33 ms·

The Moderna dose is already more than 3x the dosage of the Pfizer ones. 100mcg vs 30mcg. Would be great if they could cut that down and still be effective.

HenryBemis 6y ago
So... if that plays out, perhaps split the doses in half, cover twice the people, so we can all go back to our normal pre-COVID life (or what's left of it). Of course this won't double the number of people vaccinated since Moderna doesn't cover 100%. But every little helps.
- downrightmike 6y ago
  We're not going back to pre covid lives period. Even if everyone was vaxxed there would still be more moderate cases that our hospitals can handle. And then that allows the virus millions of chances to mutate and then, just like we're seeing with the UK and South Africa strains. Which as we're seeing all but nullifies the vaccine. The vaccines we're seeing are only 10% effective against the SA strain. Statistically >5% is great, but that's not a risk the vast majority of people want to run with.
  - grey-area 6y ago
    The vaccines we're seeing are only 10% effective against the SA strain. This is not accurate. The AZ vaccine was only 10% effective in a study in SA. That's the only one that was shown to be vastly less effective. The Pfizer vaccine is believed to be effective against the SA variant (though I think it used In Vitro studies) and there are lots of other vaccines on the way. We will get this under control but it will be a long slow process over several years.
    - downrightmike 6y ago
      So far it is the only one.
      - ingenium 6y ago
        I believe Moderna was also shown to be effective.
      - vmception 6y ago
        Astrazeneca is not an mRNA vaccine so there’s that
  - Denvercoder9 6y ago
    > We're not going back to pre covid lives period. We are. Most people, myself included, won't accept living like this forever. If vaccination fails and no treatment will be found, we'll expand healthcare capacity and accept that people will die.
    - imwillofficial 6y ago
      Didn’t we move this way with the flu?
      - downrightmike 6y ago
        People couldn't behave back then for real reasons, most people that are the problem today are just spoiled brats. Back then they didn't have the century of epidemiology knowledge that was outright ignored and trivialized.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - downrightmike 6y ago
      We're already taxing our medical system. Personnel will wear down.
      - Denvercoder9 6y ago
        Hence I said to expand healthcare capacity. If there's not enough personnel, we should educate and hire more personnel. I'm not saying this is something we should do tomorrow -- only in the hypothetical case that we haven't found an effective prevention and/or cure in 5 years or so.
        maxerickson 6y ago
        Pausing the entire global economy for 5 weeks would be vastly less costly than training personnel while we deal with it for 5 years. I do get that it would never happen, because people would refuse to do it (their belief that it wouldn't work would, in a sublime irony, prevent it from working).
  - Zanni 6y ago
    The efficacy number is about preventing cases of Covid-19, but in fact, even the "low" efficacy vaccines are extremely good at preventing severe illness and death. Once we get everyone vaccinated, we should be good. https://www.vox.com/22273502/covid-vaccines-pfizer-moderna-johnson-astrazeneca-efficacy-deaths https://www.vox.com/22273502/covid-vaccines-pfizer-moderna-j...
  - sschueller 6y ago
    If we vaccinate enough people to get the fatally rate well below the flu there is absolutely no reason not to go back to the old way. There is no 100% safe but there is a level at which hospitals are not overwhelmed and people are accepting the risk of being alive.
  - IAmGraydon 6y ago
    Wow. You’ve really been hitting the doomer echo chambers hard, huh? Literally nothing in your post is accurate.
  - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
    There's no point in sending people with Covid to the hospital. We can't cure viral infections anyways, all it does is just facilitate spread. Eventually we'll just figure out prophylactic measures for those groups most at risk and leave it at that. It's what we do already with the "common cold", even though the cold can be very dangerous and deadly to some people.
    - tempestn 6y ago
      You don't send everyone with covid (or a cold) to the hospital, but if they're having trouble breathing you certainly do, and of course there are things that can be done there to help. Even at the beginning of the pandemic before the disease was well understood mortality was several times higher without access to hospital. Now as more has been learned the standard of care has improved further. Just because they can't wave a wand and cure the virus doesn't mean they can't do anything.
CyanLite2 6y ago
They're not the same formulation, so you can't compare the dosing, it's Apples vs. Walnuts The problem with the 50mcg dose is that there is justifiable concern that if you error on the side of low-dosing that the mass vaccination won't work and the public sentiment will turn against it. We'd rather see 95% efficacy with the 100mcg than risk the POSSIBILITY of 60% efficacy with the 50mcg dose. We literally have one shot (or two, pun intended) to get it right the first time. Only 4 months ago, most of the world hadn't even heard of mRNA vaccines or somehow believed it was micro-chipped by Bill Gates. Much of that nonsense has gone away because they're getting unbelievable efficacy that's higher than the traditionally-made vaccines from Astra-Zeneca and JnJ.
- barapa 6y ago
  Just use your pun - no need to point it out every time.
IgorPartola 6y ago
Yeah. And a dose of vitamin C at 3000 mg is 30,000 larger than Moderna’s. You are comparing apples and cheese. Simply weighing them won’t tell you anything.
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  The vitamin C will do more for you. Throw in vitamin D and studies show it’s far less of a risk profile than any of the vaccines (I haven’t looked at Russia’s yet)
- overcast 6y ago
  They are both messenger RNA vaccines, so it's more like comparing two types of apples. But thank you for your sarcastic response, very helpful.
  - tempestn 6y ago
    The issue is that mRNA is only a tiny fraction of the vaccine by weight. The rest is made up of the lipids that hold it, plus stabilizers and such. The ratio of those to the mRNA core varies between the two vaccines. So comparing their weights is meaningless. The fact that Moderna's dose is several times larger doesn't mean you're getting several times as much mRNA. Hence, it's like comparing the weights of two different foods with different calorie densities - ie, apples and cheese.
    - DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
      The microgram dose refers only to the mRNA, not the lipids, stabilizers, and such. You're right that is is only a tiny fraction of the vaccine by weight, but the dose mass refers only to the mRNA amount. So you are getting 3.33x more mRNA in the Moderna vaccines compared to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
      - tempestn 6y ago
        Ah, thank you for that correction. In retrospect I should have realized that since 100mcg is a tiny amount.
protomyth 6y ago
I gotta say that the dose really is a pain in the arm. We ended up on the list at work and the first dose hurt for a good four days. Others had a similar outcome. My father got the first Pfizer and he reported no issues with his arm hurting. I doubt he was not telling the truth on that one.
- blhack 6y ago
  Got Pfizer. Zero arm pain. Same for my wife.
  - haggy 6y ago
    Moderna is well known to have more injection site pain and greater immune response for the second dose but it's showing vastly greater efficacy percentages than all other manufacturers
    - boc 6y ago
      More than Pfizer?
- scottru 6y ago
  This could be because of the manufacturer, or it could be because your father is older than you. There's a small amount of actual data (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/reactogenicity.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer..., which just talks about injection site pain) and anecdata/implied wisdom (https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2020/coronavirus-vaccine-side-effects.html https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2020/...) that says that older recipients are dealing with fewer side effects than younger recipients.
  - protomyth 6y ago
    Well, I'm the youngest of our group that got it and I'm 50. The older folks all had arm pain for days. We had a lot of grumpy folks on a video call three days later.

