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Experts have said coronavirus boosters will be needed down the road because the efficacy of these vaccines, including the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna shots, wan

Experts have said coronavirus boosters will be needed down the road because the efficacy of these vaccines, including the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna shots, wanes over time. And I've seen other talk about "experts" saying that boosters are not needed (https://www.axios.com/covid-19-vaccine-booster-not-needed-experts-fda-lancet-44bc8a25-c640-4268-8841-e652e285d8fe.html https://www.axios.com/covid-19-vaccine-booster-not-needed-ex...) This shit is so fucking exhausting.

sneak 5y ago
Even if it turns out that the data is clear in the long run: I had my third Pfizer today (along with influenza minutes later) and if this is the vaccine hangover I'm going to get twice a year, that's pretty exhausting too. Still waaay better than covid or the flu, but damn. The world is never going to be the same.
- rgbbtc4life 5y ago
  Hahahha you're retarded. Keep getting those jabs vaxxie.
- dham 5y ago
  The world will go back to normal when we accept that everyone will get Covid and there's no need to hide from it. People have some kind of mild mental illness from Covid and they haven't even gotten it. > Still better than covid, but damn I mean maybe?
  - sneak 5y ago
    That's what they said about chicken pox when I was a child. Technology advances, fortunately. There is no going back to normal if everyone gets covid: it is a deadly disease that has killed close to five millions of people. This sort of fatalism is not a really useful approach for reasoning about the risk, in my view.
    - dham 5y ago
      I mean we went back to normal after Spanish Flu and Hong Kong flu didn't we? Spanish flu killed 50 million (edit). Hong Kong killed 1 - 4 million. People will forget, it's in our nature to push on and survive. > Technology advances, fortunately. If you have the current technology you will get Covid. It's not if, it's when. Eventually we will have good vaccines (in a decade or two?) and maybe people won't get it. By that point it will have mutated into being a cold for most people. > This sort of fatalism is not a really useful approach for reasoning about the risk, in my view. Covid is a serious thing and I'm sad for the people that died from it, before vaccines and the unvaccinated. If someone is carrying even a little extra weight I would plead with them to get the vaccine. Let's just be honest though, the risk is just really really low for anyone in decent health. With the vaccine it's 0.
      - sneak 5y ago
        Yes; we now have a gigantic effort every single year to get out in front of the annual flu, identify the dominant strain via global viral surveillance, and produce and distribute and administer billions of vaccine doses in a few short months, each and every year. It's a huge system that involves thousands of people.
        dham 5y ago
        Yea you have a point in our futile efforts to develop flu vaccines. If we ever have something that's actually deadly infect the world we're probably just screwed. The governments have used all the clout on Covid. Best just to get the vaccine and move on with life. Let's just be honest, we will probably die of Cancer or Heart Disease. I'm convinced if Covid hit in the 50's we wouldn't have near the deaths. We're such a unhealthy society now. Best just to focus on health going forward.
        javagram 5y ago
        Easy to say focus on health, hard to do it. We’ve been “focused on health” for decades and people just keep getting fatter.
  - bryan0 5y ago
    If you’re suggesting everyone should get Covid without being vaccinated, then that’s a really great way to cause millions of unneeded deaths. Just because you’re ok with that outcome don’t expect everyone else to be. edit: that's not what they were suggesting. I misunderstood!
    - dham 5y ago
      > If you’re suggesting everyone should get Covid without being vaccinated Never have I said that. I'm just saying it's time to get vaccinated and move on with life. Everyone will get Covid at some point.
      - bryan0 5y ago
        Ok thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood and agree with your point.
    - mensetmanusman 5y ago
      I didn’t read it that way at all. He is repeating what experts have said, which is basically, because Covid is dormant in animals and domestic pets, and because you can spread it while vaccinated, essentially everyone will eventually get Covid. If you are vaccinated, your symptoms will be, on average, less severe.
      - basch 5y ago
        It's probably more than everybody will get it, more like everybody will get it every couple years. Expect it to displace one of the colds, and become a common cold. Will babies be exposed to it enough, to eventually make vaccination a thing of the past? Do we vaccinate for other common colds right now (OC43)? Or maybe the opposite conclusion, that as you age you should be vaccinated against the common colds.
- javagram 5y ago
  I’ve got to think they’ll develop a 2nd generation vaccine with fewer side effects especially if a new one is actually needed yearly (still not convinced we don’t just need the vaccine re-tuned for Delta rather than blindly shoving booster after booster of the original strain). I get the flu shot every year and have zero side effects, it’s a different type of vaccine but I believe the Chinese have developed an inactivated virus vaccine for covid.
