39 ms·

> I'm sorry but I'm not understanding the logic. The booster was recommended after several rounds of research across multiple countries suggested it was a good

by timr 5y ago

> I'm sorry but I'm not understanding the logic. The booster was recommended after several rounds of research across multiple countries suggested it was a good idea, with Israel doing some of the first testing and reaching the conclusion that it was worthwhile (and it was, by a substantial margin). You are misinformed. There is a paucity of data supporting boosters, what little exists is for people over 65 (to be fair, the argument in support of boosters seems robust for this group), and the FDA and CDC advisory committees both recommended against boosting of younger populations. They were bypassed. Two long-time FDA scientists resigned over the issue: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/13/health/boosters-not-needed-lancet-review/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/13/health/boosters-not-needed-la... They wrote a scathing review of the situation in the Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02046-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... Paul Offit (inventor of the Rotavirus vaccine, member of CDC ACIP, and vaccine advocate) is on the record saying that he doesn't advise his own 20-something son to get a booster dose: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/01/should-teens-get-booster-omicron/621222/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/01/should-te... https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12/omicron-dr-paul-offit-is-skeptical-of-boosters-for-all.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12/omicron-dr-paul-offi... The headlong rush toward boosters in all age groups is simply not supported by evidence. (edit: I used the word "mandatory" above; this was a mistake in my own wordering, and I removed it. CDC ACIP recommended that older populations should get a booster, but did not do this for those under 50. I incorrectly summarized this as "recommended against mandatory boosters".)

