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Anything that edges you closer to an optimum health state is also beneficial to a certain degree to avoid corona infection. So zinc and vitamine D which enhanc

Anything that edges you closer to an optimum health state is also beneficial to a certain degree to avoid corona infection. So zinc and vitamine D which enhance and modulate the immune system are recommended. It's not as clearcut as you make it seem. The current vaccines lose their effectiveness over time and are significantly less effective against the delta variant to start with.

Nursie 5y ago
What does "modulate the immune system" mean to you?
- pieter_mj 5y ago
  For instance Vitamin D helps decrease the risk of a cytokine storm after a (corona) infection, and not overreact. (have no references at hand currently, sorry).
  - Nursie 5y ago
    Honestly that's a way more coherent answer than I was expecting. Thanks :)
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    But it doesn't avoid infection and is a lot weaker in protection as even a very old double-vaccination, much less a boostered one.
    - pieter_mj 5y ago
      True, but it should be seen as an additional layer to the Swiss cheese model of pandemic defense. The vaccine is the main component, by far, but its number of holes are increasing.
      - bayesian_horse 5y ago
        That's a very suspicious way of framing it. The "holes" seem to be mostly the people who don't want to get the vaccine at all. These are the ones responsible for most of the spread and for most of the consequences.
        pieter_mj 5y ago
        The unvaccinated are not part of the defense.
bayesian_horse 5y ago
"Significantly less effective" is still a lot higher than most new vaccines and higher than the prophylactics you propose. The loss in effectiveness isn't even that big of a deal. It only really matters for those most at risk. And it's hard to say how much longer the third dose will last, but knowing how the immune system works, I'd guess it will be more than 6 months, provided there is no escape mutation. Delta isn't an escape variant, btw, it's just a really fast worker. It gets up and running inside the body so fast, that even the remembered response takes a while to catch up. That's why the third shot, which reestablishes active, circulating antibody levels, is so effective: Now the virus is knocked out before getting started, and the usual infection dose, before replication, isn't enough to cause trouble.
- pieter_mj 5y ago
  True. >Delta isn't an escape variant, btw, it's just a really fast worker. It's faster, more transmissable, infectious, shorter incubation period and a 1000fold increase in generated virus particles compared to other variants. But is also has mutations in its spike and nucleocapsid that warrant developing new vaccines, certainly when it's at the moment the dominant strain by far and even more virulent variations are to be expected.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    As far as I know new vaccines may be in the pipeline, but the current vaccines work so well against the delta variant that it's not worth switching. It will take a lot of time to gather enough data to confirm any new vaccine as actually being better and safer than Comirnaty against Delta... Just saying "This vaccines was especially designed for this" isn't enough.
    - pieter_mj 5y ago
      >but the current vaccines work so well against the delta variant that it's not worth switching. I disagree. The number of deaths has only been decreased fivefold when comparing first wave and 4th wave in Belgium. And yes, there are fully vaccinated people who are dying.

Nursie 5y ago

What does "modulate the immune system" mean to you?

pieter_mj 5y ago
For instance Vitamin D helps decrease the risk of a cytokine storm after a (corona) infection, and not overreact. (have no references at hand currently, sorry).
- Nursie 5y ago
  Honestly that's a way more coherent answer than I was expecting. Thanks :)
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  But it doesn't avoid infection and is a lot weaker in protection as even a very old double-vaccination, much less a boostered one.
  - pieter_mj 5y ago
    True, but it should be seen as an additional layer to the Swiss cheese model of pandemic defense. The vaccine is the main component, by far, but its number of holes are increasing.
    - bayesian_horse 5y ago
      That's a very suspicious way of framing it. The "holes" seem to be mostly the people who don't want to get the vaccine at all. These are the ones responsible for most of the spread and for most of the consequences.
      - pieter_mj 5y ago
        The unvaccinated are not part of the defense.

bayesian_horse 5y ago

"Significantly less effective" is still a lot higher than most new vaccines and higher than the prophylactics you propose. The loss in effectiveness isn't even that big of a deal. It only really matters for those most at risk. And it's hard to say how much longer the third dose will last, but knowing how the immune system works, I'd guess it will be more than 6 months, provided there is no escape mutation. Delta isn't an escape variant, btw, it's just a really fast worker. It gets up and running inside the body so fast, that even the remembered response takes a while to catch up. That's why the third shot, which reestablishes active, circulating antibody levels, is so effective: Now the virus is knocked out before getting started, and the usual infection dose, before replication, isn't enough to cause trouble.

pieter_mj 5y ago
True. >Delta isn't an escape variant, btw, it's just a really fast worker. It's faster, more transmissable, infectious, shorter incubation period and a 1000fold increase in generated virus particles compared to other variants. But is also has mutations in its spike and nucleocapsid that warrant developing new vaccines, certainly when it's at the moment the dominant strain by far and even more virulent variations are to be expected.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  As far as I know new vaccines may be in the pipeline, but the current vaccines work so well against the delta variant that it's not worth switching. It will take a lot of time to gather enough data to confirm any new vaccine as actually being better and safer than Comirnaty against Delta... Just saying "This vaccines was especially designed for this" isn't enough.
  - pieter_mj 5y ago
    >but the current vaccines work so well against the delta variant that it's not worth switching. I disagree. The number of deaths has only been decreased fivefold when comparing first wave and 4th wave in Belgium. And yes, there are fully vaccinated people who are dying.