Covid-19 vaccines and vaccinations

[Samuel]

The updated boosters are only for people who have already had their primary vaccinations, using the original vaccines. .... They’re not to be used for initial vaccinations.

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2022-08-31/covid-boosters-newest-variants

why are they not for initial vaccinations?

i get that original antigenic sin is not well understood, but wouldn't it be better to fixate on newer + older variants? i'd prefer that, but perhaps somebody with a working brain cell unlike mine now knows.
this lay article seems a bit confused.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/22/coronavirus-immune-response-boosters/ .

this unreasonable wall of text in science might or might not be relevant https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.abq5901 . but my brain cell and my average of one microsecond window per day of semi-almost-but-not usefulness are not up to it either.

in any case this would be relevant to me if i had a choice. i am still trying to get somebody to vaccinate in house /after/ i wake up to prevent permanent harm from circadian hit. [bedridden.]

 

[Snow Leopard]

Wouldn't receiving so many Covid vaccines exhaust our immune system?

No, quite the opposite - it leads to higher spike-specific circulating antibodies, but the problem is the vaccine primes the immune system for an out of date spike-protein, which alters the response to developing immunity against current variants (Hoskins effect).

why are they not for initial vaccinations?

i get that original antigenic sin is not well understood, but wouldn't it be better to fixate on newer + older variants? i'd prefer that, but perhaps somebody with a working brain cell unlike mine now knows.

Agreed. It is a poor choice.

 

[Binkie4]

I have read something today which surprised me.

I am lying flat in bed dealing with PEM and severe OI after hospital yesterday so memory is appalling but I think I-read somewhere today (in the context of future vaccinations ) that people who have not received the early vaccines will not be able to get one.

Has anyone else read anything similar to this?..............
...........

Have found it....in today's Mail.
"......experts warn those who have not yet had their first jab may need to hurry up.
Professor Anthony Harnden of the JCVI suggested it might not be available in the future.........At .some point we will stop the evergreen offer, which is the offer for everyone to have a primary course of vaccine, and they may have missed their chance by then."

What is this about? Shortage of vaccine?

 

[Ariel]

Professor Anthony Harnden of the JCVI suggested it might not be available in the future.........At .some point we will stop the evergreen offer, which is the offer for everyone to have a primary course of vaccine, and they may have missed their chance by then."

What is this about? Shortage of vaccine?

Maybe they are trying to get people to come forward for vaccines by saying it's their last chance? (I doubt they will stop people from being able to have a primary course of covid vaccines).

 

[Dolphin]

.

 

[TrixieStix]

The only data we have for these particular Omicron specific vaccines comes from testing on 8 mice which tells us almost nothing. There are vaccine experts saying that they have huge doubts about whether or not the Omicron specific vaccines will be any better than the existing vaccines. It is shameful the way these vaccines are being allowed to be greenlit with zero human safety or efficacy data. There is no excuse for it, trials could easily be done, and Pfizer and Moderna have plenty of money to do them and do them quickly BEFORE getting approval. The approval process for boosters has become a joke at this point. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky's excuse that the feds didn't have time to wait on human data is rubbish and is being called out by experts. The current human trials they running won't be available until late October or early November.

--->> Paul Offit, a vaccine researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, was one of two members of FDA’s committee who voted against asking companies to make Omicron-specific boosters. Offit doesn’t dispute that the new vaccines will have some benefit but doubts it’s worth the additional resources. Current COVID-19 vaccines still prevent the most severe outcomes, Offit says, and if the goal is to stop infections, even updated vaccines will have little impact.

That’s because the incubation period for COVID-19—the time between getting infected and becoming infectious to others—is too short, he says. Unless levels of neutralizing antibodies are already high, the immune system doesn’t have time to recognize and fight off the virus in the few days between exposure and when someone sheds enough virus to infect others. Diseases such as measles or rubella have a 2-week incubation period, which means a vaccinated person’s immune memory cells can ramp up production of enough antibodies in time to prevent them from passing it on. That’s why measles and rubella vaccines can halt the spread of those diseases, Offit says, whereas in the case of COVID-19, “even if 100% of the population were vaccinated and the virus hadn’t evolved at all, vaccines would do very little to stop transmission.”

 

[Samuel]

not sure if i am understanding right. please correct the following if you can if i got anything wrong.

it seems to my seriously not working brain as if the state of play in many places, at least in usa, is that:


- vaccines [original or omicron] help you get less sick from infection, reduce hosp and deaths and/? some infec sequalae

- they do not much help you stop transmitting if you get infected. [THEN WHAT DOES control the pandemic?]


- do they do much to prevent lc or m.e. in healthies? does anybody scientifically have clues?

- do they risk worsening existing severe m.e. or lc? does anybody scientifically have clues?


- reporting and testing is ... not a high priority. can they be trusted? if fewer are going to hospital are they responsibly counted and reported in all places? are home test results being reported? are incentives for reporting aligned?

