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In major shift, EU says vaccine boosters should be considered for all adults

36 points by bryan0 5y ago

akmarinov 5y ago
Sooooo fourth dose in May?
disneygibson 5y ago
This isn’t going to end. There is no point at which things will return to normal. If you think otherwise, I’m sorry but you simply haven’t been paying attention. If vaccine mandates bother you, I strongly suggest moving to a rural area or to a region/country with less restrictions. Otherwise you will inevitably be forced to receive yearly boosters in order to participate in society.
nawgz 5y ago
It's extremely sad that after nearly 2 years of this, governments still haven't mastered the ability to say "our uncertainty is high so we will not make policy recommendations" and then to - only once having collected the new data - render data-driven policy. Even I, as someone who fully accepts vaccines and sees the data illustrating that mRNA vaccines reduced death rates enough to make COVID "the new flu" were it not for the antivax population and their role in overwhelming hospitals, am quite tired of hearing about how the boosters were only going to be for old and sick, and then it was a sudden flip into "everyone should get them". I don't even know what data would suggest that I should get a booster shot, I do not see death rates climbing and I have fatigue from doing the research I wish the nation-state which sets my laws would simply have done correctly and before recommending my action.
- Toine 5y ago
  Doing that would require humility and honesty.
  - kgwxd 5y ago
    And a population that understands how to respond to it if they see it. The typical response now is to vote for the other guy, no matter how obviously worse they might be.
- AshamedCaptain 5y ago
  Why do you think "our incertainty is so high we (shall) not make policy recommendations" ? Even if the example you are putting was correct, and there was an insane amount of uncertainty, it may have still be the correct recommendation and the correct policy to first vaccinate "risk groups" and then later extend to the entire population, when/if shown necessary. In other words: adding "unless conditions change" to every statement made by any organization is redundant, so they don't do it.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  I would take the opposite view: After nearly 2 years I would have expected government not to be so indecisive and to go for boosters for everyone earlier (like in the UK). Now, once again, they've only wasted time and probably made the new wave worse, which in turn may force them into more stringent measures.
- T-A 5y ago
  > I do not see death rates climbing https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_deaths_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=~European+Union https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
  - nawgz 5y ago
    "Rates" is the operative word, and I of course mean "in the vaccinated population", because antivax people will die from COVID; this is well-known. Seems to me that most EU countries are in a fourth wave of COVID with total cases surpassing anything in the past, yet the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves, and it doesn't discuss vaccination status. Please read a bit more charitably, it makes no sense to post this graph as if it shows something relevant.
    - T-A 5y ago
      > the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves and rising, which is what you said you didn't see > and it doesn't discuss vaccination status What is there to discuss? There are more vaccinated people in the EU now than at any earlier time, and yet the death rate has already climbed halfway back from to the November 2020 peak (which occurred when nobody had been vaccinated yet) and shows no sign of slowing down. > Please read a bit more charitably, it makes no sense to post this graph as if it shows something relevant However charitably I try to read this statement, I can make no sense of it.
      - nawgz 5y ago
        > > the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves > and rising, which is what you said you didn't see "Death rates". How explicit do I have to be? "Death rate" is the total amount of deaths (which you linked) DIVIDED BY the total amount of COVID cases. Linking "total deaths" and implying it is "death rate" is absurd. > There are more vaccinated people in the EU now than at any earlier time, and yet the death rate has already climbed halfway back from to the November 2020 peak And this is even more absurd. You must be able to ARGUE IN NUMBERS if you will argue that numbers are increasing; using half-baked logic and ignoring the unvaccinated population who is probably fueling most of that death spike is like me making a performance benchmark for performance-per-core and then measuring how many instructions were executed without providing a time measurement and saying "the higher instruction count is better", which is to say if someone was to do it they would be laughed out of the room. Perhaps this is your cue to exit.
- mlyle 5y ago
  > and then it was a sudden flip into "everyone should get them". I don't even know what data would suggest that I should get a booster shot There's some evidence of waning immunity and reduced antibody titers, and greater incidence of breakthrough infections for people who have been vaccinated a long time. There's also just a lot of evidence that 3 is better than 2 for likelihood of breakthrough infection. Waning immunity isn't enough to make overall death rates increase: even at current slow incremental rates of vaccination the effect from increased vaccination "beats" waning immunity. But this can't hold up forever. > I do not see death rates climbing Waiting for death rates to climb is way too late. It'll take a long time to move them in the opposite direction. Also, a lot of this is preventative: more doses doesn't mean just "more immune response" but "broader immune response and better protection against future variants". > and I have fatigue from doing the research I wish the nation-state which sets my laws would simply have done correctly and before recommending my action. There's no way the dose schedule is ideal steady-state. Doses a few weeks apart isn't what will maximize response. The vaccine doses themselves are probably too high. But we had to do something while supplies were lacking, the pandemic raging, and with partial information.