kyrra 5y ago
And many (most?) of these policies ignore natural immunity that people are getting from catching COVID.
- Daishiman 5y ago
  They do https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciac022/6507165 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... .
  - timr 5y ago
    You should probably read the data, and not just the title and conclusions: > Among those previously infected, until the emergence of the Omicron variant, the cumulative incidence of COVID19 was not significantly different between those vaccinated and unvaccinated, even at almost a year of follow-up. > However, among those with prior COVID-19, vaccination was not associated with significantly lower risk of COVID-19 in either the pre-Omicron (HR 0.78, 95% C.I. 0.31-1.96) or the Omicron phase (HR 0.77, 95% C.I. 0.53-1.12). The only thing they find is that there's some effectiveness against symptomatic illness during the Omicron wave: > among those with prior COVID-19, vaccination was associated with significantly lower risk of symptomatic COVID-19 in both the pre-Omicron (HR 0.60, 95% C.I. 0.40-0.90) and the Omicron phase (HR 0.36, 95% C.I. 0.23-0.57). Apparently this is based on the data in Figure 4...but Figure 4 isn't included (again, did you read this??), so I can't say either way.
    - Daishiman 5y ago
      So at the very worst it does nothing. How is that bad? I don't want to go around checking if people had or did not have Covid, which a lot of people are prone to lying about.
      - timr 5y ago
        No. At the very worst the vaccine causes harm, and provides no benefit. > I don't want to go around checking if people had or did not have Covid, which a lot of people are prone to lying about. We're not talking about sterilizing immunity. Even the best case arguments for booster doses in the young are citing efficacy against "symptomatic illness" that is well below 100%. Case in point: I just had it. I'm triple vaccinated. I'm not alone.
        Terretta 5y ago
        > I'm triple vaccinated. Why?
        5y ago
- jollybean 5y ago
  It's a bit conspiratorial to suggest health authorities including epidemiologists and immunologists would 'ignore' a foundational aspect of their underlying knowledge of the system when trying to understand it and formulate policy. Of course they are taking it into account. Most health authorities do random sampling to try to get an idea of underlying natural immunity and the various characteristics that takes on.
  - bigodbiel 5y ago
    If you go by the CDC’s hesitancy in accepting natural immunity, including the number of dubious conducted and/or worded studies they pushed, while ignoring studies showing the opposite and what foreign governments were doing (eg 3G), one is forgiven for believing that.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      I didn't say that they were right or wrong to reject natural immunity, I said they are not ignoring natural immunity in terms of their calculus. FYI The reason we're not going to accept 'natural immunity' as a legit form of documented immunity is because millions of idiots will go and get COVID on purpose , as they'd prefer getting it 'the natural way' as opposed to getting a jab. This is the difference between 'Science' and 'Public Health Policy'. I just had an anti-vaxx colleague do exactly that, and it wasn't even for some kind of immune benefit, rather, 'just to get it over with'. I was completely floored when she told me. But I'm now convinced that my anti-vaxx cousins who are now barred from the liquor stores, would get COVID 'on purpose' if they could get their passport to alcohol and not have to get the 'Goddam Fauci Jab'.
jimkleiber 5y ago
I see the Lancet article is from Oct 2021, before the omicron variant. I haven't checked your other links, have you found that the perspective has changed in the last few months? Also, I haven't heard, at least in the US, much government pressure for mandatory boosting of all ages, but maybe I'm not reading the same things.
- StanislavPetrov 5y ago
  >Also, I haven't heard, at least in the US, much government pressure for mandatory boosting of all ages, but maybe I'm not reading the same things. The largest cities in America, most universities and many of the largest employers all require "boosters" for even minimal participation in society.
  - javagram 5y ago
    NYC is the largest city in America and has no such requirement. I imagine you’re referring to some west coast city or cities? NYC: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccines-keytonyc.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccines-keyton... “ Full Vaccination: People 12 and older participating in the below public indoor activities are now required to show proof they have received two vaccine doses, except for those who have received the one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Starting January 29, 2022, children ages 5 to 11 must also show proof of full vaccination.” Washington, DC https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/washington-dc-proof-of-vaccination-entry-requirement-covid/2936855/ https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/washington-dc-proof-of-va... “The proof of vaccination must show you’ve received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. After Feb. 15, you must be fully vaccinated.” Boston https://www.boston.gov/departments/mayors-office/introducing-b-together#info-for-individuals https://www.boston.gov/departments/mayors-office/introducing... “Tuesday, February 15People age 12+ must show proof of full vaccination”
Daishiman 5y ago
The article was posted in September. Since then all analysis has validated the booster strategy, even in individuals who previously had COVID. The increase in incidence in pediatric COVID patients since the Omicron wave supports the assertion as well. I'm sorry but new meta-analyses are coming up every week. It's been 4 months since that article and the conclusions in said opinion piece have been proven wrong.
- native_samples 5y ago
  Could you explain where you're getting your information because, as timr points out in several different ways, it isn't true.
- timr 5y ago
  - dang 5y ago
    > No, it hasn't. You are making things up -- which is why you keep [etc.] Flamewar swipes have repeatedly been creeping back into your comments here. Please edit them out. Not only are they against the site guidelines, they discredit your position, which is particularly bad in the case that you happen to be correct. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- timr 5y ago
  > Since then all analysis has validated the booster strategy, even in individuals who previously had COVID. No, it hasn't. Just a week ago: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/vaccine-effectiveness-goes-down-the https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/vaccine-effectivenes... Vaccine efficacy for 3rd dose, out of Ontario, is somewhere in the 30-40% range. In Denmark, secondary attack rate for 3 doses is essentially equivalent to being unvaccinated. This is the latest data we have. In the UK, December 28, 2021: > efficacy of a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine waned significantly at the 10-week mark, leaving boosted individuals at risk of infection with Omicron....In a December 23 U.K. Health Security Agency (HSA) technical briefing, vaccine efficacy against symptomatic infection generally fell to around 40% some 2.5 months after a booster dose. https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/96412 https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/9641... Also from the UK (January 6, 2022): vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection, 2-4 weeks after dose 3, is essentially equivalent to effectiveness after dose 2: https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1481220965539500032 https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1481220965539500032 Denmark again, January 5, 2022: > data just released from Denmark (where 85% of infections are omicron) show no effect of the booster against being infected and no difference between 2 and 3 doses against severe disease except 3 doses better against severe disease for those >70. https://twitter.com/TracyBethHoeg/status/1478853178699354112 https://twitter.com/TracyBethHoeg/status/1478853178699354112 The overall picture is of a vaccine that is temporarily elevating antibody levels, which then decline rapidly. But this isn't unexpected. It's exactly what we thought would happen. Moderna CEO, January 6, 2022: > Bancel said the efficacy of boosters will probably decline over the course of several months, similar to what happened with the first two doses. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/06/moderna-ceo-says-people-may-need-fourth-covid-shot-as-efficacy-of-boosters-likely-to-decline-over-time.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/06/moderna-ceo-says-people-may-... ...but don't worry! Because the good news is that we have really solid data that after only two doses, even high-risk people remain well-protected against severe disease: > Among 1,228,664 persons who completed primary vaccination during December 2020–October 2021, severe COVID-19–associated outcomes (0.015%) or death (0.0033%) were rare. Risk factors for severe outcomes included age ≥65 years, immunosuppressed, and six other underlying conditions. All persons with severe outcomes had at least one risk factor; 78% of persons who died had at least four. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm
cthalupa 5y ago
I mean, I can just dump a bunch of links to studies and details about how boosters are highly effective, even for young people. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-11-19/06-COVID-Oliver-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-... https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/10/1/23/pdf https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/10/1/23/pdf https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/01/no-omicron-immunity-without-booster-study-finds/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/01/no-omicron-im... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01575-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01575-4 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.13.21267748v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.13.21267748v... https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/2022-01-07-global-technical-brief-and-priority-action-on-omicron---corr2.pdf?sfvrsn=918b09d_23 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/2022-01... And I can find dozens more. Your comment is basically entirely an appeal to authority in what is linked - these are not studies, they are specific individuals saying things and you saying we should listen to them because of who they are in general, and not because they have actual data to back their specific point.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- timr 5y ago
  > I mean, I can just dump a bunch of links to studies and details about how boosters are highly effective, even for young people. And I can find dozens more. This isn't baseball cards. The person with the most URLs doesn't win. You have to read the data and understand what it says. You clearly don't, because you're citing pop-science sources such as "The Harvard Gazette", and irrelevant papers about viral loads in breakthrough infections, as if these are meaningful to the debate. However, it is apropos that you cited the CDC ACIP deck from their November 19 meeting [1], since it quite clearly lays out the lack of data, and shows how reluctant ACIP was to recommend boosters for all. See slides 29 and 35 for a summary. See slide 37 for a (rather hilarious) graph showing "number needed to boost" to prevent one hospitalization in 18-29 year olds (8,000-12,000) vs 65 year olds (481-859), which goes right to the heart of the issue: boosters provide scant benefit against severe illness for younger people. See slide 61 for the CDC ACIP final recommendation, which clearly shows that healthy people under age 50 MAY receive a booster, but weren't recommended to get one. This is exactly what I said above, what is written in the articles I quoted, and what you dismiss as "appeals to authority". It's right there in the source you linked. It couldn't be clearer. Did you read it? [1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-11-19/06-COVID-Oliver-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...
jollybean 5y ago
"You are misinformed. There is a paucity of data supporting boosters, " I think the misinformation might be your own here, or rather, at least based on the time frame. In September, there was little data, because very few had their 3rd shot. Now, we have Omicron - a huge, new, material development - and - large numbers of people with their 3rd shots. Here is some fairly definitive data from one source [1] which clearly shows a drop in protection against infections as Omicron hits, and then an acute rise in protection against infection people start receiving their 3rd shots. During the entire time protection against hospitalization and death remained pretty good, faltering somewhat, then improving after the 3rd doses started happening. According to this [2] it seems we have 100's of millions of boosters administrated across dozens of high quality health authorities each of which can provide similar data. That's not a 'paucity of data'. [1] https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/ https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/ [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccine-booster-doses-per-capita?country=BGD~BRA~CHL~DNK~IND~RUS~GBR~USA~OWID_WRL~CAN~CHN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccine-booster-dos...
- native_samples 5y ago
  Unfortunately it turns out that the way vaccination effectiveness is measured could create this apparent effect even in the case that the vaccination was saline. This sounds absurd and wrong, but, as is sometimes the case with statistics, it's possible. Prof Norman Fenton has described the issue and also demonstrated it visually in Excel: https://twitter.com/profnfenton/status/1460339552397275149 https://twitter.com/profnfenton/status/1460339552397275149 https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/11/is-vaccine-efficacy-statistical-illusion.html https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/11/is-vaccine-ef... and there's another worked example here: https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/bayesian-datacrime-defining-vaccine https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/bayesian-datacrime-defini... The problem is obscure but already known since before 2021. It's called Immortal Time Bias: https://catalogofbias.org/biases/immortal-time-bias/ https://catalogofbias.org/biases/immortal-time-bias/ The cause is the definitional game playing public health engages in, whereby people are labelled as unvaccinated for a period of time even after they've already taken a vaccine. This effectively makes the vaccinated "immortal" for two weeks, because if they'd died within that two week period they'd have been counted as unvaccinated. Thus even if a vaccine did nothing at all it would be given positive effectiveness by the methodology public health researchers are using. The problem with COVID vaccines is especially serious because there's increasing amounts of evidence that they may have some sort of immunosuppressive effect, and that people are much more likely to catch COVID in the period immediately after taking the vaccine than they were normally. Up until a few days ago this effect could only be seen by observing that many countries experienced a case surge coincident with the start of their vaccination programme. Then it was discovered that somebody in a Canadian public health agency who didn't get the memo had accidentally published proof this was happening: https://web.archive.org/web/20220108064918/https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-statistics.htm#vaccine-outcomes https://web.archive.org/web/20220108064918/https://www.alber... (scroll down to the graph labelled "number of days between first immunization and COVID diagnosis"). I have to link to the Wayback Machine because the moment this graph was noticed, it was deleted from the website. Hence why I say someone didn't get the memo. It's extremely likely that other public health agencies have the same data but they consistently refuse to publish data in which "vaccinated" is defined correctly. Public health will not allow the population to see un-distorted data about VE.
belltaco 5y ago
>and the FDA and CDC advisory committees both recommended against mandatory boosting of younger populations. They were bypassed. Two long-time FDA scientists resigned over the issue Where does it say mandatory booster?