  - basch 5y ago
    Part of it is just dose. Moderna had different Phase 3 trials than Pfizer and didnt hone in on dose as much, so its shot was probably overkill. But seeing how it now seems to have more longevity, maybe that overkill comes with a bonus staying power. Im not sure it quite works that way but maybe it really is as simple as "less more often" = fewer side effects, "more less often" = more side effect, less often"
- rickspencer3 5y ago
  I tried to get a 3rd Pfizer shot yesterday, but neither CVS or my doctor would give it to me because I am not 65 or immunocompromised. I have some work travel coming up, and I thought that would be enough reason. I could have easily lied and said that I am immunocompromised, but that is not my style. Maybe I need to keep looking to find someone who will give it to me.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
From the link you shared: "What they're saying: "Even if boosting were eventually shown to decrease the medium-term risk of serious disease, current vaccine supplies could save more lives if used in previously unvaccinated populations than if used as boosters in vaccinated populations," the scientists wrote." In other words, it isn't even saying they aren't needed at all, but that it is better to have everyone fully vaccinated before we start on giving boosters - with the exception of some folks with compromised immune systems. And to be fair, this is the sort of messaging that other places were handing out. It also isnt all that unusual that different parties give out different information, especially when some of those folks aren't medical professionals versed in such diseases or the intricacies of the immune system. Your comment also makes me very happy to not be in the US right now. The government here (Norway) simply sent me an SMS when the vaccine was available, and prompted me to schedule both doses at that time. I imagine if we get to the point of booster shots, something similar will happen. But I hope we get the world a dose or two of the vaccine first so that fewer people might die.
- joshstrange 5y ago
  I'll bet vaccine boosters get the same "but they said masks didn't work"/"they said we didn't need masks" treatment. I would have hoped that we'd learned that lesson but it looks like we are doomed to repeat that all over again. I'm never of fan of lying/misleading the general public because it breads so much mistrust and allows mis/disinformation to spread so much easier later. If it's not clear, I'm talking about how "we don't need to wear masks" != "masks don't work" as much as it was "we need all the masks for medical staff right now and there is a shortage". Similarly, the messaging should not be "we don't need boosters" because we we inevitably DO need people to take a booster it will be met with resistance due to "changing facts", instead the messaging should be "boosters help but it's better to get more people vaccinated with 1-2 shots before we focus on boosters".
  - aleister_777 5y ago
    I think the bigger issue is finding the places where strict mask use has reduced COVID. You seem to think there is a lesson to be learned however I'm unable to find any data that support that lesson. Yet, you assert it like it's truth, as if you know the truth and can back it up somehow, but you don't.
tylermac1 5y ago
In your linked article it explicitly states that the booster shots aren't "needed" because they would do more good as initial doses in unvaccinated people, not that it also wouldn't help already vaccinated people.
donquichotte 5y ago
It's just like nutritional science. Only the time scale between the changes in recommendations is now weeks instead of years, and instead of recommendations it's laws.
qwertyuiop_ 5y ago
2021 the year we found out the “experts” just wing it like rest of us.
- simonh 5y ago
  I think if the pandemic has taught us anything it's that we need to be flexible in our opinions and approach as new information comes to light. Anyone who hasn't had to change their opinion on a whole bunch of issues to do with the virus over the last year and a half is either an unfeasibly lucky guesser or is doing something wrong.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    Also, we've got to stop assuming a conspiracy and bad intent all the time. Whenever underlying information changes, and the experts must therefore change their guidance, people come out of the woodwork to declare "See! Mr. Expert changed his mind! He was obviously lying before. Is he lying now? What can we believe with all these liars lying?"
- basch 5y ago
  more like journalists are good at writing misleading headlines from studies, and chasing random quote bites to print out of context. if your decision making is fueled primarily by click bait bylines, youre going to have a bad time. if you read through to the nuance of each story, the narrative doesnt flip flop quite as much as it first appears. quite honestly, the details havent changed that much since the beginning. primarily effects the elderly, travels by spit through the air but not as airborn as measles, on a spectrum more load is worse, if infected seek monoclonal antibodies and quarantine yourself, vaccines prevent hospitalization, occasional boosters will be likely until entire population develops built in immunity. delta has brought the age bracket down (or is that because the first round of most likely to be infected are already gone) a bit and increased the transmission rate.
