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Medicine

Pfizer Study Says the Updated COVID Boosters Significantly Rev Up Protection (go.com) 268

The Associated Press reports that Pfizer's updated COVID-19 booster "significantly revved up adults' virus-fighting antibodies, the company said Friday, releasing early findings from a rigorous study of the new shots." Booster doses tweaked to target the most common omicron strain rolled out in early September, and the Food and Drug Administration said the latest data should spur more Americans to get one — especially before another expected wave of cases as people travel for Thanksgiving. Pfizer said people 55 and older who got the omicron-targeting booster had four-fold higher antibody levels than those given an extra dose of the original vaccine....

A month after receiving the new booster, antibody levels in people 55 and older had jumped 13 times higher than before the extra dose. Younger adults saw a 9.5-fold jump, Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said. It had been about 11 months since the study participants' last vaccination....

The new data "reassures us that this was a good decision to move to this bivalent vaccine," FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks told The Associated Press. "Right now is the time for people to consider going out and get the updated" booster.... The updated doses are combination shots, tailored to offer a boost of protection against both the original coronavirus strain and the dominant BA.5 strain.

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Pfizer Study Says the Updated COVID Boosters Significantly Rev Up Protection

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  • Anecdote time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @12:38PM (#63026725)

    Every COVID shot I get knocks me on my ass for a day. But I recently spoke with a woman who listened to a friend who told her "it's just the flu" and five weeks out she is still recovering and sounds like she's on death's door.

    I'll take the certainty of a couple of days of lethargy every year over risking that, thanks.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      I've had all 4 Moderna shots. The 1st one took me out of work for a day. The second one took me out for 2 days. The third one didn't seem to have much of a noticeable effect for the first day (which I scheduled to be off, based on past experience) but the second day I woke up feeling like I'd been beaten with a baseball bat, so I stayed home. The 4th shot, just a few weeks ago, left me feeling so-so the day-of (I get them in the morning), and not so great the second day, so I stay home from work then, too.
      • Re:Anecdote time (Score:4, Insightful)

        by korgitser ( 1809018 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @02:04PM (#63026909)

        Three times vaxxinated here, and had the plague too.

        But I still take issue with you calling anti-vaxxers morons. Yes, you are correct based on your life experience and the worldview you built on top of that. But if you declare that you are embarrassed to be the same species they are, your are being part of the problem, and not part of the solution.

        Because they do not share your life experience. The great political divide in the U.S. stems from two totally different worlds that exist in parallel worlds that exist in the U.S. And you have to understand, the other side has been fucked over beyond repair. Their jobs have been shipped overseas, they have had their future taken from them, driven to homelessness, drug deaths and despair. The democratic party whodunnit tells them to go fuck themselves and keel over.

        The process is still ongoing and that means that more and more people are going to find themselves on the wrong side of history. But you should understand this. A drowning man grasps at anything. If you have to choose between a party that tells you that you are a deplorable and you should go fuck yourself, and another one that at least acknowledges your problems, you take the other one. Even if the one you choose is 0,001% probability of success, it is the correct choice over the 0% one. Even if the 0,001% one is fucking Donald Trump.

        The thing is, there is no voter out there that is actually able work themselves through all of the policy matters. There is no such thing as an informed voter. All you can do is put your trust in some party, based on whether they mouth the right words for you. In a society where everything is politicized, where being smart is politicized, where vaxxination is politicized, you end up people rejecting all of the nice things based on their party affiliation.

        But there is more to it. The more one feels abandoned by the system, the more one rejects everything about the system. In the U.S., truth itself has been so politicized, focus grouped, public relationed, commercialized and sold out that it just doesn't exist anymore. Anything that is being floated as a truth is always foremost sold as the truth in cover of some entirely different agenda; any correlation between what is floated and what actually is, is for all practical purposes entirely coincidental. So if you feel enough of abandonment by the system, you will reject any narrative that the system pushes on you. If your life experience says that everything the system does is to fuck you over, from that follows that also vaxxination is to fuck you over. This is basic rational reasoning and there is no flaw to be found in it, not a flaw that you or me are not constantly guilty of too, anyway.