  - nawgz 5y ago
    > There's some evidence of waning immunity and reduced antibody titers, and greater incidence of breakthrough infections for people who have been vaccinated a long time. There's also just a lot of evidence that 3 is better than 2 for likelihood of breakthrough infection I do not contest this. I am likely to receive a booster shot myself in January. What I contest is that they make the original suggestion that "only weakened immune responses will receive the booster" with no implication the policy will change with new data. Now it is a "major shift", and not an "predicted outcome acted upon with sufficient data". This is a consistent problem in public messaging throughout the pandemic; people feel uncertain and like the government is as clueless as them. > There's no way the dose schedule is ideal steady-state Again, I am not in medicine, nor do I in general care for this style of research, yet I have been made to do it consistently because I do not understand the public messaging, and I am quite staunchly a believer that you cannot simply not act against a pandemic. This is my complaint. I do not argue the conclusions you put forth, simply the way the governments have been unable to outline scenarios in any meaningful way and thus give off the appearance of constant reactivity without foresight
- xdennis 5y ago
  > were it not for the antivax population There's always someone to scapegoat. Instead of blaming politicians for being wrong, you're blaming the skeptics who knew that vaccines aren't going to change anything.
  - Filligree 5y ago
    They've reduced my chance of dying from COVID (when I'm infected, not if; it's happened at least twice so far) by around 95%. That's more than nothing.
  - tejohnso 5y ago
    Also, "antivax" is unnecessarily pejorative. There are plenty of people who are hesitant toward covid vaccines exactly for the reasons you mention, while they're not at all against vaccines in general. The communication habits of all major governments haven't really encouraged trust. Fauci is on record as having lied to the public deliberately.
  - nawgz 5y ago
    Sorry, but you are making politically charged arguments. I am stating facts. COVID is defeated by Pfizer/Moderna when it comes to an increased background death rate, i.e. if 100% of the population had Pfizer & Moderna there would be approximately no excess deaths in the population vs pre-COVID times. The remaining issue with the disease isn't so much the people dying from it as it is the fact the unvaccinated population gets very sick and overwhelms healthcare systems, resulting in triage situations that were easily avoidable. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination#united-states https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination#unite...
    - vibrato2 5y ago
      Yet as vaccinations increase, the excess death rate increases
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      This data is interpreted wrongly. You need to separate mortality rate by age groups, need to check when cases were recorded, etc. pp. These graphs are more or less useless to draw conclusions from.
- prof-dr-ir 5y ago
  I do not think this is an example of the (real) problem you are highlighting. First, the ECDC is not a government. Second, their previous standpoint was not inconsistent or wrong: in particular, there was no urgent need for boosters (for healthy youngsters) in September since the vaccines appeared to be working well. Did you read the ECDC guidance, in September and now? Can you point out the passage that exemplifies your point? Or do you have another example of a government saying that young people will never get boosters? Since naturally you did not write your comment based solely on the tone implied by the words 'major shift' in the headline of the Reuters article... There are certainly people, journalists, and government ministers guilty of what you say. But throwing a catchall accusation around is a bit cheap, in my opinion.
- kurthr 5y ago
  This sounds more like reading news selectively reporting whatever is most engaging. From the mask stuff to the vaccine boosters there wasn't much serious doubt among scientists (yes I'm sure you can find somebody and some comment). I'm not sure what can really be expected of politicians (who aren't scientists) or scientists (who are public figures), much less reporters. The booster trials literally started as soon as the first EUV was issued, because they were expected to be more effective. They didn't invest in it because they thought it was unnecessary. The EUV was necessary because the disease is wide spread, communicable, and deadly enough to overwhelm ICUs, otherwise epidemiologists would prefer to have even more data. However, when the risk to your patient of actual illness is more than an order of magnitude higher without action... you take emergency action. I hear similar stuff from engineers who now are looking for even more data on the effectiveness of masks, because they've read reports saying they aren't effective, or questioning studies saying that they are. The germ theory of disease hasn't been disproven. People don't wear masks well. Cloth masks aren't very effective protection (of the person wearing them) due to bypass flow. Viruses can enter through the eyes as well, so a mask can never be "perfect". Masks and glasses also protect (if you bother to wash your hands) from accidental surface contacts. At the same time there are doctors/nurses working in ICUs intubating COVID patients for months without getting exposed... that's an (uncontrolled) experiment running in thousands of places. It's not published, but it's known to be effective by people working there. The PPE is expensive and training along with diligence is required, because even if you're vaccinated you can spread it just not as likely and not as much and not as long (another long chain of but, but, buts... which add up to more than an order of magnitude).
