like illnesses, which are caused by an even broader range of viruses. Coevolved with humans since time immemorial.
"Colds" - A massive array of entirely unrelated viruses,
Re:Thats nice (Score:5, Informative)
I'm more interested in what it's retention level is after 4 months. Shots 1 through 3 don't seem to hold up all that well.
According to Ask a Caltech Expert: Alex Cohen on Vaccine Boosters [caltech.edu] boosters are less about antibodies and more about strengthening/refreshing the B/T cells memory so they can respond faster. Scientists focus on antibodies because they’re the most visible and readily measured marker of immunity, though they may not be the best predictor of protection [the latter noted in the article, but not quoted below].
What happens when you get a booster shot? Is the body's response different from the initial vaccine?
A booster shot is a way of strengthening the body's immune memory, a reminder of what a virus looks like. It's like when you're trying to study for an upcoming exam, it helps your memory to revisit the subject matter multiple times.
When your immune cells are activated by the first vaccine, they also make a copy of themselves that will survive in your bloodstream or in different tissues for some time. These are your memory B and T cells. In the case of a booster, instead of teaching your cells from scratch how to make antibodies and recognize the virus and so on—a process which takes between seven to 14 days—a booster activates memory cells rapidly, and they will jump into action and go back to making antibodies or killer T cells.
The idea is that if you are infected with SARS-CoV-2, you want your immune system to react as quickly as possible; you want the virus to have as little time as possible to replicate in your body. The boosters keep your immune system's memory sharp so that it can react quickly.
The article also discusses:
- What happens in the body when you get your initial vaccine?
- Some vaccines give lifelong protection—for example, the polio vaccine—while others require boosters, such as tetanus, which requires a new one every 10 years. Why does the immune system have a good memory for certain pathogens and not others?
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Some vaccines give lifelong protection—for example, the polio vaccine—while others require boosters, such as tetanus, which requires a new one every 10 years. Why does the immune system have a good memory for certain pathogens and not others?
It is just like killing the enemy with a gun. If you shoot it in the spike protein (hand) it is not very effective. If, however, you shoot the enemy in the core-antigen (heart) it will die.
Vaccines that produce "lasting immunity" generally target core-proteins. Others merely target dangly bits and so have very limited effect.
Like an addle gunman, it will take a while for the pharmaceutical companies to figure out what is the core target (if there is one). Influenza vaccines only target the dangly bits w
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Good point, seems that some viruses have a stable heart that is easy to shoot such as smallpox and others have a frequently mutating heart such as the flu. Hard to shoot for the heart if it moves around.
Thinking about it, I think the smallpox vaccine is the only single shot vaccine I've had with most requiring a booster. Same with my son and his shots. Looking into the shingles vaccine, 2 shots every 5 years for the chicken pox virus's return, cost C$170 a shot.
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It is just like killing the enemy with a gun. If you shoot it in the spike protein (hand) it is not very effective.
Spike proteins are the most accessible for antibodies. And we're also lucky because the RBD part of the Spike protein is heavily constrained by the need to match the ACE2 receptor.
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This. The spike protein wasn't chosen on a whim. There's only four virion proteins total - S, N, E and M. E and M are tiny, recessed, and poorly immunogenic. N is abundant and immunogenic (though internal), but enthusiasm for it as a target was lost when it was shown to be associated with ADE. That only leaves you with S - the abundant protein that waves around across the entire viral surface and has to leave several regions exposed in order to function.
Re:Thats nice (Score:5, Informative)
This is an utterly terrible simile.
The spike protein isn't some unimportant dangly bit. It's the thing that lets the virus get into human cells. It is literally the most important protein in the virus, as well as the only protein in the virus that can't mutate much - it has to match our receptors for it to work and we're not mutating much.
The reason polio requires one shot and other diseases require boosters is: We don't know. If we did, everything would require one shot.
Re: Thats nice (Score:3)
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It is just like killing the enemy with a gun. If you shoot it in the spike protein (hand) it is not very effective. If, however, you shoot the enemy in the core-antigen (heart) it will die.
