5 ms·

This title is misleading. It isn't about them not being needed. Instead, as per article, it is about how these shots will save more lives, if administered to

This title is misleading. It isn't about them not being needed. Instead, as per article, it is about how these shots will save more lives, if administered to people without access to first shots! If vaccine doses were unlimited worldwide, 3rd shots (according to article logic) would by recommended for all.

zarzavat 5y ago
How do they propose to get Pfizer shots that have to be stored at -70 C, to areas in developing countries that need first doses? As far as I can see, the vaccine that is actually suitable for developing countries is the AstraZeneca one, and this isn't often used in the west because of the blood clot issues.
- fsh 5y ago
  They will use insulated containers with dry ice, same as everywhere else. This might not work in the middle of the jungle, but most developing contries actually have roads and trucks.
  - zarzavat 5y ago
    Roads and trucks are not a problem but most third world countries also have an abundance of corruption and general apathy towards rules, good luck running a cold chain to all corners of such a country.
- Tepix 5y ago
  The cooling requirements for Pfizer shots were loosened, it no longer needs -70°C. I don't know the new number, i think it's around -25°C.
invalidname 5y ago
Right. The problem is that those guys are pretty hard to convince with facts. I took my 3rd shot because otherwise this would go in the garbage. In that sense it does increase my protection and reduces the overall burden on the system so it does help.
- detaro 5y ago
  "those guys are pretty hard to convince" about giving supply to unvaccinated populations is a fairly shitty take while sitting in one of the short list of countries that has had enough vaccine to supply everyone who wants one.
newaccount2021 5y ago
why are you baking in the assumption that boosters are needed?
mandmandam 5y ago
I really don't understand the vaccines for all push: A - The benefit for young people seems to be outweighed by the risk, for a given time period. The risk of mortality from vaccine induced clots in under 40s is twice the risk of death from Covid [0] (post relates to AZ but other vaccines has similar clot risks). The risk of hospitalisation from myocarditis is a multiple of the risk of hospitalisation from Corona, especially in young males [1] who have a four to six times risk. That alone would be enough to put serious doubt into the vaccines for all narrative, but there's also rarer and weirder confirmed side effects like Bell's Palsy and Guillain-Barre Syndrome. B - The continued dramatic overlooking of natural immunity, which seems to be 6 or 7 times more effective than vaccines alone. Misinformation on this subject from vested interests and uncritical / complicit media has been rife [2]. C - Better, safer, more effective and more traditional vaccines are coming, ie, Novavax. As a young male with no comorbidities and natural immunity, WHY in God's name would I risk taking an mRNA vaccine that has _far_ higher odds of sending me to hospital or killing me than it has of protecting me from the same by lowering Corona reinfection risk? [0] - https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40328123.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40328123.html [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-risk-from-pfizer-jab-side-effect-than-covid-suggests-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-r... [2] - https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101 https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101
- snakeboy 5y ago
  Speaking as another young male with no comorbidities, I do tons of reckless shit that put myself at way higher risk for no other reason than to entertain myself and my friends. So I figured I might as well get vaccinated if it's a tiny societal positive with no non-negligible risk to myself. > ...the vaccine on the entire adult population [in France] would avert 10 deaths from Covid among 18-39-year-olds, but would be associated with 21 deaths from blood clotting in the same age grouping over the same time period. There are ~16 million 18-39 year olds in France. So both those risks seem vanishingly small. I'm not saying that marketing of vaccines has been honest overall, but that's just my 2 cents about "WHY in God's name I would risk taking an mRNA vaccine".
- fabian2k 5y ago
ajross 5y ago
> This title is misleading. It isn't about them not being needed. It also implies a level of consensus that doesn't exist. "Vaccine experts", as a whole, don't hold this opinion. This is about two specific dissenters in the FDA. It's not a completely cut and dry subject. There are tradeoffs with all such decisions, such as the value of a booster in one individual vs. a first injection to another in a different part of the world, etc... It's not an unreasonable position. But it's not a consensus position either. The typical recommendation seems to be that boosters are valuable.
- oytis 5y ago
  It's not just a couple of dissenters, the official position of WHO is the same - we need to vaccinate the whole world before booster shots and vaccinating children in the rich countries. As I see it there _is_ a consensus among scientists and healthcare professionals, but not among politicians who see booster shots necessary to keep their national economies up.
  - kongin 5y ago
    >At 6 months post-vaccine, 70% of the infection-naive NH residents had neutralization titers at or below the lower limit of detection compared to 16% at 2 weeks after full vaccination. These data demonstrate a significant reduction in levels of antibody in all groups. In particular, those infection-naive NH residents had lower initial post-vaccination humoral immunity immediately and exhibited the greatest declines 6 months later. Healthcare workers, given their younger age and relative good-health, achieved higher initial antibody levels and better maintained them, yet also experienced significant declines in humoral immunity. Based on the rapid spread of the delta variant and reports of vaccine breakthrough in NH and among younger community populations, boosting NH residents may be warranted https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.15.21262067v3.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.15.21262067v... That study suggests that 16% of the elderly have no immunity to covid 2 weeks after vaccination and 70% after 6 months. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we might as well not vaccinate anyone over 60 if we're not going to be giving them boosters every 3 months or so.
XorNot 5y ago
The problem with this sort of analysis is that the logistical concerns of shipping vaccine doses are immense. For one thing, single "doses" don't exist - both Pfizer and Astrazeneca are distributed in multi-dose vials. If you as a patient are given a dose at the end of the day, and no one else is available right then and there to receive it, then that's anywhere from 1 to 5 doses which are literally thrown away. As vaccination rates rise, the mere existence of vaccine stocks in countries with high vaccination rates means doses will be wasted - i.e. keeping the bare minimum on hand to vaccinate people as they need it means we have quite a lot of surplus doses which will otherwise definitely be wasted. Hence the analysis of boosters: if there's any benefit at all to high risk groups (i.e. healthcare providers who overwhelmingly now were vaccinated about 8 months ago), then that's a productive use of local vaccine capacity which has to exist in some form (i.e. new people are hitting "vaccine recommended" age every day).
- swader999 5y ago
  And this virus mutates which also limits the shelf life.
andrewingram 5y ago
Yeah, the underlying take is that booster shots may not be the most effective use of the constrained vaccine supply if we wish to get the pandemic under some semblance of control. But someone just reading the headline could easily walk away with the impression that booster shots don't have any benefit.