- public health measures other than vaccination are not a high priority. [e.g. mask mandates or requests, professional guidelines, isolation, quarantine, border control, hvac, messaging.] are incentives aligned?

- human studies on omicron vaccine not a high priority?

- human studies on vaccines on vulnerable populations including but not limited to m.e., dysautonomia, pidd, all sorts of diseases ... that i have ..., not a high priority. are incentives aligned?


that's 30x more than i should have written.

my question based on above is to ask whether this state of play, if correct, creates:

1] a pandemic that is not under as much control [to a pwme trying not to get worse] as possible with minimalish changes?

2] /new/ m.e. and lc at a high/? rate and possibly/? worsening of existing?

 

[rvallee]

my question based on above, which is to ask whether this state of play, if correct, creates:

1] a pandemic that is not under as much control [to a pwme trying not to get worse] as possible with minimalish changes?

2] /new/ m.e. and lc at a high/? rate and possibly/? worsening of existing?

Pretty much. Getting the pandemic under control requires a combination of many measures and that's not happening ever again, that weapon has been spent for good. Right now we pretty much have the worst possible outcomes in that every incentive disallows knowing anything, let alone doing something. It's basically all down to luck and indifference.

We are barely doing any better than they did during the 1918 flu pandemic. Or the plague. Just waiting for it to die out on its own, as close to sacrificing the "weak" as it gets. Even taking the black plague, it only killed 1/3 of the population. 2/3 odds aren't bad, they're actually pretty good.

It doesn't seem to have spurred any interest into pushing the boundaries of immunology. Besides luck it's our own way out, basically science the hell out of this problem. But it turns out that scientists are just as petty, bickering and inept as the rest of us when the textbook doesn't have any answers, even worse when they have the wrong answers.

And if there is ever a pandemic with a pathogen with a high kill rate, if it's soon enough, it could likely be the civilization killer. The pandemic has been so badly mismanaged that the next several ones will be bungled even worse. Too many people won't ever listen to the experts, many will even be defiant over it, like the people who would hide zombie bites.

As a species, even as a civilization, we're still just a bunch of rowdy children who only learn through funerals and luck. It should be sobering. Sadly it isn't. If anything those who have been wrong about everything are still shouting the loudest, still always wrong. Doesn't bother them, they don't even know it.

 

[Snow Leopard]

“even if 100% of the population were vaccinated and the virus hadn’t evolved at all, vaccines would do very little to stop transmission.”

That is simply not true, and a deliberate twisting of the facts given both the clinical trial evidence and the initial post-marketing evidence (eg the large UK studies).

For the initial variants and even Delta the mRNA vaccines induced strongly neutralising antibodies that reduced rate and duration of infection significantly for about 3 months after the initial 2 doses or a booster - which would necessarily reduce transmission in society even if the vaccinated->unvaccinated infection rate wasn't reduced at all.

The idea that transmission wouldn't be reduced is mostly based on the poor efficacy of certain vaccines such as the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The vaccines stopped having high efficacy against symptomatic infection precisely because the circulating/respiratory mucosa antibodies no longer effectively blocked the (Omicron variant and onwards) spike protein from binding and infecting cells.

 

[Wonko]

As someone given 2 doses of AZ I have to say 'yippee' to all the poor efficacy, and to the follow-up 10 months (so far) gap in jabs for a vaccine with 3 months of effectiveness.

Just as well that I rarely go out, and don't interact with people when I do.

 

[perchance dreamer]

Pretty much. Getting the pandemic under control requires a combination of many measures and that's not happening ever again, that weapon has been spent for good. Right now we pretty much have the worst possible outcomes in that every incentive disallows knowing anything, let alone doing something. It's basically all down to luck and indifference.

We are barely doing any better than they did during the 1918 flu pandemic. Or the plague. Just waiting for it to die out on its own, as close to sacrificing the "weak" as it gets. Even taking the black plague, it only killed 1/3 of the population. 2/3 odds aren't bad, they're actually pretty good.

It doesn't seem to have spurred any interest into pushing the boundaries of immunology. Besides luck it's our own way out, basically science the hell out of this problem. But it turns out that scientists are just as petty, bickering and inept as the rest of us when the textbook doesn't have any answers, even worse when they have the wrong answers.

And if there is ever a pandemic with a pathogen with a high kill rate, if it's soon enough, it could likely be the civilization killer. The pandemic has been so badly mismanaged that the next several ones will be bungled even worse. Too many people won't ever listen to the experts, many will even be defiant over it, like the people who would hide zombie bites.

As a species, even as a civilization, we're still just a bunch of rowdy children who only learn through funerals and luck. It should be sobering. Sadly it isn't. If anything those who have been wrong about everything are still shouting the loudest, still always wrong. Doesn't bother them, they don't even know it.

I agree. There are many reasons why we are doing so badly with the pandemic, but zooming out, humans are failing to throw all the effort and energy necessary to quell the 2 existential threats of our time, pandemics and climate control, which are linked. Our failure to recognize that collective action is not just altruistic, but what is best for each of us, might just lead to our doom.