Vaccines that produce "lasting immunity" generally target core-proteins. Others merely target dangly bits and so have very limited effect.
There is little point targeting the core bits if they spend all their time hidden behind the dangly bits.
If the core(heart) is only exposed inside infected cells after the infection has already happened, there isn't as much point.
Dangly bits on the outside like the spike, can be targeted before the virus gets a change to infect a cell. And so stop an infection spreading, or even starting.
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>they also make a copy of themselves that will survive in your bloodstream or in different tissues for some time
Including bone marrow, where the long term memory resides. Ellebedy's team has found long-lived immune cells in the bone marrow of recovered people (published) and vaccinated people (pending).
We do not know how long "long term" is or how effective it will be.
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Probably higher. As a rule, longer intervals between vaccinations leads to better immune results (to a point of course). It's basically the difference between your immune system saying "Hey, you're still here, I'll keep fighting you" and "Hey, I saw you a while ago and you've now come back. I'm going to add you to my long term "most wanted" list."
In the US, and many other countries, authorities stuck with the 3 week minimum interval as specified by Pfizer and Moderna. The three weeks is pretty much the mini
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The people seriously ill and dying in hospitals are mostly unvaccinated so if not getting seriously ill and dying is your goal then get vaccinated. Also, take vitamin D supplements (20 mins after eating fatty food) if you haven't gotten a body tan in the last couple of months.
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You can get myocarditis from covid-19 as well. Why? The spike protein is toxic and the vaccine is literally the spike protein. So either you take a low chance of myocarditis with the vaccine, or a medium chance of myocarditis when you go at it raw.
Re: Unvaxxed and soon to have lung aids (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Unvaxxed and soon to have lung aids (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, he'll be begging for Ivermectin. Then he'll whine incessantly that he wasn't given enough when his Covid doesn't clear and he's still on a ventilator. When the end is nigh, he'll blame the hospital staff for killing him.
Re: Unvaxxed and soon to have lung aids (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we trust the apolitical? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: Unvaxxed and soon to have lung aids (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's died from the vaccine? Versus who's died from Covid. I can actually name people who've died from covid. There is no causal link between the vaccines and the few deaths that have occurred afterwards.
All of the vaccines will have a few causal deaths (Score:3)
Over here, we, the taxpayers, receive monthly safety reports. Here's the November edition
Re: Unvaxxed and soon to have lung aids (Score:4, Funny)
Their coursework at the University of Facebook School of Medicine.
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monoclonal antibodies don't reprogram your cells to produce a pathogen
What the hell are you doing on Slashdot, moron? Vaccines are arguably a way to "program" your immune system, but neither the vaccine nor the immune system produce a pathogen. Your body produces an immune response when the vaccine teaches it to recognize a particular pathogen. Because modern vaccines aren't using "inactivated" viruses or bacteria, there is no pathogen produced or introduced, only the response to something that "looks" like the pathogen the vaccine wants to target.
in uncontrolled amounts/locations in the body
Its not "uncontrolled"; i
Re: Unvaxxed and soon to have lung aids (Score:5, Interesting)
This is an emergent phenomenon. We live in an #AttentionEconomy, and wet brained humans pay most attention to fear and hatred. In a market where fear and hatred are a competitive advantage, the #MediaIndustrialComplex will always work to maximize fear and hatred.
We live in a world largely made up of assigned opinions, and those opinions are meant to instill fear and hatred in us. The left hates the right for not following their dictates. The right hates the left for insisting on authoritarianism. The left fears the variants. The right fears the vaxes.
The antidote to this, unfortunately, isn't as viral as the pathogen. Reducing resentment and increasing gratitude is typically the bailiwick of religious traditions, and those aren't nearly as popular as the latest tiktok or meme.
I'm an atheist, but I recognize this as a battle for our souls, which we must each fight individually.
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Why would the spike protein be toxic?
(* facepalm *)
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So, we get toxic antibodies from the vaccine?