        So where I'm getting at is that anti-vaxxers are a symptom, not the disease. Like the quintessential american act of killing the fever and going to work, fighting the symptom only worsens the disease. You need to go for the root cause. But the problem is, the greatest-country-in-the-world mindset prevents even any recognition that there is a disease, never mind actually doing something about it. D.C., of course, could not be happier about it. Let the proles fight so that they can eat the cake. But the disease, looks to me, it's in metastasis already. Bummer.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          You make some good points, but also fall prey to a common misconception. Many, if not most "anti vaxxers" are highly educated. Some are people like myself who came to our conclusions after reading a huge amount of medical history and theory.

          Many others became anti vax after direct experience because they or a loved one (often a child) were injured by vaccine(s). For a parent, it doesn't matter if everyone else in the world says vaccines are "safe and effective" when they see their healthy happy baby get

          • I don't think I brought education into this. Even more so, I don't think education has anything to do with the dynamics I described. Maybe in some specific case, maybe in this specific case, but in general, no. Society needs people with different education levels, and democracy has to value all of them and take care of all of them. So when it fails to do so and problems arise, it is a false start to start pointing fingers at people's education levels. When problem arise and are not fixed, society has failed

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by whoever57 ( 658626 )

          I disagree with much of the premise of your argument. Frankly, it's the classic bullshit that I hear from the right, which blames the left for the viewpoint of the right. It's the complete opposite of taking responsibility for their actions and there is no room for compromise.

          One party is telling them that their jobs have gone and crime has gone up (it hasn't) because of "others". Who the "others" are is neither consistent nor is it important. The fact that too many people go along with this "othering" is t

          • Re:Anecdote time (Score:5, Insightful)

            by korgitser ( 1809018 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @05:26PM (#63027379)

            What is this left you are talking about? There is no left in the U.S.

            There is one party that uses socially liberal rhetoric to sell liberal capitalism. This boils down to "because you like pussy hats and minorities, Wall Street and Silicon Valley money should have free reign in this country".

            And there is the other party that uses socially conservative rhetoric to sell conservative capitalism. This boils down to "because you like gunz and Jesus, Oil and War money should have free reign in this country."

            There is nothing even vaguely left in any of that, expect in the fact that the voters have been trained to think there is. Both the U.S. parties are extreme right by any standard expect the U.S. standard.

            Whether the jobs have been shipped overseas and the rest of it, go and ask about that in Detroit, go and ask the farmers, the coal miners, factory workers, ask anyone except the office workers. Go and ask the victims of the Sacklers, ask in the tent towns popping up all over the country, ask the third of the country that is one hospital visit away from going insolvent. These people have been left behind by deliberate acts of policy, and nothing is being done by deliberate lack of policy. But I guess all of this is just an attack ad, all of these people have learned to code and have found happiness in the gig economy...

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            "classic bullshit that I hear from the right, which blames the left for the viewpoint of the right. "

            classic bullshit that I hear from the left, which blames the right for the viewpoint of the left.

            Both statements equally true.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          You're ignoring that they're also not anti-vaxxers. They support vaccines. They know the horrors of polio and measles and tuberculosis and mumps and measles and rubella.

          And they also watched as every single major democrat politician and media talking head told them that they were racist fearmongers and the virus was no worse than the cold. They watched as every single major democrat politician and media talking head told them that "trump's vaccine" would be dangerous and unsafe. They watched as every single

          • Re:Anecdote time (Score:5, Informative)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @07:54PM (#63027701) Homepage Journal

            You're ignoring that they're also not anti-vaxxers. They support vaccines. They know the horrors of polio and measles and tuberculosis and mumps and measles and rubella.

            There legitimately are people who are anti-vaxx, e.g. the folks telling you that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism. And a lot of the anti-COVID-vaccine propaganda is being spread by those same people. So although some people concerned about the COVID vaccine may not be anti-vaxx, most of them were probably led astray by people who are.

            And they also watched as every single major democrat politician and media talking head told them that they were racist fearmongers

            You mean the people complaining about the ban on travel from China that only applied to Chinese people and not Americans returning home? I'm pretty sure that meets the criteria for racism.

            and the virus was no worse than the cold.

            Wait, what? Approximately no Democrats have ever said that. A lot of Republican talking heads said that, though, and they were wrong, and a surprising number of them died from it.

            They watched as every single major democrat politician and media talking head told them that "trump's vaccine" would be dangerous and unsafe.

            When did that happen? I mean yes, a few random people made comments like that, but it was barely above the noise threshold, not "every single major Democrat politician and media talking head". If it were, then it would be Democrats refusing the vaccine. It isn't. It is overwhelmingly Republicans who are refusing the COVID vaccine.

