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The immune system is a curious thing. There is e.g. a vaccine against pneumonia but you my doctor explained to me that you can only get it once in your life. Th

The immune system is a curious thing. There is e.g. a vaccine against pneumonia but you my doctor explained to me that you can only get it once in your life. There is another one which is not as good so you may get that some years later. The recommendation is - at least here in Germany - to take the vaccine only once you are older and have a higher hospitalization (and with it associated infection) risk. Clearly a booster would reduce infections but that effect probably is dwarfed by vaccinating the un-vaccinated. Rolling out a booster across a large population takes resources (and the health sector is running very, very low on resources - Idaho gave up on normal standards of care now). The question is also what is the impact of the booster on medium term development, medium term options and vaccination discipline of the general population. We also lack understanding of Pfizer vs. Moderna stats. Then the is the lack of understanding what repeated short term boosting does - it is not typically done. And last but not least the question is what is the best strategy to deal with the threat of new variants emerging. Reducing infections in the US will help reduce the chance for a concerning variant to emerge but possibly these resources are better spent fighting the virus globally as these variants tend not to stay in one place only. Pushing for a quick approval and rollout for the first vaccine was a relatively clear cut risk - benefit trade-off. There are risks with the booster (small but there are with any medicine) and the benefit is vastly smaller. The trade-off is different and we should not pressure experts to come to conclusions on a shortened timeline.

trident5000 5y ago
This is just getting ridiculous. Get everyone who wants it the vaccine and then drop the distancing measures and masks so heard immunity builds and repeat exposure keeps peoples immune system responsive to it in perpetuity. Pharma companies are going to push boosters forever as they make money on it. downvote this all you want and tremble in your basement with the blinds closed but this is how we move past this.
- jasonlaramburu 5y ago
  >Get everyone who wants it the vaccine Presumably this has already occurred. COVID daily death rates in the US are on track to meet or exceed the previous all time high. It is undeniable at this point that the vaccine effectively eliminates the possibility of death from COVID-19, so there are presumably still many Americans without protective immunity. Government should do everything to get people vaccinated and prevent needless death. >heard [sic] immunity builds and repeat exposure keeps peoples immune system responsive to it in perpetuity This does not seem to be an accurate understanding. I know of many people who contracted COVID-19 during the alpha wave, declined vaccination thinking they had protective immunity, and then contracted Delta with severe symptoms a year later. >this is how we move past this. How do you figure? If we don't get more people vaccinated, deaths will continue to accelerate. There is also no known protective immunity better than vaccine + infection.
  - prox 5y ago
    It’s sad that people seem to downvote lots of good comments by chance of opinion, rather than the quality of the conversation. It makes an interesting discussion harder to follow.
  - logicalmonster 5y ago
    > Presumably this has already occurred. COVID daily death rates in the US are on track to meet or exceed the previous all time high. It is undeniable at this point that the vaccine effectively eliminates the possibility of death from COVID-19, so there are presumably still many Americans without protective immunity. It’s a bit tough to follow the logic of this comment. If we have more vaccinated than ever, but there are more cases and deaths than ever, how does it therefore follow that it is “undeniable” that the vaccines are doing exactly what we want? Maybe and perhaps that can be partially explained through mutations, but with more than half the population fully vaccinated by now, you’d think that infection rates would be declining, not increasing. It’s very easy to see how vaccine skeptics would continue to think that everything doesn’t fully add up here. PS: What tests did your friends use to differentiate between alpha and delta infection?
    - Rebelgecko 5y ago