And you believe that?
Good luck!! You will need it!!
Re:Yawn... Thats nice. Unvaxxed and I'm still aliv (Score:5, Interesting)
It is not. The antibodies created by the defective (about 0.3% of the population) are toxic.
The evidence as it stands suggests the adverse reactions are largely the result of the needle hitting a vein or artery rather than a muscle.
The TVWR guy who poked the needle in me for my second shot certainly wasn't taking the care that nurses are taught to make sure they're getting muscle tissue. The pharmacist who did my booster was doing the correct procedure.
Re:Yawn... Thats nice. Unvaxxed and I'm still aliv (Score:5, Informative)
The evidence as it stands suggests the adverse reactions are largely the result of the needle hitting a vein or artery rather than a muscle.
And current CDC guidelines are to NOT do aspiration before injection so no one can ensure proper intramuscular injection. Doesn't matter with a lof of vaccine types. Looks like it does matter with the Covid vaccines. The only reason I can locate is "to avoid pain in infants" ?!?! So any supplier taking the initiative to aspirate in order to avoid the low possibility of hitting a small vein might get sued for not following the established guidelines. We need to hope the establishment catches up with the research soon.
When I got my booster I requested aspiration and gave them a reference to last months study where IV vs IM injections in mice gave exactly the pericarditis and myocarditis seen as the vaccine side effect. They were interested and glad to use the proper technique on my request. Its a very low probability, but I think I removed one (very low) chance of a side effect. Read real papers not random opinions on Facebook or twitter (or /.)
Re: Yawn... Thats nice. Unvaxxed and I'm still ali (Score:5, Insightful)
Thrombocytosis is not statistically associated with mRNA vaccination, only adenovirus vector vaccine vaccination, so there goes your Youtube theory.
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I don't particularly trust a doctor that has a snake oil website, many disagree with him, it's not a paper it's just an abstract.
The proof is in the pudding, here a predictor test is affected by vaccinations for a subset of the population, actual outcome numbers are needed and peer review is needed.
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You get mild cases of myocarditis from one of the vaccines, versus bad myocarditis from covid. People don't hear that part though, they only hear "vaccine causes death, zOmg!"
Re:Yawn... Thats nice. Unvaxxed and I'm still aliv (Score:5, Informative)
That's not correct; there's a number of key differences.
1. Vaccine spikes are double proline substituted. Proline is a stiff amino acid that acts like a splint; this double proline substitution locks them in their prefusion "looking for targets" form and prevents them from entering their postfusion "attack" form.
2. Vaccine spikes are fused to the cell membrane (as per the instructions in the signal peptide). They stay fixed with a given cell rather than being released connected to free virions (or secreted). As with the virus it is possible for degradation processes to release small numbers, as with any surface protein, but this is uncommon (by orders of magnitude).
3. As demonstrated by replacing the mRNA code with code to express luciferase and measuring the glow in mice, expression is overwhelmingly only in the deltoid. Next most common is the liver (by a couple orders of magnitude). The virus however spreads readily throughout the blood and is found abundantly in the whole body.
4. The virus employs a wide range of immunosuppressive and immunoevasion techniques, which make cellular responses to it different than when it's expressed from our own cells. This leads to a different immune response [science.org] to infection vs. vaccination.
Also, simply saying "myocarditis / pericarditis" doesn't tell the whole story. Vaccine-associated myocarditis is a far less severe disease [cdc.gov] than viral-associated myocarditis. And it seems to have to do with an overactive reaction of the innate immune system, rather than being some some sort of direct spike functionality. Which is why the side effect is most common in young healthy men with strong immune systems rather than, say, elderly people with heart disease.
Re:Yawn... Thats nice. Unvaxxed and I'm still aliv (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. [cdc.gov] It's also far less severe [cdc.gov] with vaccination.
Several decided to use Pfizer instead of Moderna. They did not "ban vaccination entirely in anyone under 30".
What you're calling "the administration" is both the FDA's VRBPAC (Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee) and the head of the CDC. What you're calling "the FDA" and "the scientists" is ACIP, an CDC advisory committee.