fortran77 5y ago
> This shit is so fucking exhausting. Many people will think it must be like masks: once the "experts" get their boosters, then they'll tell everyone else it's a good idea to get it. They just want to be sure there's enough for them, first. I have some travel coming up in October. I plan to get the Moderna booster even though I'm not in an eligible group.
gdulli 5y ago
This is normal. Not all science is as clean and unambiguous as 1+1=2. There's often judgment and interpretation in science. And that's even before science starts getting turned into policy. It's not our job to be virologists, it's not our job even to be scientists. It is our job to conceptually understand science well enough to know that disagreement between scientists does not imply that one of them is wrong, or that their "expertise" is suspect, or that they're motivated by culture wars.
simonh 5y ago
The second link doesn't say booster shots won't be needed down the road, they say they aren't needed now. Both articles are consistent with booster shots being needed down the road. The question is really about timing when the booster shots need to be given. Places like Israel that immunised large swathes of population very early are already seeing signs of waning effectiveness and are planning to give booster shots in the near term. In the UK we're also in the same boat. Early vaccination has transformed life here, with low death rates despite high transmission. The protection the vaccine gives is providing us with massive benefits. It looks like boosters for older people going into winter make sense. In the US that's not as clear. Vaccination has become a bitterly contested right vs left issue, in a way that it just isn't in Europe. Our Conservative government in Britain has been at the front line of pushing through a massively successful vaccination campaign, with broad cross party support for the strategy overall. There's plenty of political credit to go around. The contrast with the US couldn't be more stark. I think the Biden booster plan looks ill advised, but at least he's not talking his voters into getting them or their loved ones killed or crippled by this thing. I'm sitting here, a fully vaccinated British conservative, watching interviews with dying patients in US hospitals saying they didn't get vaccinated because they are conservatives, wondering how things could have gone so horribly wrong.
- the_doctah 5y ago
  >saying they didn't get vaccinated because they are conservatives, wondering how things could have gone so horribly wrong. There's an entire subreddit dedicated to this and the patterns of behavior from these people become clear pretty quickly. They think prayers are more effective than vaccines.
  - chinathrow 5y ago
    It's truly maddening. I have friends who refuse to get vaxxed and claim everyone will get it and those who die from it "that's just life".
    - disease 5y ago
      Based on what I've heard from interviews from doctors and nurses, these people change their tune incredibly quickly once they have been diagnosed with Covid and start suffering from some of the more severe the symptoms of the disease.
InvaderFizz 5y ago
I would guess that is because all the nuance gets stripped. There are multiple reasons for experts to be against boosters. A few that come to mind: - Requiring boosters to maintain "fully vaccinated" status undermines public trust in the vaccine's efficacy. This depresses willingness to get it in the first place, and utterly destroys the confidence of those that already "did their part". - While the long term prevention of COVID contraction and spread seems to be beyond these vaccines, they do significantly reduce the severity of a COVID infection. I would guess that a large portion of the scientific community has accepted that this may be the best that can be done. Getting COVID and having the vaccine means that you likely have more durable long term protection with severely reduced risk of hospitalization. Something to remember when it comes to public health: you, the individual are unimportant. What matters is the herd. If that means sacrificing a few to save the many, governments will do it and lie to you the whole way if that is what is required to accomplish their goal.
- taxicabjesus 5y ago
  > - Requiring boosters to maintain "fully vaccinated" status undermines public trust in the vaccine's efficacy. Booster shots confirm that the vaccine doesn't actually work. IMHO, vaccines for colds cannot work because "cold viruses" are fundamentally different than viral diseases like chickenpox or measles. A very large percentage of the population thinks the public health authorities are full of it. I gently poke fun at people who half-heartedly take mask recommendations seriously [0]. [0] https://twitter.com/TaxiCabJesus/status/1420989505163567107 https://twitter.com/TaxiCabJesus/status/1420989505163567107 > - While the long term prevention of COVID contraction and spread seems to be beyond these vaccines, they do significantly reduce the severity of a COVID infection. I think the injections were only tested/deployed in the spring/summer, when virus 'cases' would be expected to decrease anyways. I expect the injections will be recognized as a total failure by next spring. IMHO, the pandemic-as-vaccine-marketing-campaign was obvious