            They watched as every single major democrat politician and media talking head insulted and berated them for buying masks and gloves...

            Again, this never happened. They did, however, rapidly make it temporarily impossible to buy N95 masks, and reserve all of the N95 masks in stock on store shelves for medical personnel.

            The only people who mocked people for wearing masks are trolls like DeSantis [washingtonpost.com].

            and then they watched as every single major democrat politician and media talking head completely reversed their position and insisted they never head.

            Also never happened, because the previous thing never happened.

            They watched as families were forced to let their loved ones die alone and go bankrupt while politicians and celebrities didn't even PRETEND to follow their own demands and declarations.

            Politicians are hypocrites. Did you really discover that just now?

            They watched as the dangerous and untrustworthy "trump's vaccine" became the mandatory and 100% safe and effective biden vaccine... that you needed two shots of... no three... wait actually four... and EU countries are starting to ban it more and more in anyone under 30 because of how many people it's killing.

            Several countries temporarily paused distribution of one specific vaccine (Moderna) in people under 30. Some still require the use of Pfizer in people under 30 if it is available, but allow Moderna if Pfizer is unavailable. If any country still has an actual moratorium, it is Belgium, but I can't actually confirm if that is the case. That's a long way from "starting to ban it more and more". In fact, the opposite is true.

            And other than on Slashdot, I don't think I've ever heard it called "Trump's vaccine" or "Biden's vaccine" by... well, anyone.

            All the while they watch as >90% deployment rates lead to skyrocketing new variants and infection rates, rather than the virus being wiped out like with literally every other vaccine in history.

            Huh? It has taken decades for literally every other vaccine in history to wipe out any di

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I don't think many people appreciate the scale of the disaster we have brought upon ourselves. Anti-vaxxers are partly to blame, but so are politicians who lost people's trust and then settled for just living with COVID ripping through the population.

          The deaths from COVID are one thing, but the even bigger problem is the number of people who are disabled by it. The instances of Long COVID seem to be about 10x the number of deaths, i.e. in the UK we have 210,000 deaths and at least 2,000,000 with Long COVID.

          • I agree with everything you say:) But I would add this small thing. In any society the people with chronic covid problems are going to put strain on the health and benefits systems, the latter in the meaning of "having the kids pay for your hospital visit" is de facto also a benefit system. What I mean is that like with any other health problems, the society is also going to pay the long covid bill one way or another. But in societies that lack a single payer and a social safety net, like the U.S., there ar
        • Re:Anecdote time (Score:5, Informative)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @06:52PM (#63027591) Homepage Journal

          The great political divide in the U.S. stems from two totally different worlds that exist in parallel worlds that exist in the U.S. And you have to understand, the other side has been fucked over beyond repair. Their jobs have been shipped overseas, they have had their future taken from them, driven to homelessness, drug deaths and despair. The democratic party whodunnit tells them to go fuck themselves and keel over.

          It has nothing to do with different life experiences. You don't think there are a lot of poor Democrats who have been screwed over by the system?

          The most ironic part of all this is that the Republican Party has always done what is best for the wealthiest Americans, who are the ones actually shipping the jobs overseas. And a lot of Republican leaders have actually shipped jobs overseas themselves while at the helm of major corporations.

          When it comes to globalization, the only real difference, on average, between the two parties is that the Democrats put in social nets to try to limit the damage, while Republicans quite literally said, "Let them die". And both parties blame the other party for things that they also have done. NAFTA? Republican Congress. Democrat President. Opening trade with China? Nixon (Republican).

          But the Republicans want their voters to keep telling themselves that somehow the Democrats are the problem. As long as people are distracted by D vs. R, they'll be too distracted to realize that their best option is to get more non-wealthy people running for office and take back power from the wealthy aristocracy.

          The process is still ongoing and that means that more and more people are going to find themselves on the wrong side of history. But you should understand this. A drowning man grasps at anything. If you have to choose between a party that tells you that you are a deplorable and you should go fuck yourself, and another one that at least acknowledges your problems, you take the other one.

          Except that's a Republican lie. Democrats didn't call Republicans deplorable in general. One candidate pointed out that some of the most hate-mongering racist people in the country were voting en masse for Donald Trump, and correctly called those folks deplorable. The right wing's political spin machine is what convinced all the non-deplorable Trump voters that she was talking about them. Her attempt to distance the decent Trump voters from the deplorable ones failed, and ended up causing decent people to dig in their heels, which made it one of the biggest mistakes a candidate has made in recent memory, but that doesn't mean she was wrong to point out how white supremacists were aligning themselves politically with the Republican Party or how the Trump campaign seemed eager to attract their votes.