VRBPAC and ACIP only considered acute disease severe enough to cause hospitalization in their analysis. It was all they were tasked with considering. So:
* No consideration on the impact to transmission (the clinical significance of a pathogen is a combination of both its virulence and its transmissability)
* No consideration of long-term post-viral conditions
* No consideration of even near-term post-viral conditions (such as viral-induced myocarditis)
* No consideration of tangential side effects to infection (such as disruptions to work / personal life)
In the first VRBPAC meeting in September, they rejected offering a booster to everyone, preferring only a booster for older adults at the time (although many members expressed that they expected a general third dose would be coming eventually). They held a second vote and recommended at present a third dose for the following groups:
* Over 65yo
* Certain medical conditions
* High-risk occupations / situations
In the first ACIP meeting, they voted somewhat more restrictively than VBRPAC:
15:0 approved recommending boosters for 65+yo and long-term care residents.
13:2 approved recommending booster for 50-64yo with underlying conditions
9:6 approved letting 18-49yo with underlying conditions get boosters, without issuing a recommendation to get them
6:9 rejected recommending boosters for those in high-risk settings.
The CDC director ultimately decided to align with the FDA's VBRPAC rather than their own ACIP, and set in place recommendations/approval for:
* 65+yo
* Long term care residents
* 50-64yo with underlying conditions
* 18-49yo with underlying conditions weighing their own situation
* High exposure occupations
This was in late September. That was then. This is now. ACIP (the CDC committee that was overridden to align with the FDA committee) met again two weeks ago, although still tasked with a frustratingly limited scope, to reanalyze the situation based on the latest data. The majority expressed the view that the primary goal was to prevent severe acute disease, and secondary goals are reduced infection and transmission. They voted on the following policy:
* 50+ yo: Should get a booster
* Received J&J: Should get a booster
* Long-term care facility: Should get a booster
* 18-49yo with no risk factors: May get a booster
The vote was unanimously yes. I'll repeat, the vote was yes from the committee that was previously overruled to align with the FDA's VBRPAC.
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Here's your problem - any data you show (on either side), lacks enough rigor and quality for doubters to dismiss it.
I simply don't trust the data collection methods, the authorities that are aggregating it, or most of the people analyzing it.
In the end, the higher value I respect is individual freedom, and I wouldn't stop someone from taking HCQ or ivermectin, or any of the jabs - but I wouldn't force them either. It's not a perfect solution to the problem at hand, but I believe freedom is more important t
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If someone is unwilling to stop eating carbs, is the healthcare system obligated to treat their heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic diseases?
Frankly, I think healthcare should go back to pay for service. Let charities be the voluntary help given to people who can't afford it. Singapore actually has a pretty good system along these lines.
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It does not hurt that it is an easily measured quantity, unlike T cell reactions.
News for Nerds (Score:3, Funny)
How do those numbers compare to control and edge cases? For example Yoda has a midichlorian count of 17,700.
http://www.westondeboer.com/mi... [westondeboer.com]
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I thought antibodies were produced when needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I thought antibodies were produced when needed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, yes, and your antibodies hang around for a while after they're done clearing your infection, which is a good thing because people around you are probably still spraying you with the infectious agent. But if those antibodies are needed again after their levels drop, it may take the immune system quite some time to figure out it needs to make more of them.
That's kind of the rub with SARS-COV-2; it's secret pandemic sauce is that it evades the "innate" immune system until there's quite a bit of infection. That's how asymptomatic people can incubate the virus to the point where they're highly contagious. For the same reason, the innate immune system won't necessarily wake up your adaptive immune system in time to produce the antibodies you need to ward off COVID infection. Once it does, your immunological memory is going to help, but the virus may have incubated to high levels before memory *can* help.
So I guess the tl;dr on this is that if this result holds up, it sure looks like a booster will help you ward off infection and transmission in the short term. It probably tells us nothing about what a booster does for us in the mid- to long-term.