from the beginning. It reminded me of the time I convinced my passenger that the moon was 'going away' [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24881670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24881670 > Something to remember when it comes to public health: you, the individual are unimportant. What matters is the herd. If that means sacrificing a few to save the many, At least you're honest about this. > governments will do it and lie to you the whole way if that is what is required to accomplish their goal. The core lie is that SARS-CoV-2 is a super-virus that warrants extraordinary measures, when in fact the commonly-used treatment (oxygenation) for SARS-CoV-2 is what drives the deterioration [2]. Public Health should have stuck with the 2019 plan for pandemics, instead of tossing all the old recommendations. If the Government had used the "pandemic" to address the 'obesity epidemic' it would have improved public health. But instead lockdowns worsened the obesity epidemic. Whoops. Maybe you still think there's a ventilator shortage [3]? If so, take SCUBA diving classes. They'll teach you how to not blow up your lungs. [2] https://www.taxiwars.org/2021/06/folly-medical-hyperventilation.html https://www.taxiwars.org/2021/06/folly-medical-hyperventilat... [3] https://twitter.com/TaxiCabJesus/status/1439999710702358531 https://twitter.com/TaxiCabJesus/status/1439999710702358531 [minor edits]
_Microft 5y ago
I wouldn't put the scare quotes around experts but around "talk". What is getting reported is often not quite nuanced enough. I would suggest to cut down on news if the reporting makes you feel bad.
madman2890 5y ago
Natural antibodies seem to last longer, based on the current research. My simple algorithm is: P(long-term damage | short observation window) = non negligible P(death | previous infection, age (30), healthy, etc.) = incredibly low P(vaccine worth it | aforementioned) = low https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/928365 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/928365 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
- nojito 5y ago
  Chance of death/severe illness between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations makes that type of decision making meaningless.
  - madman2890 5y ago
    Vaccinated vs. unvaccinated is an incomplete comparison. It's: vaccinated vs. unvaccinated & previously uninfected vs. unvaccinated & previously infected.
    - nojito 5y ago
      It's not an incomplete comparison. Giving any support to the middle group runs the risk of individuals who need to be vaccinated to not get vaccinated.
      - madman2890 5y ago
        https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/15/natural-immunity-vaccine-mandate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/15/natural-im...
- myko 5y ago
  Bad idea https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr... “If you have had COVID-19 before, please still get vaccinated,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. “This study shows you are twice as likely to get infected again if you are unvaccinated. Getting the vaccine is the best way to protect yourself and others around you, especially as the more contagious Delta variant spreads around the country.”
myrmidon 5y ago
(Commenting because this mirrors a complaint I frequently see among "covid sceptics" which frustrates me greatly) Expecting simple and final answers to questions depending on a myriad of factors (some unknown or even unknowable!) is stupid. In my opinion, it betrays a complete misunderstanding of how <science> works, and what it can do; the fact that scientific consensus CHANGES with new data is central and necessary. And it's also completely meaningless to complain about "disagreement between experts" unless you are willing to precisely lay out and compare all those base assumptions that were made to interpret and answer your question (something "sceptics" rarely bother with). Sorry for the rant if I misinterpreted your position.
- J-dawg 5y ago
  > Expecting simple and final answers to questions depending on a myriad of factors (some unknown or even unknowable!) is stupid. I don't think "covid sceptics" are the only ones guilty of this. Far from it in fact. Vocal believers in "covid orthodoxy" (can't think of a better descriptor right now) seem much worse at acting as if simple and final answers exist for everything. Annoyingly necessary disclaimer: I am not a "covid sceptic" by any stretch, I am fully vaccinated and believe that many precautions are warranted. But I am sick of being told what to do based on uncertain emerging science. Case in point: vaccine passports seem to be an example where the policy was concocted based on assumptions about the science which turned out to be untrue (the assumption being that vaccinated people wouldn't carry or transmit Covid.) I believe that most governments are only keeping them in place in order to inconvenience people into getting vaccinated. This is exactly the sort of thing that fosters more scepticism, even if a lot of it is misguided.
lghh 5y ago
Isn't that sort of what science is though? This is just probably the most public exposure of the scientific method that I'm aware of. Experts sometimes disagree, then we test the heck out of something, then we hit a consensus. This stuff is usually wayyyyyy slower than this, it's a miracle we hit consensus as fast as we are on anything related to Covid.