zarzavat 5y ago

How do they propose to get Pfizer shots that have to be stored at -70 C, to areas in developing countries that need first doses? As far as I can see, the vaccine that is actually suitable for developing countries is the AstraZeneca one, and this isn't often used in the west because of the blood clot issues.

fsh 5y ago
They will use insulated containers with dry ice, same as everywhere else. This might not work in the middle of the jungle, but most developing contries actually have roads and trucks.
- zarzavat 5y ago
  Roads and trucks are not a problem but most third world countries also have an abundance of corruption and general apathy towards rules, good luck running a cold chain to all corners of such a country.
Tepix 5y ago
The cooling requirements for Pfizer shots were loosened, it no longer needs -70°C. I don't know the new number, i think it's around -25°C.

invalidname 5y ago

Right. The problem is that those guys are pretty hard to convince with facts. I took my 3rd shot because otherwise this would go in the garbage. In that sense it does increase my protection and reduces the overall burden on the system so it does help.

detaro 5y ago
"those guys are pretty hard to convince" about giving supply to unvaccinated populations is a fairly shitty take while sitting in one of the short list of countries that has had enough vaccine to supply everyone who wants one.

newaccount2021 5y ago

why are you baking in the assumption that boosters are needed?

mandmandam 5y ago

I really don't understand the vaccines for all push: A - The benefit for young people seems to be outweighed by the risk, for a given time period. The risk of mortality from vaccine induced clots in under 40s is twice the risk of death from Covid [0] (post relates to AZ but other vaccines has similar clot risks). The risk of hospitalisation from myocarditis is a multiple of the risk of hospitalisation from Corona, especially in young males [1] who have a four to six times risk. That alone would be enough to put serious doubt into the vaccines for all narrative, but there's also rarer and weirder confirmed side effects like Bell's Palsy and Guillain-Barre Syndrome. B - The continued dramatic overlooking of natural immunity, which seems to be 6 or 7 times more effective than vaccines alone. Misinformation on this subject from vested interests and uncritical / complicit media has been rife [2]. C - Better, safer, more effective and more traditional vaccines are coming, ie, Novavax. As a young male with no comorbidities and natural immunity, WHY in God's name would I risk taking an mRNA vaccine that has _far_ higher odds of sending me to hospital or killing me than it has of protecting me from the same by lowering Corona reinfection risk? [0] - https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40328123.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40328123.html [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-risk-from-pfizer-jab-side-effect-than-covid-suggests-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-r... [2] - https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101 https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101