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That's how asymptomatic people can incubate the virus to the point where they're highly contagious
This has been overstated. It can happen, but it's not super common.
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But if those antibodies are needed again after their levels drop, it may take the immune system quite some time to figure out it needs to make more of them.
That's what B/T cells are for to remember how to make the desired antibodies quickly and not from scratch. The booster shot helps reinforce this memory effect. See my post [slashdot.org] above with a link to and quote from a related article from Caltech.
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Right. What we really hope is that the booster provides us a boost to immunological memory, but that's not what *this* result shows.
I think it's reasonable to be optimistic about boosting immunological memory, but we'll have to wait and see how much, if any the booster. The Phase 3 trial for boosters followed up with recipients 80 days after getting their booster, and really only demonstrates short term effectiveness.
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Having a high antibody titer means you are prepped to start inactivating viruses immediately. You're right that you have the resident B cells to start producing them again, but that can be 3-5 days to ramp up.
You also have continued T cell response. But studies have shown that the boosters don't really enhance either of those - they just cause more antibodies to be generated. (Which then decay at the same rate they did before.)
The reason to get a booster is either (a) you are immunocompromised and need t
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As long as the body remembers how to produce more, what difference really is the level of antibodies when you are not fighting the virus?
It takes time to clone the antibody-producing cells, and this gives the virus time to replicate and do damage (and to infect others).
Anecdotal evidence, but personal. (Score:5, Interesting)
Second shot four weeks later, produced a mild fever
The booster I got recently, full blown fever, sore arms,..
Was telling everyone I could feel the vaccine working!
Been tested multiple times, to travel to India, when its Delta was receding but still prevalent. All clear.
Two relatives households in India, the vaccinated members remained negative while the unvaccinated (younger not eligible for vaccines) people contracted vaccine.
Its all anecdotal, true. But personally witnessed.
Covid might become a permanent affliction with more to follow. Humanity might look back at the period between 1940 and 2020 as the period in history when antibiotics and vaccines gave us unwarranted sense of entitlement that we have medicines to ward off all microbes. Humans had never been in full control. The small pox virus killed the emperor of Japan. And polio attacked the President of the USA. No one was safe from them. We can beat them collectively. But at individual level it is a roll of dice.
I recall some member of the Royal Society talking blithly about "Science has solved all the issues of nature. We can predict everything. There is nothing more to be invented." in 1905 when Einstein was just getting ready to unleash the Theory of Relativity !
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Two relatives households in India, the vaccinated members remained negative while the unvaccinated (younger not eligible for vaccines) people contracted vaccine.
Oh no! I didn't realize the vaccine was contagious!
Re: Anecdotal evidence, but personal. (Score:2)
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AIDS is not a disease. The long name is Acquired Immune Deficiency SYNDROME. It is not a disease. It is a *SYNDROME* caused by a defective response to he HIV 1 and 2 virii.
COVID-19 is not a disease. It is a SYNDROME (called ARDS) caused by a defective response to SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2. ARDS is also seen with defective immune responses to RSV (Respiratoryt Synctial Virus) and Influenza A & B.
Probably when the first common cold virii appeared (Rhinoviruses and the other 3 Corona viruses) about 3
Pfizer is saying 100 days (Score:2)
We do need to do something about antibiotics, but even that's mostly up to over use and over prescription. Universal healthcare would help a *lot* with the human side (we're already backing off the animal side, seen those adds about "no antibiotics"? That's because the gov't told them to lay off or be forced to lay off).
But we really need universal healthcare. One
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Having large number of people without health care is like living in an expensive home in a neighborhood with lots of combustible houses. If you dont help your neighbor fireproof his/her home, chances of your home burning down goes up. Same with healthcare. Same with crime.
Mere existence of government protects property, and it is in the best interest of property owne
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No it didn't. It attacked a man who would later be elected to that office.
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Sure covid will become a permanent money maker and control mechanism for govt overreach but the facts are that it doesn't affect most people. This isn't the bubonic plague .