      >If we have more vaccinated than ever, but there are more cases and deaths than ever, how does it therefore follow that it is “undeniable” that the vaccines are doing exactly what we want? In my area, most people are vaccinated. If the vaccine wasn't very effective, you'd expect that most people dying of COVID would be vaccinated. In reality, something like 98% of deaths are among the unvaccinated
      - Izkata 5y ago
        That stat comes from a report that came out in May, using data from before that point. Y'know, back when percent vaccinated was still pretty low... I vaguely recall seeing it had dropped to 95% a month or two ago, but that was still counting from the beginning of the year and not weighting by percent vaccinated.
- slumpt_ 5y ago
  I always get my medical advice from software engineers.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- p_j_w 5y ago
  >repeat exposure keeps peoples immune system responsive to it in perpetuity. This strategy works well for the flu! Oh that's right, it doesn't, and a different vaccine is required every year.
  - trident5000 5y ago
    Except it does. A vaccine is not "required" every year. Its there if you want it particularly if you're in a high risk category. You're constantly exposed to the flu and many other things on an ongoing basis with or without a booster. I lived in nyc for 11 years without a flu shot on crowded subways. Never was sick even 1 time after the 1st year because your immune system learns and adapts.
    - Forbo 5y ago
      More exposure means more viral reproduction. This means more opportunities for the virus to mutate. This is exactly why the flu shot changes every year, dependent on what strains are predicted to be the most widespread. Edit: I am so beyond sick of the narrative comparing this to the flu.
      - trident5000 5y ago
        The WHO disagrees with you: https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-news/covid-19-is-here-to-stay-who-warns-coronavirus-wont-disappear-but-will-eventually-fade.html https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-n... Its never going away, it will mutate regardless, and it will become less impactful like the flu over time as we get accustomed to it.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
oezi 5y ago
I find it really saddening that we aren't ramping the spending on these questions and issues. We should spend on the order of 100-200 billion globally to research and fights the pandemic. That would be a drop in the bucket compared to the economic impact of the pandemic.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  9 mothers can't birth a baby in 1 month. More money only allows us to conduct more parallel research to answer questions in parallel. It doesn't mean that we iterate any faster in the "question -> answer -> think of new question" bottleneck. We've got research on Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, Novavax (and other vaccines) coming in. We got research on corticosteroids (dexamethasone, Prednisone, Methylprednisolone ), IVM, hydroxychloroquine, etc. etc. (even if we have no reason to believe that Ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine will work, we'll conduct the research anyway so that some loud people out there can finally shut up about it). There's monoclonal antibodies (REGN10933 and REGN10987), with probably more in the works. Etc. etc. There is research on Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Blood type, etc. etc. So much research, and many of that research is getting replicated over-and-over again, to ensure accuracy. And of course: there's research about _how long does the vaccine last_, which is fundamental to this entire FDA question. There's a myriad of measurements going on, and it seems like the scientists aren't agreeing upon the research yet. -------- That's fine. CDC has one set of research. FDA has another. White House will make a decision. When agencies disagree, we take it up to the higher-levels of discussion to make a decision through other means.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > 9 mothers can't birth a baby in 1 month. This is one of the stupidest stock examples ever invented. The idea is that one of the most parallelizable processes known to mankind, characterized by its rapid growth and perfect scaling, is the paradigmatic example of a process that bottlenecks itself. It takes one woman more than 30 months to have two babies. Two women can do it in 9 months. When someone says "9 mothers can't have a baby in one month", you have to wonder whether the lesson they want you to draw -- that some other process can't be parallelized -- applies to that other process any better than it applies to the process of population growth.