goalieca 5y ago
> Available evidence emerging from Israel and the UK shows a significant increase in protection against infection and severe disease following a booster dose in all age groups in the short term So, I’ll admit I don’t understand the physiological mechanisms at play (is it just waning antibody concentration?) but what is the long term strategy here? Is there going to be annual boosters with vaccine passports? The governments are not exactly being transparent and I think it is time now that things are under relative control to start having adult discussions and public policy debates once more.
- retrac 5y ago
  Well, maybe three will actually do it. There's quite a few vaccines which require a course of three or even four shots to confer lasting long-term immunity. If you don't do the full course with repeat challenge it tends to fade after some months or years.
- tjoff 5y ago
  Surely the answer is: we don't know. And, we'll see. For now I feel short term is a reasonable focus.
  - xdennis 5y ago
    Hundreds of million of doses have been administered and "we don't know, we'll see". Seems foolhardy.
    - kenhwang 5y ago
      "You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant." Sometimes understanding long term effects requires long term observation.
    - belltaco 5y ago
      The hundreds of millions of doses haven't been administered to the same person.
    - soneil 5y ago
vadfa 5y ago
At this point a major shift would be not having a major shift every month. Myself, I am refusing a third booster shot. We were promised a return to normalcy after getting vaccinated (with the % required ever increasing, and communities with almost 100% seeing no improvement) and after falling ill with the second shot I'm not participating in this charade anymore.
- maltalex 5y ago
  > after falling ill with the second shot I'm not participating in this charade anymore Where exactly is the charade? Being ill for a few days after a vaccine is normal, it even happens with flu.
  - vadfa 5y ago
    The charade is that vaccinations will fix this. I'd be willing to take them if there were no bad effects from them, but I spent like 10 hours in bed and I don't wish to go through that again.
    - CodeGlitch 5y ago
      I too spent 2 days in bed shivering after my first vaccine... But I'll be getting a booster and all after that. If my body reacted to the vaccine like that, I dread to think how it would have dealt with the real thing. 10 hours in bed is a minor inconvenience.
    - maltalex 5y ago
      Vaccinations are the closest thing we have to a solution. No one has long term experience with them, so understandably no one knows how long they protect you for. That's life. Yes, there are some (minor) risks associated with the vaccines. I too spent a day in bed. Twice. So what? Both you and I knew there's a risk of that when we got it. Still, the vaccine does what it says on the tin. So again, where's the charade? We live in a time and place that allowed us to get a vaccine with 90%+ efficiency just a year after an incredibly infections, never before seen virus has been spotted and begun taking (many) lives. It even proved to be effective against the even more infectious variants that appeared later. And after millions around the world were literally suffocated to death by covid, both you and I got the vaccine for free (or at an affordable cost, depending on where you live). And the only side effect of the vaccine that either of us experienced is feeling sick for less than a day. The word I'd use to describe this situation is definitely not charade.
nabakin 5y ago
https://archive.md/wlYhN https://archive.md/wlYhN
dustinmoris 5y ago
For all adults means everyone above 18. That seems rather extreme. It is important to remember that initially we meant to protect the vulnerable. I still remember when several government ministers in their late 50s and people even in their 80s contracted COVID-19 and the majority of those were saying in TV interviews that they had luckily only mild symptoms. I remember when the chief medical officer was stressing that even though the virus can be deadly that the vast majority of people will experience no or very mild symptoms. That was at the beginning of the pandemic. I contracted the virus like at the very start and I had indeed only mild symptoms. Almost a year later I received my very first shot as soon as I was eligible. I was very happy because people were saying that I could get COVID again and I simply didn't want to be unwell for a week again even if it was a mild illness to me. Then I got my second shot as well as soon as I could get it. I was convinced that after my natural infection that I had a very strong immune response, because I was knowingly exposed to COVID many times before I got my first vaccine jab and never felt ill again. Now I have had: - Natural infection before vaccine: I had a very mild illness - 1st shot - 2nd shot - Many natural exposures to COVID which might have boosted my immune response. I honestly don't feel very keen anymore on yet another jab. Mainly because when I got my first two jabs I had quite noticeable heart palpitations for a few days after and now I'm thinking why do I still need to keep getting more jabs if even when I didn't have a jab at all I was already strong enough to shake off the virus. I do understand that we need to have a lot of immunity and I do believe that I have a lot of immunity without any further boosters. I'm certain that my natural immunity has given me the best protection from the beginning with the jabs acting as long lasting boosters. Can someone explain to me why I should even entertain the idea of yet another booster. I feel like I'm ok to get infected with COVID-19 once every so often like with a cold or flu. We all have a baseline protection which we didn't have before. Now our illness should be mild for everyone, even the older and more vulnerable people.