          Both candidates that year stank on ice. You had Clinton, who was basically about as Republican as I've seen from the Democrats and Trump who was so far out there that he can't be readily placed in any reasonable chart of political views. And somehow, the Republican party convinced people to vote for Trump because he had an "R" next to his name, ignoring his views, and vote against Clinton, who used to be a Republican, because she had a "D" next to hers.

          The right time to fix these problems is during the primary election. Instead of voting for the person you think will win, vote for the person you think *should* win. If everyone did that, politics in America would be very different.

          See also my previous comment about keeping the people to busy to notice that they can always run for office and wrest control from the powerful elite.

          All you can do is put your trust in some party, based on whether they mouth the right words for you.

          No, if you put your trust in a party, you truly are a moron. You should look at the candidates and see whether they are actually representing you or talking out both sides of their mouths. If you're voting for so

          • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

            by korgitser ( 1809018 )

            Well let's just say we had a different level of analysis here. Where I was going was more about looking to explain voter behavior based on how they perceive what is going on. Where you are going is a more detailed look into how the system functions. I was painting with a wider brush, you brought in more detail.

            I mean, in the big picture, everyone in the U.S. is getting screwed over by the system. Not everyone knows it yet, not everyone is screwed enough to change their politics, and not everyone is willing

          • This is odd:

            The most ironic part of all this is that the Republican Party has always done what is best for the wealthiest Americans

            Um, Democrats have always done what is best for the wealthiest Americans too, it is merely a different subset of wealthiest Americans than the Republicans service.

            Democrats at least give some sort of lip service to subsets of non-wealthy people which Republicans do not... but lip service is just that. Lip service. All words, no actions.

        • Antivaxxers have nothing to do with economic conditions. Some of the strongest antivaxxers are among the wealthiest. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/20... [npr.org]

      • I know that I'd have something to worry about if I didn't have any sort of reaction to it; that would mean it's not actually doing anything.

        Do you have a citation for this? As far as I understand it from the initial phase 3 trials of Pfizer vaccines this hypothesis was explicitly rejected. People who felt nothing at all (~50% of participants) were equally protected.

        I already had coronavirus in late February of 2020, just before the pandemic was officially declared, and it not only kicked my ass for 2 solid weeks, but I spent an entire year dealing with the damage it left behind. No fucking way I'd just ignore the whole thing and risk getting it again, who knows how much damage it would do to me again and if I would have any permanent damage from it. Not taking the risk.

        There are no risk free options. Vaccination itself has caused injuries including heart inflammation and long covid symtoms. There is no rational basis to ignore protection offered from infection acquired immunity.

        Vaccinations in sars2 naive individuals have yielded massive order

    • I prefer feeling a bit woozy for a day to being out of order for 2 weeks, with a nontrivial chance of it taking more than 2 weeks.

      And yes, I feel terrible for a day after getting the shot. Then again; I never had Covid.

    • Re:Anecdote time (Score:5, Informative)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @01:04PM (#63026775)

      Every COVID shot I get knocks me on my ass for a day.

      Same. I spend about 20 hours in bed with chills and a slight fever, then *poof* done. Noting that I've also gotten a Flu shot these past two Octobers at the same time, but same down time as w/just a COVID shot -- all Moderna (larger shots than Pfizer).

      But I recently spoke with a woman who listened to a friend who told her "it's just the flu" and five weeks out she is still recovering and sounds like she's on death's door.

      Very commonly, people confuse (or equate) the flu and common cold and they're not the same thing. People die from the Flu. From: Disease Burden of Flu [cdc.gov] and How many people die from the flu? [ourworldindata.org] (inb4: yes, the estimated ranges are wide):

      CDC estimates that, between 2010 and 2020 in the US, flu has resulted in:
      - 9 million – 41 million illnesses,
      - 140,000 – 710,000 hospitalizations and
      - 12,000 – 52,000 deaths annually

      The Global Pandemic Mortality Project II using data between 2002 and 2011.
      They estimated that, during this period, seasonal influenza caused
      - between 294,000 and 518,000 deaths each year globally.

      • Same. I spend about 20 hours in bed with chills and a slight fever, then *poof* done.