sneak 5y ago

Even if it turns out that the data is clear in the long run: I had my third Pfizer today (along with influenza minutes later) and if this is the vaccine hangover I'm going to get twice a year, that's pretty exhausting too. Still waaay better than covid or the flu, but damn. The world is never going to be the same.

rgbbtc4life 5y ago
Hahahha you're retarded. Keep getting those jabs vaxxie.
dham 5y ago
The world will go back to normal when we accept that everyone will get Covid and there's no need to hide from it. People have some kind of mild mental illness from Covid and they haven't even gotten it. > Still better than covid, but damn I mean maybe?
- sneak 5y ago
  That's what they said about chicken pox when I was a child. Technology advances, fortunately. There is no going back to normal if everyone gets covid: it is a deadly disease that has killed close to five millions of people. This sort of fatalism is not a really useful approach for reasoning about the risk, in my view.
  - dham 5y ago
    I mean we went back to normal after Spanish Flu and Hong Kong flu didn't we? Spanish flu killed 50 million (edit). Hong Kong killed 1 - 4 million. People will forget, it's in our nature to push on and survive. > Technology advances, fortunately. If you have the current technology you will get Covid. It's not if, it's when. Eventually we will have good vaccines (in a decade or two?) and maybe people won't get it. By that point it will have mutated into being a cold for most people. > This sort of fatalism is not a really useful approach for reasoning about the risk, in my view. Covid is a serious thing and I'm sad for the people that died from it, before vaccines and the unvaccinated. If someone is carrying even a little extra weight I would plead with them to get the vaccine. Let's just be honest though, the risk is just really really low for anyone in decent health. With the vaccine it's 0.
    - sneak 5y ago
      Yes; we now have a gigantic effort every single year to get out in front of the annual flu, identify the dominant strain via global viral surveillance, and produce and distribute and administer billions of vaccine doses in a few short months, each and every year. It's a huge system that involves thousands of people.
      - dham 5y ago
        Yea you have a point in our futile efforts to develop flu vaccines. If we ever have something that's actually deadly infect the world we're probably just screwed. The governments have used all the clout on Covid. Best just to get the vaccine and move on with life. Let's just be honest, we will probably die of Cancer or Heart Disease. I'm convinced if Covid hit in the 50's we wouldn't have near the deaths. We're such a unhealthy society now. Best just to focus on health going forward.
        javagram 5y ago
        Easy to say focus on health, hard to do it. We’ve been “focused on health” for decades and people just keep getting fatter.
- bryan0 5y ago
  If you’re suggesting everyone should get Covid without being vaccinated, then that’s a really great way to cause millions of unneeded deaths. Just because you’re ok with that outcome don’t expect everyone else to be. edit: that's not what they were suggesting. I misunderstood!
  - dham 5y ago
    > If you’re suggesting everyone should get Covid without being vaccinated Never have I said that. I'm just saying it's time to get vaccinated and move on with life. Everyone will get Covid at some point.
    - bryan0 5y ago
      Ok thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood and agree with your point.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    I didn’t read it that way at all. He is repeating what experts have said, which is basically, because Covid is dormant in animals and domestic pets, and because you can spread it while vaccinated, essentially everyone will eventually get Covid. If you are vaccinated, your symptoms will be, on average, less severe.
    - basch 5y ago
      It's probably more than everybody will get it, more like everybody will get it every couple years. Expect it to displace one of the colds, and become a common cold. Will babies be exposed to it enough, to eventually make vaccination a thing of the past? Do we vaccinate for other common colds right now (OC43)? Or maybe the opposite conclusion, that as you age you should be vaccinated against the common colds.
javagram 5y ago
I’ve got to think they’ll develop a 2nd generation vaccine with fewer side effects especially if a new one is actually needed yearly (still not convinced we don’t just need the vaccine re-tuned for Delta rather than blindly shoving booster after booster of the original strain). I get the flu shot every year and have zero side effects, it’s a different type of vaccine but I believe the Chinese have developed an inactivated virus vaccine for covid.
- basch 5y ago
  Part of it is just dose. Moderna had different Phase 3 trials than Pfizer and didnt hone in on dose as much, so its shot was probably overkill. But seeing how it now seems to have more longevity, maybe that overkill comes with a bonus staying power. Im not sure it quite works that way but maybe it really is as simple as "less more often" = fewer side effects, "more less often" = more side effect, less often"
rickspencer3 5y ago
I tried to get a 3rd Pfizer shot yesterday, but neither CVS or my doctor would give it to me because I am not 65 or immunocompromised. I have some work travel coming up, and I thought that would be enough reason. I could have easily lied and said that I am immunocompromised, but that is not my style. Maybe I need to keep looking to find someone who will give it to me.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Broken_Hippo 5y ago