Vaccines are still cheaper for governments than building more hospitals and ICUs.
Assuming you're not in one of those backwards countries where the government doesn't provide healthcare.
In that case it would be cheaper for insurance companies instead.
Incoming 10x premium increases for anti-vaxxers. 100x for covidiots.
Omicron (Score:3)
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Moderna announced months ago that a combo mRNA flu + SAR-CoV-2 vaccine was in the works. Some employers will require it. Those that own stock will make money. Maybe, some vaccinated will be better off.
So long as there are wet markets or other places where animals are kept in unsanitary conditions just a few hours flight from anywhere in the world, there will be new viruses to infect us globally, new pandemics. So long as there are countries with that same easy air travel and +20% of the population with
Re:Omicron (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine thinking that "blue-pilled" is a meaningful way to describe someone.
And if the people who took the blue pill were asleep in the Matrix, does that mean the people who were red-pilled are actually "woke"? Could any faddish descriptors be any more juvenile?
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With new variants continually emerging, and the mRNA vaccine payload change only taking days, with testing done in a handful of months, it’s likely we will be seeing variants start to bypass the efficacy of the original strain vaccine
I know it's conceivable that we'll get variants that avoid the original vaccine, but I think there's way too much faith that the virus will manage to do that.
Sure, the selection pressure is huge, but they picked the spike protein because it's the one that can't mutate much. It's the protein that lets the virus into our cells. If the shape of the protein changes enough to avoid the antibodies, then it's very likely it won't fit our receptors anymore.
Scientists and public health experts definitely need to w
Re: Omicron (Score:2)
Has to be Fake News (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, come on. A study from Northwestern University? How can a university be northwestern when it's located in Evanston Illinois? That's like 2100 miles from the Pacific Ocean!
No way that place can be trusted...
Re:Has to be Fake News (Score:5, Funny)
For those of you not in the US: 2100 miles = 1,753,978 kilometers.
Re: Has to be Fake News (Score:2)
Lol I assume this is a troll?
It's hard to read sarcasm on the internet.
Re: Has to be Fake News (Score:5, Funny)
Lol I assume this is a troll?
It's hard to read sarcasm on the internet.
Yes.
If I'd been serious, I'd have specified nautical miles.
I got mine (Score:2)
How unique is the solution each survivor develops? (Score:2)
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Is it too simplistic to assume that the solutions all target the same marker?
The way your immune system works is it tries random sequences of the sticky end of antibodies until it finds one that sticks. Ever have everyone in your immediate family catch something but you didn't? Most likely, you got lucky and stumbled across the right sequence quick enough that you didn't feel sick.
Anyway, since it's random it is unlikely that every recovered person is targeting the same antigen. They're going to target whatever stuck first (Mostly. Immune system's complicated).
Are there any solutions that are better than others?
Yes, the best ant
Fuck boosters (Score:3)
Antibody levels have no known correlation with hospitalization and death. Until this changes I have zero interest in hearing about metrics which don't matter.
Do I care in the slightest if I am infected or get sick because I didn't get a booster and my antibody levels are not thru the moon? Not while there remains a single country on earth with insufficient supply I don't. What did Tedros say 6x more going to boosters than supplying people who have not even had a prime dose. Scandalous is a polite term for what is effectively murder.
Quantity has a quality all its own (Score:2)
_IF_ I understand what I've read, antibody-antigen binding is a dynamic equilibrium process, which means that even if they don't stick for long, an excess of one reactant (the antibodies) can soak of most of the other (the antigens).
If an antibody is like an old sticky note and falls off a variant antigen, having twenty to take its place keeps the virus out of circulation.
over-sensationalized (Score:5, Interesting)
>"Booster Shots Create a 23X Increase in Protective Antibody Levels"
Absolutely believable. And I support the concept. However, it should not be over-sensationalized:
1) The vaccines were all designed for Alpha, not Delta, and not those variants coming later. So even if it is 23X more "antibodies", that doesn't mean a 23X increase in protection against what is infecting people now.