HenryBemis 6y ago

So... if that plays out, perhaps split the doses in half, cover twice the people, so we can all go back to our normal pre-COVID life (or what's left of it). Of course this won't double the number of people vaccinated since Moderna doesn't cover 100%. But every little helps.

downrightmike 6y ago
We're not going back to pre covid lives period. Even if everyone was vaxxed there would still be more moderate cases that our hospitals can handle. And then that allows the virus millions of chances to mutate and then, just like we're seeing with the UK and South Africa strains. Which as we're seeing all but nullifies the vaccine. The vaccines we're seeing are only 10% effective against the SA strain. Statistically >5% is great, but that's not a risk the vast majority of people want to run with.
- grey-area 6y ago
  The vaccines we're seeing are only 10% effective against the SA strain. This is not accurate. The AZ vaccine was only 10% effective in a study in SA. That's the only one that was shown to be vastly less effective. The Pfizer vaccine is believed to be effective against the SA variant (though I think it used In Vitro studies) and there are lots of other vaccines on the way. We will get this under control but it will be a long slow process over several years.
  - downrightmike 6y ago
    So far it is the only one.
    - ingenium 6y ago
      I believe Moderna was also shown to be effective.
    - vmception 6y ago
      Astrazeneca is not an mRNA vaccine so there’s that
- Denvercoder9 6y ago
  > We're not going back to pre covid lives period. We are. Most people, myself included, won't accept living like this forever. If vaccination fails and no treatment will be found, we'll expand healthcare capacity and accept that people will die.
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    Didn’t we move this way with the flu?
    - downrightmike 6y ago
      People couldn't behave back then for real reasons, most people that are the problem today are just spoiled brats. Back then they didn't have the century of epidemiology knowledge that was outright ignored and trivialized.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - downrightmike 6y ago
    We're already taxing our medical system. Personnel will wear down.
    - Denvercoder9 6y ago
      Hence I said to expand healthcare capacity. If there's not enough personnel, we should educate and hire more personnel. I'm not saying this is something we should do tomorrow -- only in the hypothetical case that we haven't found an effective prevention and/or cure in 5 years or so.
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        Pausing the entire global economy for 5 weeks would be vastly less costly than training personnel while we deal with it for 5 years. I do get that it would never happen, because people would refuse to do it (their belief that it wouldn't work would, in a sublime irony, prevent it from working).
- Zanni 6y ago
  The efficacy number is about preventing cases of Covid-19, but in fact, even the "low" efficacy vaccines are extremely good at preventing severe illness and death. Once we get everyone vaccinated, we should be good. https://www.vox.com/22273502/covid-vaccines-pfizer-moderna-johnson-astrazeneca-efficacy-deaths https://www.vox.com/22273502/covid-vaccines-pfizer-moderna-j...
- sschueller 6y ago
  If we vaccinate enough people to get the fatally rate well below the flu there is absolutely no reason not to go back to the old way. There is no 100% safe but there is a level at which hospitals are not overwhelmed and people are accepting the risk of being alive.
- IAmGraydon 6y ago
  Wow. You’ve really been hitting the doomer echo chambers hard, huh? Literally nothing in your post is accurate.
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  There's no point in sending people with Covid to the hospital. We can't cure viral infections anyways, all it does is just facilitate spread. Eventually we'll just figure out prophylactic measures for those groups most at risk and leave it at that. It's what we do already with the "common cold", even though the cold can be very dangerous and deadly to some people.
  - tempestn 6y ago
    You don't send everyone with covid (or a cold) to the hospital, but if they're having trouble breathing you certainly do, and of course there are things that can be done there to help. Even at the beginning of the pandemic before the disease was well understood mortality was several times higher without access to hospital. Now as more has been learned the standard of care has improved further. Just because they can't wave a wand and cure the virus doesn't mean they can't do anything.