From the link you shared: "What they're saying: "Even if boosting were eventually shown to decrease the medium-term risk of serious disease, current vaccine supplies could save more lives if used in previously unvaccinated populations than if used as boosters in vaccinated populations," the scientists wrote." In other words, it isn't even saying they aren't needed at all, but that it is better to have everyone fully vaccinated before we start on giving boosters - with the exception of some folks with compromised immune systems. And to be fair, this is the sort of messaging that other places were handing out. It also isnt all that unusual that different parties give out different information, especially when some of those folks aren't medical professionals versed in such diseases or the intricacies of the immune system. Your comment also makes me very happy to not be in the US right now. The government here (Norway) simply sent me an SMS when the vaccine was available, and prompted me to schedule both doses at that time. I imagine if we get to the point of booster shots, something similar will happen. But I hope we get the world a dose or two of the vaccine first so that fewer people might die.

joshstrange 5y ago
I'll bet vaccine boosters get the same "but they said masks didn't work"/"they said we didn't need masks" treatment. I would have hoped that we'd learned that lesson but it looks like we are doomed to repeat that all over again. I'm never of fan of lying/misleading the general public because it breads so much mistrust and allows mis/disinformation to spread so much easier later. If it's not clear, I'm talking about how "we don't need to wear masks" != "masks don't work" as much as it was "we need all the masks for medical staff right now and there is a shortage". Similarly, the messaging should not be "we don't need boosters" because we we inevitably DO need people to take a booster it will be met with resistance due to "changing facts", instead the messaging should be "boosters help but it's better to get more people vaccinated with 1-2 shots before we focus on boosters".
- aleister_777 5y ago
  I think the bigger issue is finding the places where strict mask use has reduced COVID. You seem to think there is a lesson to be learned however I'm unable to find any data that support that lesson. Yet, you assert it like it's truth, as if you know the truth and can back it up somehow, but you don't.

tylermac1 5y ago

In your linked article it explicitly states that the booster shots aren't "needed" because they would do more good as initial doses in unvaccinated people, not that it also wouldn't help already vaccinated people.

donquichotte 5y ago

It's just like nutritional science. Only the time scale between the changes in recommendations is now weeks instead of years, and instead of recommendations it's laws.

qwertyuiop_ 5y ago

2021 the year we found out the “experts” just wing it like rest of us.

simonh 5y ago
I think if the pandemic has taught us anything it's that we need to be flexible in our opinions and approach as new information comes to light. Anyone who hasn't had to change their opinion on a whole bunch of issues to do with the virus over the last year and a half is either an unfeasibly lucky guesser or is doing something wrong.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  Also, we've got to stop assuming a conspiracy and bad intent all the time. Whenever underlying information changes, and the experts must therefore change their guidance, people come out of the woodwork to declare "See! Mr. Expert changed his mind! He was obviously lying before. Is he lying now? What can we believe with all these liars lying?"
basch 5y ago
more like journalists are good at writing misleading headlines from studies, and chasing random quote bites to print out of context. if your decision making is fueled primarily by click bait bylines, youre going to have a bad time. if you read through to the nuance of each story, the narrative doesnt flip flop quite as much as it first appears. quite honestly, the details havent changed that much since the beginning. primarily effects the elderly, travels by spit through the air but not as airborn as measles, on a spectrum more load is worse, if infected seek monoclonal antibodies and quarantine yourself, vaccines prevent hospitalization, occasional boosters will be likely until entire population develops built in immunity. delta has brought the age bracket down (or is that because the first round of most likely to be infected are already gone) a bit and increased the transmission rate.