        For me it's been all over the place. First shot? Nothing. Second shot, afternoon of headaches. Third shot (which incidentally I got along side a Typhoid, Yellow Fever, Hep A, and Hep B vaccine for a work trip, nothing. ... well my arms hurt after all those needles but otherwise nothing.

        Mother, super sick for a day, Father, nothing.

        Very commonly, people confuse (or equate) the flu and common cold and they're not the same thing. People die from the Flu.

        I've had the flu, Influenza B to be precise. COVID for me was *MUCH* worse. The flu left me properly bed ridden for a week and fully recovery within about 10 days. COVID left me b

        • COVID is not like the flu, even when people are talking about influenza. But like always with medical issue. YMMV, but the raw data shows its much worse than the actual flu was well.

          The issue of covid relative to flu in sars2 naive people varies with age and to lesser degree with viral drift.

          For younger people into their teens flu is worse than covid. For the oldest groups covid is far worse.

    • Took flu and bivalent booster same day. Actually felt fine afterwards, which surprised me.

      At this point, to each his own in my book. The vaccine isn't going to do anything to eliminate COVID. I've tested positive once, my wife three times (pretty sure we both were positive four times, but the tests didn't show it). First two times were lethargy, third time it hit me like a rock and I was out for five days with a rough cough. Last time was just a little crampy and upset stomach.

      The vaccine might not do

    • I caught covid around early October before I got a booster and was sick a few days. I was ok within a few days and completely back to normal (testing negative) within 5days.
    • by kbahey ( 102895 )

      Every COVID shot I get knocks me on my ass for a day.

      Same thing happens to me with almost any vaccine. Shingles, COVID, and sometimes the flu.

      However, the Moderna bivalent booster (Wuhan + BA.1) that I got a month ago didn't do much to me, and neither this year's quadrivalent flu shot a couple of weeks ago.

      But I recently spoke with a woman who listened to a friend who told her "it's just the flu" and five weeks out she is still recovering and sounds like she's on death's door.

      I'll take the certainty of a co

      • >Vaccination and booster are still our best bet against this virus which will be around for a years to come ...

        Then it's not a vaccine. Name for me any other "vaccine" in history that's reached >90% deployment rates and had literally no reduction in infection rate, transmission rate, or even viral load. That's done nothing but produce new variants and kill healthy young men by the truck load.

        By your logic there should be 30 new variants of smallpox, 20 of tuberculosis, 50 of polio, and so on for every

        • by kbahey ( 102895 )

          Vaccination and booster are still our best bet against this virus which will be around for a years to come ...

          Then it's not a vaccine. Name for me any other "vaccine" in history that's reached >90% deployment rates and had literally no reduction in infection rate, transmission rate, or even viral load.

          Unfortunately, the initial media overhype of the vaccines caused unrealistic expectations, and confused transmission with reduction of disease. I will give you that much ...

          But in reality, vaccines do reduc [youtube.com]

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      Each of the four shots left me miserable with a mid-grade fever the next day, along with terrible soreness and sweats.

      I'm told that is worth mentioning to my doctor as it is unusual to have that reaction every time. If it's the price I pay, it's better than the alternative (especially since as unpleasant as it is, at least there's no respiratory involvement and it's over quickly and can be planned around.

    • Every COVID shot I get knocks me on my ass for a day. But I recently spoke with a woman who listened to a friend who told her "it's just the flu" and five weeks out she is still recovering and sounds like she's on death's door.

      I'll take the certainty of a couple of days of lethargy every year over risking that, thanks.

      Could have been worse. You could have been so against taking insignificant actions to prevent contracting covid that you end up contracting covid, almost dying from it, and all but losing your voice because of permanent damage to your esophagus [imgur.com].

    • I have had 5 shots and have never had any reaction. My wife had mild chills for a day after the most recent shots. This was 3 months after we both got Covid.