- mpmpmpmp 5y ago
  Your last paragraph seems like the sort of discussion that should be had with a healthcare professional, not random people on the internet.
- laurent92 5y ago
fithisux 5y ago
I'm not a doctor. The fact that there is widespread lack of transparency and money motives to carry on with this situation makes me really skeptical. 1918 flu lasted 26 months. We are at 21 months with masks, vaccines and lock downs and no ending in sight. Only oppressive measures to people keeping measures who expressed a different opinion. The fact that vaccines are becoming a religion is a red alert for me. No matter what people say the current situation shows that the vaccines do not work and the gran finale is a dystopia with a classic medieval witch hunt. Is covid the culprit here? Not anymore for me.
- ynik 5y ago
  > 1918 flu lasted 26 months. We are at 21 months with masks, vaccines and lock downs and no ending in sight. Do you think masks and lock downs were intended to reduce the duration of the pandemic? The opposite is the case: they're intended to reduce the infection rate (to avoid over-stressing the hospitals), which slows down the pandemic --> it'll take longer than if we did nothing!
- guerrilla 5y ago
  > The fact that there is widespread lack of transparency and money motives to carry on with this situation makes me really skeptical. Shouldn't you be skeptical of the entire healthcare industry then?
- babelfish 5y ago
  > No matter what people say the current situation shows that the vaccines do not work This could not be further from the truth.
  - nnoitra 5y ago
    I mean they work but not exactly as we had hoped.
- jsnell 5y ago
  This talk of money motives is nonsense. There are far more economic interests involved in getting things opened up again than there would be in artificially prolonging the pandemic like you're claiming is happening. Why do you think e.g. the EU would be more concerned with artificially boosting the profits of a couple of American pharma companies by billions than rescuing the wholly European tourist and restaurant industried which are about two trillion combined.
intricatedetail 5y ago
I am not going to take a booster. I had two doses and I haven't got back to normal after the second one and it's been months now. I've got massive headaches and shortness of breath which I didn't have before.
- kyriakos 5y ago
  Surely if someone had severe reaction to the first 2 he shouldn't get a 3rd. Tbh I haven't read anywhere about long term side effects from the vaccination for covid. I assume you must have researched it, can you please share some information?
  - intricatedetail 5y ago
    I am not aware of any long term studies. I have reported it as a side effect to the health agency.
photochemsyn 5y ago
Is it just me or are they neglecting the treatment option here? Expanding manufacturing of monoclonal antibodies such that they're available everywhere for rapid treatment of actual cases rather than just vaccinating everyone might make more sense (particularly when vaccine breakthrough with new covid varients seems so common now). There's also several new antiviral meds that studies claim are quite effective. This might mean accepting we have a new endemic disease that's going to be around for the foreseeable future, but that might be inevitable given the global distribution and all the new variants. Incidentally, this is why I'm strongly opposed to gain-of-function research involving taking wild-type animal viruses and modifying them to include sequences that bind human cell receptors. It's likely possible to transform a wide variety of animal viruses into human pathogens with these approaches, and it doesn't add much value to the medical knowledge base. Yes we have learned how to create new diseases - oops - so let's stop doing it already.
- CallMeJim 5y ago
  From the biology perspective, monoclonal antibody production is hard, expensive and time-consuming. I don't think you'll see a rapid scale-up of these, as manufacturing at scale is so different to manufacturing in small batches. Recombinant monoclonal antibodies seem like an interesting approach, these would speed up production by shortening the critical chain.
- belltaco 5y ago
  What makes you think they're neglected? Billions of govt money have been poured into them.
- kyriakos 5y ago
  From what I understand there are already 3 antiviral treatments being introduced right now in pill form. That being set they can help if they are taken early on after symptoms appear and again aren't 100% effective. In addition they cannot be used by pregnant women. As with every disease prevention is always the better approach and vaccines offer that.
Vinnl 5y ago
I kinda wish someone would organise a booster shot boycott until significant resources have been committed to covax. I'm happy for better protection and would like to avoid our hospitals being overloaded, but it feels perverse to be giving out boosters like this when so many people haven't had the chance to get a vaccine yet.
rich_sasha 5y ago
To all the sceptics out there: UK went in a massive vaccine binge and, you know, life is pretty normal here. We have 80% two-dose and 90% single-dose people in the 12+ population (yes it includes children) and close to 30% third dose. There are no lockdowns, hospitals not overloaded, people dying but not like crazy. Hospitals coping. The case numbers are high, but the logical implication is that most are mild and do not overload the system.
- bigodbiel 5y ago
  A hypothesis is that BoJo’s Summer of Love reopening’s Covid infection spike helped in naturally inoculating a larger portion of England while vaccines still had their full potential, unlike in the rest of Europe where delta has only now reached, coinciding with both colder weather and waning vaccine immunity.
- drumhead 5y ago
  Its basically the death rate you'd expect from an outbreak of the flu. Essentially the vaccine and the boosters have turned Covid into the flu.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