fortran77 5y ago

> This shit is so fucking exhausting. Many people will think it must be like masks: once the "experts" get their boosters, then they'll tell everyone else it's a good idea to get it. They just want to be sure there's enough for them, first. I have some travel coming up in October. I plan to get the Moderna booster even though I'm not in an eligible group.

gdulli 5y ago

This is normal. Not all science is as clean and unambiguous as 1+1=2. There's often judgment and interpretation in science. And that's even before science starts getting turned into policy. It's not our job to be virologists, it's not our job even to be scientists. It is our job to conceptually understand science well enough to know that disagreement between scientists does not imply that one of them is wrong, or that their "expertise" is suspect, or that they're motivated by culture wars.

simonh 5y ago

The second link doesn't say booster shots won't be needed down the road, they say they aren't needed now. Both articles are consistent with booster shots being needed down the road. The question is really about timing when the booster shots need to be given. Places like Israel that immunised large swathes of population very early are already seeing signs of waning effectiveness and are planning to give booster shots in the near term. In the UK we're also in the same boat. Early vaccination has transformed life here, with low death rates despite high transmission. The protection the vaccine gives is providing us with massive benefits. It looks like boosters for older people going into winter make sense. In the US that's not as clear. Vaccination has become a bitterly contested right vs left issue, in a way that it just isn't in Europe. Our Conservative government in Britain has been at the front line of pushing through a massively successful vaccination campaign, with broad cross party support for the strategy overall. There's plenty of political credit to go around. The contrast with the US couldn't be more stark. I think the Biden booster plan looks ill advised, but at least he's not talking his voters into getting them or their loved ones killed or crippled by this thing. I'm sitting here, a fully vaccinated British conservative, watching interviews with dying patients in US hospitals saying they didn't get vaccinated because they are conservatives, wondering how things could have gone so horribly wrong.

the_doctah 5y ago
>saying they didn't get vaccinated because they are conservatives, wondering how things could have gone so horribly wrong. There's an entire subreddit dedicated to this and the patterns of behavior from these people become clear pretty quickly. They think prayers are more effective than vaccines.
- chinathrow 5y ago
  It's truly maddening. I have friends who refuse to get vaxxed and claim everyone will get it and those who die from it "that's just life".
  - disease 5y ago
    Based on what I've heard from interviews from doctors and nurses, these people change their tune incredibly quickly once they have been diagnosed with Covid and start suffering from some of the more severe the symptoms of the disease.

InvaderFizz 5y ago

I would guess that is because all the nuance gets stripped. There are multiple reasons for experts to be against boosters. A few that come to mind: - Requiring boosters to maintain "fully vaccinated" status undermines public trust in the vaccine's efficacy. This depresses willingness to get it in the first place, and utterly destroys the confidence of those that already "did their part". - While the long term prevention of COVID contraction and spread seems to be beyond these vaccines, they do significantly reduce the severity of a COVID infection. I would guess that a large portion of the scientific community has accepted that this may be the best that can be done. Getting COVID and having the vaccine means that you likely have more durable long term protection with severely reduced risk of hospitalization. Something to remember when it comes to public health: you, the individual are unimportant. What matters is the herd. If that means sacrificing a few to save the many, governments will do it and lie to you the whole way if that is what is required to accomplish their goal.