    • by ediron2 ( 246908 )

      (reads replies, riddled with dumbassery and antivax false-equivalency, generally in anecdotal form)

      Holy fuck, what just happened. Even a sane anecdotal admission like yours, aligned to science, triggers a maelstrom of denialism and antivax insanity. What a mess. My favorite is the dumbass thinking that we're injecting ourselves with poison and disarming, so surely they're going to win in the end. NBC reported on https://www.healthaffairs.org/... [healthaffairs.org], saying "Average excess death rates in Florida and Ohio wer

    • I have gotten every major (in the news) Covid strain except Alpha. I might have gotten it but no tests existed so not counting it. Delta was like a medium flu and each strain’s symptoms have gotten weaker and weaker ever since. This last one I got I only had a tickle in my throat for a day and then nothing. I know of people that were floored by it but based on my history I will not be getting any more shots (only got original J&J unless something drastic changes. I am about 50 with no chronic illn
  • by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @12:59PM (#63026761)
    Analyzing data from human trials is extremely complex due to the various priors. It is possible to present that data in a way that gives a misleading impression without any actual falsehoods. It would be far better if an independent agency with no financial interest did the study. Its just natural and expected that a vaccine manufacturer would present the data in a favorable light.
  • The CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky tested positive for COVID 19 1 month after the vbvalent booster. This is the period you're suppose to be at peak immunity. https://www.cdc.gov/media/rele... [cdc.gov] . Then, after a a series of anti-viral treatments, and a negative test... experienced symptoms and turned postitive again. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/u... [nbcnews.com]
    I'm not a comspiracy person, but this just doesn't pass the sniff test. Over 40 people became billionairs off covid vaccines. https://www.forbes.com/si [forbes.com]
    • Moderna has a study with small sample size but better than a single anecdote, the infection rates didn't seem to improve much with their bivalent vaccine.

      https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/... [nejm.org]

      Perhaps the inhaled vaccines will be better at preventing illness rather than just reducing the extent of the infection.

    • by gtall ( 79522 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @01:26PM (#63026839)

      I know it is difficult for you to understand vaccines, or statistics. A vaccine doesn't prevent you from becoming infected, it should prevent you from having serious case. The results conform to a statistical profile, so some might become infected and die even after the vaccine. However, your chances of that happening are greatly reduced with the vaccine.

      On the other hand, if you'd like to join the over 1 million dead from Covid, don't let the door hit you in ass on your way out. Send us a note when you reach the other side, we'd love to hear how it is.

      • by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @06:10PM (#63027497)

        I know it is difficult for you to understand vaccines, or statistics. A vaccine doesn't prevent you from becoming infected, it should prevent you from having serious case. The results conform to a statistical profile, so some might become infected and die even after the vaccine. However, your chances of that happening are greatly reduced with the vaccine.

        I don't think the hate on the people saying vaccines don't keep you from getting it is fair. Yes you are right the point of the covid vaccines is keeping people away from hospitals and morgues not preventing infections.

        However...

        The original gating criteria for measuring Covid vaccine effectiveness was in fact at least 50% efficacy.

        More importantly for nearly a year public health officials pushed hard the narrative vaccines keep you from becoming a plague rat and infecting grandma. You could even stop wearing masks and not have to get continuously tested if you got vaccinated.

        When it turned out this was no (longer?) true and in fact efficacy drops to basically nil after a few months this resulted in a massive public trust problem that persists to this day.

      • That is incorrect. The TRUE definition of a vaccine makes you immune to the disease. Look it up. A vaccine develops antibodies that provide your system with the ability to fight the disease and thus provide immunity. The COVID shot, and new variants contain portions of synthesized RNA proteins that simulate part of the virus, but it is not permanent, which is unlike real vaccines. It is only suppose to created a temporary spike in the ability to fight very specific proteins. It appears you are the on
    • I'm not a comspiracy person

      and yet you are pretty explicitly saying there is a conspiracy.

      Is the CDC director dead? Experiencing serious symptoms? Did Joe Biden end up going to hospital when he got an infection? You are making an allegation based on the fact that the vaccine didn't meet your personal standards and "sniff test". Is that how we go about public health now? Whatever "this guy" thinks?

      I do encourage you to vote for people who would like to trim the billionaire class though, at least we can build some alliances off that i

      • Since you're going on about this, we've actually had a politician die in a manner that even our ministry admitted was directly caused by vaccination. Jaroslav Paka, if you want to do some searching.
        • Paska, slashdot seems to swallow letters with an accent, which the S has.
        • Got a link to back that up please? Be interested to read. Which vaccine, what timeframe, what the medical examiner report said, etc. "Directly caused" is a pretty strong claim.

          • Herre you go. [pravda.sk] You might have to run google translate on it. It was Pfizer, I honestly cant' recall the timeframe, but the fact SUKL admitted that the death's relationship to vaccination can't be dismissed is *big* since at the time, our state bodies have been dismissing claims that were later proven genuine, such as a woman who died of AstraZeneca induced clotting the circumstances of which I've detailed in my post history.The version out there is that vaccination exacerbated his primary health issues whi
            • Pravda? Really?

