Covid-19 vaccines and vaccinations

After Covid-19 Vaccination, Health of People with ME/CFS More Likely to Worsen Compared to Controls

"In survey, 19% of people with ME/CFS said health worsened after vaccination compared to 4% reported by controls.

In a recent survey by the You + ME Registry, which gathers research data on ME/CFS, found that the health of people with ME/CFS is significantly more likely to worsen after Covid-19 vaccination compared to controls.

About five months after receiving their first or only shot of Covid-19 vaccine, 19% of survey participants with ME/CFS indicated their health had worsened, 9% reported that it had improved and 73% responded that it had not changed.

This compares to 4% of controls (people who did not have ME/CFS) who said their health had worsened, 7% who indicated it had improved and 89% who reported it had not changed. (See Table 1.)"

https://youandmeregistry.com/after-...s-more-likely-to-worsen-compared-to-controls/

In my opinion this is irresponsible framing of the results. The headline should have been "Vast majority of ME/CFS patients report no adverse effect after vaccination"?

 

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/pre...ong-acting-monoclonal-antibodies-pre-exposure

Announcement of an AZ preexposure treatment for those who don't respond to the vaccine by making antibodies or who are unable to take the vaccine.

"
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized the first drug for widespread use in preventing Covid in Americans with weakened immune systems who have not been adequately protected by vaccines.

The antibody treatment, which was developed by AstraZeneca and will be sold under the brand name Evusheld, is engineered to be “long-acting,” meaning the body metabolizes it more slowly so that it can stay active for months. That is expected to offer longer-lasting protection — perhaps for half a year — compared to the monoclonal antibody treatments that are given to high-risk people already sick with Covid." ( New York Times)

 

I feel "vast majority" isn't right; a significant proportion of people have reported worsening and if they used "vast majority" I would expect it to be a number like 95% reported no adverse effects. I don't know. They could have added other caveats about things they did not look for in the data, but I guess their finding is that adverse effects (apparently) are not as rare in ME/CFS as in controls. All you generally hear is how extraordinarily rare adverse reactions are. So it seems strange to focus in the headline on the majority who were okay when presenting findings that a significant of chunk of people (perhaps unexpectedly to some) worsened. I think a lot of people probably read these things in different ways, however. It's not looking that alarmist etc to me.

 

Given that ME for many people is a fluctuating condition, and they didn't ask patients who weren't vaccinated how they health was, we can't be sure that any reported deterioration is due to vaccination.

We also don't know how much of an unusual over-exertion the whole vaccination process was for those who report deteriorating, or how severe they were to start with. There is a huge difference between someone being vaccinated in their own home and having to travel to a vaccination centre, where they might have to wait in line, surrounded by many other people, before getting the jab, especially if someone is moderately or severely affected by ME already.

This 'reporting' by Solve is dangerous and irresponsible - I expected better from them.

 

"Reduced Neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant by Vaccine Sera and monoclonal
antibodies"
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.07.21267432v2.full.pdf

Figure 1 shows alarmingly poor results - a 23-37 fold reduction in neutralising antibodies in people who had been given boosters and almost no neutralisation in those who hadn't received boosters or a naturalistic infection.

 

Similar results from:
"SARS-CoV-2 Omicron has extensive but incomplete escape of Pfizer BNT162b2 elicited neutralization and requires ACE2 for infection"

https://sigallab.net/
https://secureservercdn.net/50.62.1...ploads/2021/12/MEDRXIV-2021-267417v1-Sigal.7z

This study showed a 41 fold reduction in neutralising ability compared to the ancestral strain and 37 fold reduction compared to Pfizer. However, this study didn't include boosters, but instead people who had been vaccinated and had experienced a naturalistic infection.



In conclusions, this suggests that while mRNA boosters (which means another dose of the vaccine against the ancestral strain) may provide some protection, this level of protection is still poor against symptomatic infection and we need a new vaccine against the Omicron variant to prevent spread.

 

From the paper:
"In contrast to the currently circulating Delta variant, the neutralization efficacy of vaccine-elicited sera against Omicron was severely reduced highlighting T-cell mediated immunity as essential barrier to prevent severe COVID19. Since Omicron was resistant to casirivimab and imdevimab SARS-CoV-2 genotyping may be needed before initiating mAb treatment. Variant-specific vaccines and mAb agents may be required to treat emerging variants of concern."

It will be interesting to see the data from the UK, as the number of cases increases, e.g. will "T-cell mediated immunity" be enough to avoid serious illness?