taxicabjesus 5y ago
> - Requiring boosters to maintain "fully vaccinated" status undermines public trust in the vaccine's efficacy. Booster shots confirm that the vaccine doesn't actually work. IMHO, vaccines for colds cannot work because "cold viruses" are fundamentally different than viral diseases like chickenpox or measles. A very large percentage of the population thinks the public health authorities are full of it. I gently poke fun at people who half-heartedly take mask recommendations seriously [0]. [0] https://twitter.com/TaxiCabJesus/status/1420989505163567107 https://twitter.com/TaxiCabJesus/status/1420989505163567107 > - While the long term prevention of COVID contraction and spread seems to be beyond these vaccines, they do significantly reduce the severity of a COVID infection. I think the injections were only tested/deployed in the spring/summer, when virus 'cases' would be expected to decrease anyways. I expect the injections will be recognized as a total failure by next spring. IMHO, the pandemic-as-vaccine-marketing-campaign was obvious from the beginning. It reminded me of the time I convinced my passenger that the moon was 'going away' [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24881670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24881670 > Something to remember when it comes to public health: you, the individual are unimportant. What matters is the herd. If that means sacrificing a few to save the many, At least you're honest about this. > governments will do it and lie to you the whole way if that is what is required to accomplish their goal. The core lie is that SARS-CoV-2 is a super-virus that warrants extraordinary measures, when in fact the commonly-used treatment (oxygenation) for SARS-CoV-2 is what drives the deterioration [2]. Public Health should have stuck with the 2019 plan for pandemics, instead of tossing all the old recommendations. If the Government had used the "pandemic" to address the 'obesity epidemic' it would have improved public health. But instead lockdowns worsened the obesity epidemic. Whoops. Maybe you still think there's a ventilator shortage [3]? If so, take SCUBA diving classes. They'll teach you how to not blow up your lungs. [2] https://www.taxiwars.org/2021/06/folly-medical-hyperventilation.html https://www.taxiwars.org/2021/06/folly-medical-hyperventilat... [3] https://twitter.com/TaxiCabJesus/status/1439999710702358531 https://twitter.com/TaxiCabJesus/status/1439999710702358531 [minor edits]

_Microft 5y ago

I wouldn't put the scare quotes around experts but around "talk". What is getting reported is often not quite nuanced enough. I would suggest to cut down on news if the reporting makes you feel bad.

madman2890 5y ago

Natural antibodies seem to last longer, based on the current research. My simple algorithm is: P(long-term damage | short observation window) = non negligible P(death | previous infection, age (30), healthy, etc.) = incredibly low P(vaccine worth it | aforementioned) = low https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/928365 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/928365 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

nojito 5y ago
Chance of death/severe illness between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations makes that type of decision making meaningless.
- madman2890 5y ago
  Vaccinated vs. unvaccinated is an incomplete comparison. It's: vaccinated vs. unvaccinated & previously uninfected vs. unvaccinated & previously infected.
  - nojito 5y ago
    It's not an incomplete comparison. Giving any support to the middle group runs the risk of individuals who need to be vaccinated to not get vaccinated.
    - madman2890 5y ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/15/natural-immunity-vaccine-mandate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/15/natural-im...
myko 5y ago
Bad idea https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr... “If you have had COVID-19 before, please still get vaccinated,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. “This study shows you are twice as likely to get infected again if you are unvaccinated. Getting the vaccine is the best way to protect yourself and others around you, especially as the more contagious Delta variant spreads around the country.”

myrmidon 5y ago

(Commenting because this mirrors a complaint I frequently see among "covid sceptics" which frustrates me greatly) Expecting simple and final answers to questions depending on a myriad of factors (some unknown or even unknowable!) is stupid. In my opinion, it betrays a complete misunderstanding of how <science> works, and what it can do; the fact that scientific consensus CHANGES with new data is central and necessary. And it's also completely meaningless to complain about "disagreement between experts" unless you are willing to precisely lay out and compare all those base assumptions that were made to interpret and answer your question (something "sceptics" rarely bother with). Sorry for the rant if I misinterpreted your position.

J-dawg 5y ago
> Expecting simple and final answers to questions depending on a myriad of factors (some unknown or even unknowable!) is stupid. I don't think "covid sceptics" are the only ones guilty of this. Far from it in fact. Vocal believers in "covid orthodoxy" (can't think of a better descriptor right now) seem much worse at acting as if simple and final answers exist for everything. Annoyingly necessary disclaimer: I am not a "covid sceptic" by any stretch, I am fully vaccinated and believe that many precautions are warranted. But I am sick of being told what to do based on uncertain emerging science. Case in point: vaccine passports seem to be an example where the policy was concocted based on assumptions about the science which turned out to be untrue (the assumption being that vaccinated people wouldn't carry or transmit Covid.) I believe that most governments are only keeping them in place in order to inconvenience people into getting vaccinated. This is exactly the sort of thing that fosters more scepticism, even if a lot of it is misguided.

lghh 5y ago

Isn't that sort of what science is though? This is just probably the most public exposure of the scientific method that I'm aware of. Experts sometimes disagree, then we test the heck out of something, then we hit a consensus. This stuff is usually wayyyyyy slower than this, it's a miracle we hit consensus as fast as we are on anything related to Covid.