36 points by bryan0 5y ago

Sooooo fourth dose in May?

This isn’t going to end. There is no point at which things will return to normal. If you think otherwise, I’m sorry but you simply haven’t been paying attention. If vaccine mandates bother you, I strongly suggest moving to a rural area or to a region/country with less restrictions. Otherwise you will inevitably be forced to receive yearly boosters in order to participate in society.

nawgz 5y ago

It's extremely sad that after nearly 2 years of this, governments still haven't mastered the ability to say "our uncertainty is high so we will not make policy recommendations" and then to - only once having collected the new data - render data-driven policy. Even I, as someone who fully accepts vaccines and sees the data illustrating that mRNA vaccines reduced death rates enough to make COVID "the new flu" were it not for the antivax population and their role in overwhelming hospitals, am quite tired of hearing about how the boosters were only going to be for old and sick, and then it was a sudden flip into "everyone should get them". I don't even know what data would suggest that I should get a booster shot, I do not see death rates climbing and I have fatigue from doing the research I wish the nation-state which sets my laws would simply have done correctly and before recommending my action.

Toine 5y ago
Doing that would require humility and honesty.
- kgwxd 5y ago
  And a population that understands how to respond to it if they see it. The typical response now is to vote for the other guy, no matter how obviously worse they might be.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
Why do you think "our incertainty is so high we (shall) not make policy recommendations" ? Even if the example you are putting was correct, and there was an insane amount of uncertainty, it may have still be the correct recommendation and the correct policy to first vaccinate "risk groups" and then later extend to the entire population, when/if shown necessary. In other words: adding "unless conditions change" to every statement made by any organization is redundant, so they don't do it.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
I would take the opposite view: After nearly 2 years I would have expected government not to be so indecisive and to go for boosters for everyone earlier (like in the UK). Now, once again, they've only wasted time and probably made the new wave worse, which in turn may force them into more stringent measures.
T-A 5y ago
> I do not see death rates climbing https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_deaths_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=~European+Union https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
- nawgz 5y ago
  "Rates" is the operative word, and I of course mean "in the vaccinated population", because antivax people will die from COVID; this is well-known. Seems to me that most EU countries are in a fourth wave of COVID with total cases surpassing anything in the past, yet the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves, and it doesn't discuss vaccination status. Please read a bit more charitably, it makes no sense to post this graph as if it shows something relevant.
  - T-A 5y ago
    > the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves and rising, which is what you said you didn't see > and it doesn't discuss vaccination status What is there to discuss? There are more vaccinated people in the EU now than at any earlier time, and yet the death rate has already climbed halfway back from to the November 2020 peak (which occurred when nobody had been vaccinated yet) and shows no sign of slowing down. > Please read a bit more charitably, it makes no sense to post this graph as if it shows something relevant However charitably I try to read this statement, I can make no sense of it.
    - nawgz 5y ago
      > > the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves > and rising, which is what you said you didn't see "Death rates". How explicit do I have to be? "Death rate" is the total amount of deaths (which you linked) DIVIDED BY the total amount of COVID cases. Linking "total deaths" and implying it is "death rate" is absurd. > There are more vaccinated people in the EU now than at any earlier time, and yet the death rate has already climbed halfway back from to the November 2020 peak And this is even more absurd. You must be able to ARGUE IN NUMBERS if you will argue that numbers are increasing; using half-baked logic and ignoring the unvaccinated population who is probably fueling most of that death spike is like me making a performance benchmark for performance-per-core and then measuring how many instructions were executed without providing a time measurement and saying "the higher instruction count is better", which is to say if someone was to do it they would be laughed out of the room. Perhaps this is your cue to exit.
mlyle 5y ago
> and then it was a sudden flip into "everyone should get them". I don't even know what data would suggest that I should get a booster shot There's some evidence of waning immunity and reduced antibody titers, and greater incidence of breakthrough infections for people who have been vaccinated a long time. There's also just a lot of evidence that 3 is better than 2 for likelihood of breakthrough infection. Waning immunity isn't enough to make overall death rates increase: even at current slow incremental rates of vaccination the effect from increased vaccination "beats" waning immunity. But this can't hold up forever. > I do not see death rates climbing Waiting for death rates to climb is way too late. It'll take a long time to move them in the opposite direction. Also, a lot of this is preventative: more doses doesn't mean just "more immune response" but "broader immune response and better protection against future variants". > and I have fatigue from doing the research I wish the nation-state which sets my laws would simply have done correctly and before recommending my action. There's no way the dose schedule is ideal steady-state. Doses a few weeks apart isn't what will maximize response. The vaccine doses themselves are probably too high. But we had to do something while supplies were lacking, the pandemic raging, and with partial information.