            • Even that article is hardly conclusive, from the translation:

              The case was closed on Friday, October 22, with the result that it cannot be ruled out that the vaccination contributed to the development of the patient's complications and his subsequent death. Therefore, ÚKL concluded that the connection between the death and the vaccination was possible.

              There are holes the size of a crater in that statement. Again, is there any direct evidence or even a theory of action as to how Pfizer would have cause

  • I'm going to guess the Adeno-virus vaccines are dead in the water because of VITT and inactivated virus seems to be mostly a Russia/China thing, but there's still subunit. Does Novavax simply not make enough money to bother with updating their vaccines?

  • So is this shot Alpha1.3c4 for variant B1.1.529 or is this for variant BA.* I think I'm going to need some change logs... Maybe a repo to track and do pull requests.....
  • Does the increase in antibody levels decrease the likelihood of contracting COVID?
  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @01:34PM (#63026853)

    Just throwing this out there... From: If You Haven’t Gotten COVID Yet, This Might Be Why [yahoo.com]:

    According to the new research, it is possible to get COVID but never test positive or show symptoms due to a gene mutation.

    Dr. Roger Seheult, MD, an assistant clinical professor of internal medicine at the University of California, Riverside, ... explains that when the body becomes infected with COVID, the cells chop up the virus internally and present its protein fragments on the cell surface along with a type of protein called MHC1.

    He explains that certain people with specific MCH1 patterns seem to present the COVID virus protein fragments better than other versions to the T-cells, which enables the T-cells to destroy the virus faster. This means that the COVID virus gets destroyed in the body faster than it has time to reproduce and affect other cells in the body. [nih.gov] “It really doesn't affect the virus itself other than it takes away its ability to spread in the body,” Dr. Seheult says.

    “The gene mutation helps people dodge symptoms,” says Dr. Purvi Parikh, MD, an infectious disease doctor at NYU Langone. “It basically makes the T cells super immune or have a pre-existing immunity from exposure to other similar viruses so when COVID enters your body it can be neutralized quickly. It's not foolproof but it gives you a 10 times higher shot of no symptoms.”

  • The studies also showed that the new mind-control chips were more sensitive to the 5G rays from the Jewish space laser & could even receive mind-control signals from Bill Gates, George Soros, & Hillary Clinton through aluminium foil head wear. You've been warned!
  • Whether you have 10 times as much antibodies or not, all that matters is you have enough to meet the 'threshold of protection.' The least important measure of protection is by it's antibody production. I can give you 10 flu shots back to back and raise your antibody levels but that doesn't make you 10 times as protected against the flu, it is the same as having one. Pfizer is obviously trying to sell their drug by releasing these meaningless numbers rather than the actual numbers people care about: how much
    • You don't see a single shot from another country outside the US getting approved in the US and it's because Pfizer and Moderna have lobbied well enough to be given a monopoly on covid vaccines.

      Novavax and Janssen are both approved in the US, though they are both US companies as well, and I'm not sure why you would want them when mRNA vaccines are the current state-of-the-art.

  • by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @05:31PM (#63027393)

    This issue of relationship between measured antibody levels vs. clinical outcomes post infection has been studied extensively however to date supporting correlations have not been found.

    TFA reflects this "Itâ(TM)s too soon to know how much real-world protection the antibody boost translates into -- and how long it will last. The results are preliminary, the study is still underway and infection-fighting antibodies naturally wane over time."

    If there is an affirmative reason for a group of people to receive these boosters then associated evidence should be stated directly rather than continuing to promulgate widespread false assumptions that antibody levels determine health outcomes and more is better.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday November 05, 2022 @06:22PM (#63027527)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Pfizer is Standford Medicals preferred shot. I did as the doctor does. Only a minor histamine response which the needle alone might have given me. The 2nd shingles vaccine had me bed-ridden for an evening.
  • Do they rev up protections too?

  • by exa ( 27197 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @04:09PM (#63029779) Homepage Journal

    Impossible to disagree with the great success of booster shots.

    They are brand new and they are great.

    If you don't get 8 shots, you're an anti-vaxxer moron. Enough said. Every friend of mine got at least 6 shots.

  • by Joey Vegetables ( 686525 ) on Monday November 07, 2022 @02:32PM (#63033005) Journal
    A study released by the Phillip Morris company says that cigarette consumption significantly improves health.

A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson

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