Not sure what Australia is like these days @Snow Leopard but it early success at eliminating the virus seems enviable.

EDIT - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.07.21267432v1.full.pdf

 

In young healthy people maybe, but not in the most vulnerable. This what I worry most with the whole "Omicron isn't so bad, it's attending anger management classes", therefore we should let it circulate view (this is the same 'let it circulate for herd immunity' nonsense that didn't work so well the first time). We don't actually have a good picture of what happens to the elderly/most vulnerable as it is spreading rapidly amongst the young -this is much of the reason why cases are being reported as 'mild'.

The reality is in spite of high vaccination rates, there will be very little herd immunity against Omicron unless we develop new vaccines - I'm thinking polyvalent vaccines in particular.

 

Is this thread relevant re ME and ACE2?

https://www.s4me.info/threads/prepr...yme-2-ace2-in-me-cfs-2021-malato-et-al.19860/

 

The first tweet of @JanineKimpel on Twitter.

I'm guessing a pre-print is forthcoming.

 

Pfizer is claiming oh, another regular booster and it's fine. But they're utilising a pseudovirus assay, not the real thing.

https://investors.biontech.de/static-files/47b4131a-0545-4a0b-a353-49b3a1d01789

There is another research group that used spike expressing lentivirus which 'only' found something like a fivefold reduction in neutralisation, but I found that on an obscure Reddit post.

Prior studies found that pseudovirus neutralisation assays tended to underestimate the difference.

 

I'm not sure I understand;

is this, and the others, saying that a covid vaccine followed by a booster, with an efficiency of 90+% will now have one of 2-3% against omicron?

 

I have watched a lot of news today but have not heard more about the efficacy of current vaccines.
Apart from some discussion on mandatory vaccination, most coverage has been about Johnson's flat, parties and a brief mention of his new daughter.

 

My ME has always been mild except when going through something like a sinus infection when it would become moderate for a short period of time. I have never found going out to 'over-exert' me so travelling to have a vaccine was not an issue for me. I went to a drive-through centre so there was no walking or standing involved. My health deterioration is 100% down to an adverse reaction to the vaccine. Same for the neuropathy that I now have. Never had that a day in my life until receiving the Moderna vaccine.

 

Maybe not that low, but quite possibly lower than 50% efficacy against symptomatic infection - so a high rate of transmission to (and from) vaccinated people (even if they've had 3 shots) if a new vaccine is not used. I'm expecting multiple variants, such as Delta and Omicron to circulate concurrently (since protection against one doesn't provide much protection against the other), necessitating a polyvalent vaccine.

 

I'm sorry to hear that. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not looking to deny the possibility that some PwME might suffer health deterioration from being vaccinated. I chose to be vaccinated, arguing that the potential harm that Covid might cause outweighed the risk from the vaccination - as it happened I have had acceptably mild and temporary reactions to both jabs.

My issue is with the way that Solve chose to highlight that 19% self-reported deterioration, when 81% reported no change or even improvement, and that there is no comparison in the time period to PwME who weren't vaccinated.

 

I haven't looked carefully at the data but listening to the Inside Science program on BBC Radio 4 last night my impression is the figure you quote for antibodies seems about right [EDIT - seem to recall a 40 fold reduction being referred to in the BBC program]. However, I think the questions are what about T-cell immunity and what actually happens when omicron infects an elderly (UK demographics) population. No ones holding out hope of the UK getting R below 1, so it will increase.

My impression is that I'm considering this in a detached way - it's going to get real soon.

 

Surely for mRNA vaccines like Pfizer the production of a poly valent vaccine is relatively straightforward. Current you take the (mRNA) code for the spike protein and wrap it in lipid nanoparticles and inject it. Injecting the (mRNA) codes for multiple spike proteins [poly valent vaccine] doesn't seem like a quantum leap.

 

The Inside Science programme can be found here:

BBC Inside Science - Initial Omicron Lab Data, Creative Naps, and Fishy Sounds. - BBC Sounds

 

"Breakthrough infections with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant despite booster dose of mRNA vaccine"

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3981711

An aside, excess deaths are rising once again in South Africa and the COVID death rate in Gauteng (SA) is rising as fast as previous waves.
https://twitter.com/user/status/1469056573033046020


https://twitter.com/user/status/1469157795647746049


Only strict TTIQ will keep this one out. We can't rely on vaccines to prevent spread of Omicron until there is a new vaccine developed for it.