- nawgz 5y ago
  > There's some evidence of waning immunity and reduced antibody titers, and greater incidence of breakthrough infections for people who have been vaccinated a long time. There's also just a lot of evidence that 3 is better than 2 for likelihood of breakthrough infection I do not contest this. I am likely to receive a booster shot myself in January. What I contest is that they make the original suggestion that "only weakened immune responses will receive the booster" with no implication the policy will change with new data. Now it is a "major shift", and not an "predicted outcome acted upon with sufficient data". This is a consistent problem in public messaging throughout the pandemic; people feel uncertain and like the government is as clueless as them. > There's no way the dose schedule is ideal steady-state Again, I am not in medicine, nor do I in general care for this style of research, yet I have been made to do it consistently because I do not understand the public messaging, and I am quite staunchly a believer that you cannot simply not act against a pandemic. This is my complaint. I do not argue the conclusions you put forth, simply the way the governments have been unable to outline scenarios in any meaningful way and thus give off the appearance of constant reactivity without foresight
xdennis 5y ago
> were it not for the antivax population There's always someone to scapegoat. Instead of blaming politicians for being wrong, you're blaming the skeptics who knew that vaccines aren't going to change anything.
- Filligree 5y ago
  They've reduced my chance of dying from COVID (when I'm infected, not if; it's happened at least twice so far) by around 95%. That's more than nothing.
- tejohnso 5y ago
  Also, "antivax" is unnecessarily pejorative. There are plenty of people who are hesitant toward covid vaccines exactly for the reasons you mention, while they're not at all against vaccines in general. The communication habits of all major governments haven't really encouraged trust. Fauci is on record as having lied to the public deliberately.
- nawgz 5y ago
  Sorry, but you are making politically charged arguments. I am stating facts. COVID is defeated by Pfizer/Moderna when it comes to an increased background death rate, i.e. if 100% of the population had Pfizer & Moderna there would be approximately no excess deaths in the population vs pre-COVID times. The remaining issue with the disease isn't so much the people dying from it as it is the fact the unvaccinated population gets very sick and overwhelms healthcare systems, resulting in triage situations that were easily avoidable. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination#united-states https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination#unite...
  - vibrato2 5y ago
    Yet as vaccinations increase, the excess death rate increases
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    This data is interpreted wrongly. You need to separate mortality rate by age groups, need to check when cases were recorded, etc. pp. These graphs are more or less useless to draw conclusions from.
prof-dr-ir 5y ago
I do not think this is an example of the (real) problem you are highlighting. First, the ECDC is not a government. Second, their previous standpoint was not inconsistent or wrong: in particular, there was no urgent need for boosters (for healthy youngsters) in September since the vaccines appeared to be working well. Did you read the ECDC guidance, in September and now? Can you point out the passage that exemplifies your point? Or do you have another example of a government saying that young people will never get boosters? Since naturally you did not write your comment based solely on the tone implied by the words 'major shift' in the headline of the Reuters article... There are certainly people, journalists, and government ministers guilty of what you say. But throwing a catchall accusation around is a bit cheap, in my opinion.
kurthr 5y ago
This sounds more like reading news selectively reporting whatever is most engaging. From the mask stuff to the vaccine boosters there wasn't much serious doubt among scientists (yes I'm sure you can find somebody and some comment). I'm not sure what can really be expected of politicians (who aren't scientists) or scientists (who are public figures), much less reporters. The booster trials literally started as soon as the first EUV was issued, because they were expected to be more effective. They didn't invest in it because they thought it was unnecessary. The EUV was necessary because the disease is wide spread, communicable, and deadly enough to overwhelm ICUs, otherwise epidemiologists would prefer to have even more data. However, when the risk to your patient of actual illness is more than an order of magnitude higher without action... you take emergency action. I hear similar stuff from engineers who now are looking for even more data on the effectiveness of masks, because they've read reports saying they aren't effective, or questioning studies saying that they are. The germ theory of disease hasn't been disproven. People don't wear masks well. Cloth masks aren't very effective protection (of the person wearing them) due to bypass flow. Viruses can enter through the eyes as well, so a mask can never be "perfect". Masks and glasses also protect (if you bother to wash your hands) from accidental surface contacts. At the same time there are doctors/nurses working in ICUs intubating COVID patients for months without getting exposed... that's an (uncontrolled) experiment running in thousands of places. It's not published, but it's known to be effective by people working there. The PPE is expensive and training along with diligence is required, because even if you're vaccinated you can spread it just not as likely and not as much and not as long (another long chain of but, but, buts... which add up to more than an order of magnitude).