trident5000 5y ago

This is just getting ridiculous. Get everyone who wants it the vaccine and then drop the distancing measures and masks so heard immunity builds and repeat exposure keeps peoples immune system responsive to it in perpetuity. Pharma companies are going to push boosters forever as they make money on it. downvote this all you want and tremble in your basement with the blinds closed but this is how we move past this.

jasonlaramburu 5y ago
>Get everyone who wants it the vaccine Presumably this has already occurred. COVID daily death rates in the US are on track to meet or exceed the previous all time high. It is undeniable at this point that the vaccine effectively eliminates the possibility of death from COVID-19, so there are presumably still many Americans without protective immunity. Government should do everything to get people vaccinated and prevent needless death. >heard [sic] immunity builds and repeat exposure keeps peoples immune system responsive to it in perpetuity This does not seem to be an accurate understanding. I know of many people who contracted COVID-19 during the alpha wave, declined vaccination thinking they had protective immunity, and then contracted Delta with severe symptoms a year later. >this is how we move past this. How do you figure? If we don't get more people vaccinated, deaths will continue to accelerate. There is also no known protective immunity better than vaccine + infection.
- prox 5y ago
  It’s sad that people seem to downvote lots of good comments by chance of opinion, rather than the quality of the conversation. It makes an interesting discussion harder to follow.
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  > Presumably this has already occurred. COVID daily death rates in the US are on track to meet or exceed the previous all time high. It is undeniable at this point that the vaccine effectively eliminates the possibility of death from COVID-19, so there are presumably still many Americans without protective immunity. It’s a bit tough to follow the logic of this comment. If we have more vaccinated than ever, but there are more cases and deaths than ever, how does it therefore follow that it is “undeniable” that the vaccines are doing exactly what we want? Maybe and perhaps that can be partially explained through mutations, but with more than half the population fully vaccinated by now, you’d think that infection rates would be declining, not increasing. It’s very easy to see how vaccine skeptics would continue to think that everything doesn’t fully add up here. PS: What tests did your friends use to differentiate between alpha and delta infection?
  - Rebelgecko 5y ago
    >If we have more vaccinated than ever, but there are more cases and deaths than ever, how does it therefore follow that it is “undeniable” that the vaccines are doing exactly what we want? In my area, most people are vaccinated. If the vaccine wasn't very effective, you'd expect that most people dying of COVID would be vaccinated. In reality, something like 98% of deaths are among the unvaccinated
    - Izkata 5y ago
      That stat comes from a report that came out in May, using data from before that point. Y'know, back when percent vaccinated was still pretty low... I vaguely recall seeing it had dropped to 95% a month or two ago, but that was still counting from the beginning of the year and not weighting by percent vaccinated.
slumpt_ 5y ago
I always get my medical advice from software engineers.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
p_j_w 5y ago
>repeat exposure keeps peoples immune system responsive to it in perpetuity. This strategy works well for the flu! Oh that's right, it doesn't, and a different vaccine is required every year.
- trident5000 5y ago
  Except it does. A vaccine is not "required" every year. Its there if you want it particularly if you're in a high risk category. You're constantly exposed to the flu and many other things on an ongoing basis with or without a booster. I lived in nyc for 11 years without a flu shot on crowded subways. Never was sick even 1 time after the 1st year because your immune system learns and adapts.
  - Forbo 5y ago
    More exposure means more viral reproduction. This means more opportunities for the virus to mutate. This is exactly why the flu shot changes every year, dependent on what strains are predicted to be the most widespread. Edit: I am so beyond sick of the narrative comparing this to the flu.
    - trident5000 5y ago
      The WHO disagrees with you: https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-news/covid-19-is-here-to-stay-who-warns-coronavirus-wont-disappear-but-will-eventually-fade.html https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-n... Its never going away, it will mutate regardless, and it will become less impactful like the flu over time as we get accustomed to it.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]

oezi 5y ago

I find it really saddening that we aren't ramping the spending on these questions and issues. We should spend on the order of 100-200 billion globally to research and fights the pandemic. That would be a drop in the bucket compared to the economic impact of the pandemic.

dragontamer 5y ago
9 mothers can't birth a baby in 1 month. More money only allows us to conduct more parallel research to answer questions in parallel. It doesn't mean that we iterate any faster in the "question -> answer -> think of new question" bottleneck. We've got research on Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, Novavax (and other vaccines) coming in. We got research on corticosteroids (dexamethasone, Prednisone, Methylprednisolone ), IVM, hydroxychloroquine, etc. etc. (even if we have no reason to believe that Ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine will work, we'll conduct the research anyway so that some loud people out there can finally shut up about it). There's monoclonal antibodies (REGN10933 and REGN10987), with probably more in the works. Etc. etc. There is research on Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Blood type, etc. etc. So much research, and many of that research is getting replicated over-and-over again, to ensure accuracy. And of course: there's research about _how long does the vaccine last_, which is fundamental to this entire FDA question. There's a myriad of measurements going on, and it seems like the scientists aren't agreeing upon the research yet. -------- That's fine. CDC has one set of research. FDA has another. White House will make a decision. When agencies disagree, we take it up to the higher-levels of discussion to make a decision through other means.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > 9 mothers can't birth a baby in 1 month. This is one of the stupidest stock examples ever invented. The idea is that one of the most parallelizable processes known to mankind, characterized by its rapid growth and perfect scaling, is the paradigmatic example of a process that bottlenecks itself. It takes one woman more than 30 months to have two babies. Two women can do it in 9 months. When someone says "9 mothers can't have a baby in one month", you have to wonder whether the lesson they want you to draw -- that some other process can't be parallelized -- applies to that other process any better than it applies to the process of population growth.