snakeboy 5y ago
Speaking as another young male with no comorbidities, I do tons of reckless shit that put myself at way higher risk for no other reason than to entertain myself and my friends. So I figured I might as well get vaccinated if it's a tiny societal positive with no non-negligible risk to myself. > ...the vaccine on the entire adult population [in France] would avert 10 deaths from Covid among 18-39-year-olds, but would be associated with 21 deaths from blood clotting in the same age grouping over the same time period. There are ~16 million 18-39 year olds in France. So both those risks seem vanishingly small. I'm not saying that marketing of vaccines has been honest overall, but that's just my 2 cents about "WHY in God's name I would risk taking an mRNA vaccine".
fabian2k 5y ago

ajross 5y ago

> This title is misleading. It isn't about them not being needed. It also implies a level of consensus that doesn't exist. "Vaccine experts", as a whole, don't hold this opinion. This is about two specific dissenters in the FDA. It's not a completely cut and dry subject. There are tradeoffs with all such decisions, such as the value of a booster in one individual vs. a first injection to another in a different part of the world, etc... It's not an unreasonable position. But it's not a consensus position either. The typical recommendation seems to be that boosters are valuable.

oytis 5y ago
It's not just a couple of dissenters, the official position of WHO is the same - we need to vaccinate the whole world before booster shots and vaccinating children in the rich countries. As I see it there _is_ a consensus among scientists and healthcare professionals, but not among politicians who see booster shots necessary to keep their national economies up.
- kongin 5y ago
  >At 6 months post-vaccine, 70% of the infection-naive NH residents had neutralization titers at or below the lower limit of detection compared to 16% at 2 weeks after full vaccination. These data demonstrate a significant reduction in levels of antibody in all groups. In particular, those infection-naive NH residents had lower initial post-vaccination humoral immunity immediately and exhibited the greatest declines 6 months later. Healthcare workers, given their younger age and relative good-health, achieved higher initial antibody levels and better maintained them, yet also experienced significant declines in humoral immunity. Based on the rapid spread of the delta variant and reports of vaccine breakthrough in NH and among younger community populations, boosting NH residents may be warranted https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.15.21262067v3.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.15.21262067v... That study suggests that 16% of the elderly have no immunity to covid 2 weeks after vaccination and 70% after 6 months. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we might as well not vaccinate anyone over 60 if we're not going to be giving them boosters every 3 months or so.

XorNot 5y ago

The problem with this sort of analysis is that the logistical concerns of shipping vaccine doses are immense. For one thing, single "doses" don't exist - both Pfizer and Astrazeneca are distributed in multi-dose vials. If you as a patient are given a dose at the end of the day, and no one else is available right then and there to receive it, then that's anywhere from 1 to 5 doses which are literally thrown away. As vaccination rates rise, the mere existence of vaccine stocks in countries with high vaccination rates means doses will be wasted - i.e. keeping the bare minimum on hand to vaccinate people as they need it means we have quite a lot of surplus doses which will otherwise definitely be wasted. Hence the analysis of boosters: if there's any benefit at all to high risk groups (i.e. healthcare providers who overwhelmingly now were vaccinated about 8 months ago), then that's a productive use of local vaccine capacity which has to exist in some form (i.e. new people are hitting "vaccine recommended" age every day).

swader999 5y ago
And this virus mutates which also limits the shelf life.

andrewingram 5y ago

Yeah, the underlying take is that booster shots may not be the most effective use of the constrained vaccine supply if we wish to get the pandemic under some semblance of control. But someone just reading the headline could easily walk away with the impression that booster shots don't have any benefit.