We need to let wild animals be wild and not intrude on their spaces, which isn't just the right thing to do, but necessary to prevent animal-to-human transmission of viruses. Part of this problem is unchecked development, and part of it is failure to deal properly with climate change, which compromises wild animal habitats.

In the U.S., additional funds to fight covid aren't getting through Congress. Continued sickness and death from covid seem to be met with a collective shrug. So many people don't understand the risk of letting the virus go unchecked. It will continue mutating, and there's the real possibility that it will take a much more deadly form than any we've seen.

There was also a chance to control Monkeypox, but we blew that in the U.S., so it will likely be endemic, too. All this is quite the bummer.

 

[RedFox]

China approves inhaled Covid vaccine
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-62793078
China has approved the world's first intranasal Covid-19 vaccine. Intranasal vaccines induce immunity in the mucous membranes, so they have at least the potential to produce stronger immunity than injected vaccines.

The big question is whether this vaccine is truly better at preventing infection, or just the same. And whether it or something similar could be available in Western countries. If so, perhaps it could protect against long Covid better than our current vaccines.

 

[Snow Leopard]

Intranasal vaccines induce immunity in the mucous membranes, so they have at least the potential to produce stronger immunity than injected vaccines.

The intramuscular COVID vaccines have also proven to induce IgA and IgG against spike in respiratory mucosa - that is how they reduce the risk of symptomatic infection.

So many doctors and scientists seem to confuse gut mucosa with respiratory mucosa and seem to perpetuate the myth of the superiority of intranasal vaccines.

 

[Binkie4]

I had a text this morning inviting me to make an appointment for the autumn booster at the community facility. I am 75 so this fits with age policy.

I had to have my third vaccine ( my last) in a teaching hospital setting however, a good decision since I had to be rushed into A and E having reacted very badly. I didn't take the spring vaccine and won't take any more until more is known about who is vulnerable to adverse reactions. This leaves me very vulnerable. No masks or LFTs generally in use and my vaccine covers a different variant from those circulating. I foresee a difficult winter.

I am even unsure about the flu vaccine which I have taken for decades. The cover up about adverse reactions to covid vaccines has consequences for confidence in vaccines generally but no one wants to look at this. I may decide to take flu ( I did eventually last year) but I am really not sure. The UK CV group is making some progress with a raising awareness Picnic in the Park last weekend and I believe they have a Parliamentary event later this month.

edit:" to covid vaccines" added 5 lines from the end

 

[Ariel]

So many doctors and scientists seem to confuse gut mucosa with respiratory mucosa and seem to perpetuate the myth of the superiority of intranasal vaccines.

So, is it not the case that there's a chance these intranasal vaccines will be more effective in preventing infection? (For some other reason?) I thought I saw a claim that there was some demonstrated superiority (needing more evidence)?

 

[LarsSG]

I think it's basically that we have a reasonable hope that a mucosal vaccine might be better (based on animal studies), but we don't know for sure. Right now, the main factor driving transmission is evolution of the virus and it isn't clear to me how that might play out differently for a mucosal versus intramuscular vaccine. Nasal flu vaccine doesn't work very well, unfortunately, but that might be a somewhat different situation.

Iran has already given millions of nasal doses as boosters, but they haven't reported out on this yet. Hopefully, we'll know more soon.

Here's a good overview from Nature.

 

[Snow Leopard]

So, is it not the case that there's a chance these intranasal vaccines will be more effective in preventing infection? (For some other reason?) I thought I saw a claim that there was some demonstrated superiority (needing more evidence)?

We know for sure that the nasal Influenza vaccine is inferior to intramuscular vaccines.

Have you wondered why there are no other nasal vaccines for respiratory infections despite many decades of research?

 

[Mij]

Wouldn't an inhaled aerosol vaccine be more effective to target the lungs and upper airway than a intranasal vaccine?

An IM injection seems more convenient imo.

 

[FMMM1]

As someone given 2 doses of AZ I have to say 'yippee' to all the poor efficacy, and to the follow-up 10 months (so far) gap in jabs for a vaccine with 3 months of effectiveness.

Just as well that I rarely go out, and don't interact with people when I do.

Yea and even if you caught coronavirus there's a lot less risk of you needing hospital treatment/serious illness

 

[Wonko]

Yea and even if you caught coronavirus there's a lot less risk of you needing hospital treatment/serious illness

Why would you think that?

Have you got the results of a test that shows that any of the vaccine shots I was given 'took'?

Coz I haven't, coz the NHS hasn't given me any such tests.

The way I see it, my chances of getting seriously ill and needing hospital treatment, are either 100%, or 0% - with my having no way of determining which it is.

On the one hand most here seem to accept that not all people are identical, and on the other, just coz many people (not all people, triple vac'd people would still appear to still be dying from covid in the UK) seem to think that covid will no longer make anyone who has been vaccinated seriously ill.