CyanLite2 6y ago

They're not the same formulation, so you can't compare the dosing, it's Apples vs. Walnuts The problem with the 50mcg dose is that there is justifiable concern that if you error on the side of low-dosing that the mass vaccination won't work and the public sentiment will turn against it. We'd rather see 95% efficacy with the 100mcg than risk the POSSIBILITY of 60% efficacy with the 50mcg dose. We literally have one shot (or two, pun intended) to get it right the first time. Only 4 months ago, most of the world hadn't even heard of mRNA vaccines or somehow believed it was micro-chipped by Bill Gates. Much of that nonsense has gone away because they're getting unbelievable efficacy that's higher than the traditionally-made vaccines from Astra-Zeneca and JnJ.

barapa 6y ago
Just use your pun - no need to point it out every time.

IgorPartola 6y ago

Yeah. And a dose of vitamin C at 3000 mg is 30,000 larger than Moderna’s. You are comparing apples and cheese. Simply weighing them won’t tell you anything.

imwillofficial 6y ago
The vitamin C will do more for you. Throw in vitamin D and studies show it’s far less of a risk profile than any of the vaccines (I haven’t looked at Russia’s yet)
overcast 6y ago
They are both messenger RNA vaccines, so it's more like comparing two types of apples. But thank you for your sarcastic response, very helpful.
- tempestn 6y ago
  The issue is that mRNA is only a tiny fraction of the vaccine by weight. The rest is made up of the lipids that hold it, plus stabilizers and such. The ratio of those to the mRNA core varies between the two vaccines. So comparing their weights is meaningless. The fact that Moderna's dose is several times larger doesn't mean you're getting several times as much mRNA. Hence, it's like comparing the weights of two different foods with different calorie densities - ie, apples and cheese.
  - DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
    The microgram dose refers only to the mRNA, not the lipids, stabilizers, and such. You're right that is is only a tiny fraction of the vaccine by weight, but the dose mass refers only to the mRNA amount. So you are getting 3.33x more mRNA in the Moderna vaccines compared to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
    - tempestn 6y ago
      Ah, thank you for that correction. In retrospect I should have realized that since 100mcg is a tiny amount.

protomyth 6y ago

I gotta say that the dose really is a pain in the arm. We ended up on the list at work and the first dose hurt for a good four days. Others had a similar outcome. My father got the first Pfizer and he reported no issues with his arm hurting. I doubt he was not telling the truth on that one.

blhack 6y ago
Got Pfizer. Zero arm pain. Same for my wife.
- haggy 6y ago
  Moderna is well known to have more injection site pain and greater immune response for the second dose but it's showing vastly greater efficacy percentages than all other manufacturers
  - boc 6y ago
    More than Pfizer?
scottru 6y ago
This could be because of the manufacturer, or it could be because your father is older than you. There's a small amount of actual data (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/reactogenicity.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer..., which just talks about injection site pain) and anecdata/implied wisdom (https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2020/coronavirus-vaccine-side-effects.html https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2020/...) that says that older recipients are dealing with fewer side effects than younger recipients.
- protomyth 6y ago
  Well, I'm the youngest of our group that got it and I'm 50. The older folks all had arm pain for days. We had a lot of grumpy folks on a video call three days later.