2) Antibodies are not the only form of protection. T-cell memory typically imparts long-term protection to create new antibodies quickly, when needed. Those vaccinated a long time ago still likely have quite a bit of protection from severe illness or death, even if they have zero antibodies present. Such protection can often last for several years.
>"And it was 53 times higher than that of a group of 76 unvaccinated people who had recovered from COVID-19 just two to six weeks earlier."
That is a meaningless number. Those who recovered that recently were, no doubt, fighting Delta, and their resulting anti-bodies (and T-cell memory) will likely be much better at protecting against Delta than the antibodies an Alpha booster vaccine might create. And, presumably, more effective at the next variant that comes (since it will likely mutate from Delta and therefore be closer to Delta than Alpha).
And there is little doubt that other variants will come. COVID-19 cannot be eradicated, and so that should not be the goal.
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1) The vaccines were all designed for Alpha, not Delta, and not those variants coming later. So even if it is 23X more "antibodies", that doesn't mean a 23X increase in protection against what is infecting people now.
Delta only has one mutation in the RBD part of the spike and just several more mutations in the NTD part. So there was no real need to customize the vaccine.
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The vaccines were all designed for Alpha, not Delta
The vaccines were designed for the ancestral variant, not for Alpha. Alpha is so called because it was the first significant new variant after the original one.
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There'll be no more
But you may feel a little sick...
Re: trust the sigh-ants (Score:2)
Gotta flatten that curve Cos we can't have it thick
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As I understand it, the vaccines (including booster) may or may not be able to protect from Omicron. But, while we’re waiting to find that out, and then (if needed) while they’re developing an omicron-targeted booster, the original virus and Delta are still floating around and can kill you or give you long Covid symptoms.
So, you know, getting a booster now (and the studies show that the third shot actually gives you better protection than the first two, even when they were newly-administered), w
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Also if the vaccines effectiveness dies off just as quickly after a booster, it would make a lot more sense to wait until closer to a time when you were travelling.
Good point.
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Also if the vaccines effectiveness dies off just as quickly after a booster, it would make a lot more sense to wait until closer to a time when you were travelling.
Good point.
That's fine if you're travelling to the virus.
How will you know when the virus is travelling to you?
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If you're traveling, you're going to meet a lot more people than if you're staying at home and social distancing.
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The existing vaccines never promised 100% immunity. They promised, and delivered, significantly reduced chance of getting Covid in the first place, significantly reduced chance of getting severe enough disease to require hospitalization (or to risk death, or long Covid symptoms), and significantly reduced chance of transmitting the disease to others.
56x that is even better. It’s math.
So it’s not a scam, you were delivered what was promised, but you knew that already.
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Sorry, my Moderna shot has not prevented the Covid, and I did not expect it to
LOL No mod points, but that is funny.
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I mean, certainly if people don't believe in vaccination, another study should convince them.
Someone should do a study concluding that anti-vaxers are correct and shouldn't get vaccines, so they can then not believe that and [head explodes] ...
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Forget what you know from all the people around you suffering adverse side effects.
LOL No mod points, but that is funny too.
Re: Take your jab.... (Score:2)
Just role the dice 4-6 times and hope you survive. The odds against you being here to say that were astronomical. Despite the odds against it, an asteroid hit the Earth 65 million years ago and ushered in the age of the mammals. And it was all uphill after that. You beat thousands of sperm to be conceived in a very short era where the conditions for life were favourable. Roll the dice, indeed.
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Oh sweet, they did! Turns out... *drum roll*...
Yes, a booster reduced the probability of infection (as in complete prevention of infection, defined by no measurable shedding of virus) by 88% vs no 3rd dose, which is between 95-97% vs plague rats.
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Meantime, I'll do everyone a service and stay in the unvaccinated control group. you're welcome!
Please do. Tomorrow is better off without you in it.
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And are dying... Are the vaccinated
[Citation Required]
'Cause here's actual data: https://www.medpagetoday.com/s... [medpagetoday.com]
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