goalieca 5y ago

> Available evidence emerging from Israel and the UK shows a significant increase in protection against infection and severe disease following a booster dose in all age groups in the short term So, I’ll admit I don’t understand the physiological mechanisms at play (is it just waning antibody concentration?) but what is the long term strategy here? Is there going to be annual boosters with vaccine passports? The governments are not exactly being transparent and I think it is time now that things are under relative control to start having adult discussions and public policy debates once more.

retrac 5y ago
Well, maybe three will actually do it. There's quite a few vaccines which require a course of three or even four shots to confer lasting long-term immunity. If you don't do the full course with repeat challenge it tends to fade after some months or years.
tjoff 5y ago
Surely the answer is: we don't know. And, we'll see. For now I feel short term is a reasonable focus.
- xdennis 5y ago
  Hundreds of million of doses have been administered and "we don't know, we'll see". Seems foolhardy.
  - kenhwang 5y ago
    "You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant." Sometimes understanding long term effects requires long term observation.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    The hundreds of millions of doses haven't been administered to the same person.
  - soneil 5y ago

vadfa 5y ago

At this point a major shift would be not having a major shift every month. Myself, I am refusing a third booster shot. We were promised a return to normalcy after getting vaccinated (with the % required ever increasing, and communities with almost 100% seeing no improvement) and after falling ill with the second shot I'm not participating in this charade anymore.

maltalex 5y ago
> after falling ill with the second shot I'm not participating in this charade anymore Where exactly is the charade? Being ill for a few days after a vaccine is normal, it even happens with flu.
- vadfa 5y ago
  The charade is that vaccinations will fix this. I'd be willing to take them if there were no bad effects from them, but I spent like 10 hours in bed and I don't wish to go through that again.
  - CodeGlitch 5y ago
    I too spent 2 days in bed shivering after my first vaccine... But I'll be getting a booster and all after that. If my body reacted to the vaccine like that, I dread to think how it would have dealt with the real thing. 10 hours in bed is a minor inconvenience.
  - maltalex 5y ago
    Vaccinations are the closest thing we have to a solution. No one has long term experience with them, so understandably no one knows how long they protect you for. That's life. Yes, there are some (minor) risks associated with the vaccines. I too spent a day in bed. Twice. So what? Both you and I knew there's a risk of that when we got it. Still, the vaccine does what it says on the tin. So again, where's the charade? We live in a time and place that allowed us to get a vaccine with 90%+ efficiency just a year after an incredibly infections, never before seen virus has been spotted and begun taking (many) lives. It even proved to be effective against the even more infectious variants that appeared later. And after millions around the world were literally suffocated to death by covid, both you and I got the vaccine for free (or at an affordable cost, depending on where you live). And the only side effect of the vaccine that either of us experienced is feeling sick for less than a day. The word I'd use to describe this situation is definitely not charade.

nabakin 5y ago

https://archive.md/wlYhN https://archive.md/wlYhN

dustinmoris 5y ago

For all adults means everyone above 18. That seems rather extreme. It is important to remember that initially we meant to protect the vulnerable. I still remember when several government ministers in their late 50s and people even in their 80s contracted COVID-19 and the majority of those were saying in TV interviews that they had luckily only mild symptoms. I remember when the chief medical officer was stressing that even though the virus can be deadly that the vast majority of people will experience no or very mild symptoms. That was at the beginning of the pandemic. I contracted the virus like at the very start and I had indeed only mild symptoms. Almost a year later I received my very first shot as soon as I was eligible. I was very happy because people were saying that I could get COVID again and I simply didn't want to be unwell for a week again even if it was a mild illness to me. Then I got my second shot as well as soon as I could get it. I was convinced that after my natural infection that I had a very strong immune response, because I was knowingly exposed to COVID many times before I got my first vaccine jab and never felt ill again. Now I have had: - Natural infection before vaccine: I had a very mild illness - 1st shot - 2nd shot - Many natural exposures to COVID which might have boosted my immune response. I honestly don't feel very keen anymore on yet another jab. Mainly because when I got my first two jabs I had quite noticeable heart palpitations for a few days after and now I'm thinking why do I still need to keep getting more jabs if even when I didn't have a jab at all I was already strong enough to shake off the virus. I do understand that we need to have a lot of immunity and I do believe that I have a lot of immunity without any further boosters. I'm certain that my natural immunity has given me the best protection from the beginning with the jabs acting as long lasting boosters. Can someone explain to me why I should even entertain the idea of yet another booster. I feel like I'm ok to get infected with COVID-19 once every so often like with a cold or flu. We all have a baseline protection which we didn't have before. Now our illness should be mild for everyone, even the older and more vulnerable people.

mpmpmpmp 5y ago
Your last paragraph seems like the sort of discussion that should be had with a healthcare professional, not random people on the internet.
laurent92 5y ago

fithisux 5y ago

I'm not a doctor. The fact that there is widespread lack of transparency and money motives to carry on with this situation makes me really skeptical. 1918 flu lasted 26 months. We are at 21 months with masks, vaccines and lock downs and no ending in sight. Only oppressive measures to people keeping measures who expressed a different opinion. The fact that vaccines are becoming a religion is a red alert for me. No matter what people say the current situation shows that the vaccines do not work and the gran finale is a dystopia with a classic medieval witch hunt. Is covid the culprit here? Not anymore for me.

ynik 5y ago
> 1918 flu lasted 26 months. We are at 21 months with masks, vaccines and lock downs and no ending in sight. Do you think masks and lock downs were intended to reduce the duration of the pandemic? The opposite is the case: they're intended to reduce the infection rate (to avoid over-stressing the hospitals), which slows down the pandemic --> it'll take longer than if we did nothing!
guerrilla 5y ago
> The fact that there is widespread lack of transparency and money motives to carry on with this situation makes me really skeptical. Shouldn't you be skeptical of the entire healthcare industry then?
babelfish 5y ago
> No matter what people say the current situation shows that the vaccines do not work This could not be further from the truth.
- nnoitra 5y ago
  I mean they work but not exactly as we had hoped.
jsnell 5y ago
This talk of money motives is nonsense. There are far more economic interests involved in getting things opened up again than there would be in artificially prolonging the pandemic like you're claiming is happening. Why do you think e.g. the EU would be more concerned with artificially boosting the profits of a couple of American pharma companies by billions than rescuing the wholly European tourist and restaurant industried which are about two trillion combined.

intricatedetail 5y ago

I am not going to take a booster. I had two doses and I haven't got back to normal after the second one and it's been months now. I've got massive headaches and shortness of breath which I didn't have before.

kyriakos 5y ago
Surely if someone had severe reaction to the first 2 he shouldn't get a 3rd. Tbh I haven't read anywhere about long term side effects from the vaccination for covid. I assume you must have researched it, can you please share some information?
- intricatedetail 5y ago
  I am not aware of any long term studies. I have reported it as a side effect to the health agency.

photochemsyn 5y ago

Is it just me or are they neglecting the treatment option here? Expanding manufacturing of monoclonal antibodies such that they're available everywhere for rapid treatment of actual cases rather than just vaccinating everyone might make more sense (particularly when vaccine breakthrough with new covid varients seems so common now). There's also several new antiviral meds that studies claim are quite effective. This might mean accepting we have a new endemic disease that's going to be around for the foreseeable future, but that might be inevitable given the global distribution and all the new variants. Incidentally, this is why I'm strongly opposed to gain-of-function research involving taking wild-type animal viruses and modifying them to include sequences that bind human cell receptors. It's likely possible to transform a wide variety of animal viruses into human pathogens with these approaches, and it doesn't add much value to the medical knowledge base. Yes we have learned how to create new diseases - oops - so let's stop doing it already.

CallMeJim 5y ago
From the biology perspective, monoclonal antibody production is hard, expensive and time-consuming. I don't think you'll see a rapid scale-up of these, as manufacturing at scale is so different to manufacturing in small batches. Recombinant monoclonal antibodies seem like an interesting approach, these would speed up production by shortening the critical chain.
belltaco 5y ago
What makes you think they're neglected? Billions of govt money have been poured into them.
kyriakos 5y ago
From what I understand there are already 3 antiviral treatments being introduced right now in pill form. That being set they can help if they are taken early on after symptoms appear and again aren't 100% effective. In addition they cannot be used by pregnant women. As with every disease prevention is always the better approach and vaccines offer that.

Vinnl 5y ago

I kinda wish someone would organise a booster shot boycott until significant resources have been committed to covax. I'm happy for better protection and would like to avoid our hospitals being overloaded, but it feels perverse to be giving out boosters like this when so many people haven't had the chance to get a vaccine yet.

rich_sasha 5y ago

To all the sceptics out there: UK went in a massive vaccine binge and, you know, life is pretty normal here. We have 80% two-dose and 90% single-dose people in the 12+ population (yes it includes children) and close to 30% third dose. There are no lockdowns, hospitals not overloaded, people dying but not like crazy. Hospitals coping. The case numbers are high, but the logical implication is that most are mild and do not overload the system.

bigodbiel 5y ago
A hypothesis is that BoJo’s Summer of Love reopening’s Covid infection spike helped in naturally inoculating a larger portion of England while vaccines still had their full potential, unlike in the rest of Europe where delta has only now reached, coinciding with both colder weather and waning vaccine immunity.
drumhead 5y ago
Its basically the death rate you'd expect from an outbreak of the flu. Essentially the vaccine and the boosters have turned Covid into the flu.

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