by timr 5y ago

kyrra 5y ago

And many (most?) of these policies ignore natural immunity that people are getting from catching COVID.

Daishiman 5y ago
They do https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciac022/6507165 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... .
- timr 5y ago
  You should probably read the data, and not just the title and conclusions: > Among those previously infected, until the emergence of the Omicron variant, the cumulative incidence of COVID19 was not significantly different between those vaccinated and unvaccinated, even at almost a year of follow-up. > However, among those with prior COVID-19, vaccination was not associated with significantly lower risk of COVID-19 in either the pre-Omicron (HR 0.78, 95% C.I. 0.31-1.96) or the Omicron phase (HR 0.77, 95% C.I. 0.53-1.12). The only thing they find is that there's some effectiveness against symptomatic illness during the Omicron wave: > among those with prior COVID-19, vaccination was associated with significantly lower risk of symptomatic COVID-19 in both the pre-Omicron (HR 0.60, 95% C.I. 0.40-0.90) and the Omicron phase (HR 0.36, 95% C.I. 0.23-0.57). Apparently this is based on the data in Figure 4...but Figure 4 isn't included (again, did you read this??), so I can't say either way.
  - Daishiman 5y ago
    So at the very worst it does nothing. How is that bad? I don't want to go around checking if people had or did not have Covid, which a lot of people are prone to lying about.
    - timr 5y ago
      No. At the very worst the vaccine causes harm, and provides no benefit. > I don't want to go around checking if people had or did not have Covid, which a lot of people are prone to lying about. We're not talking about sterilizing immunity. Even the best case arguments for booster doses in the young are citing efficacy against "symptomatic illness" that is well below 100%. Case in point: I just had it. I'm triple vaccinated. I'm not alone.
      - Terretta 5y ago
        > I'm triple vaccinated. Why?
        5y ago
jollybean 5y ago
It's a bit conspiratorial to suggest health authorities including epidemiologists and immunologists would 'ignore' a foundational aspect of their underlying knowledge of the system when trying to understand it and formulate policy. Of course they are taking it into account. Most health authorities do random sampling to try to get an idea of underlying natural immunity and the various characteristics that takes on.
- bigodbiel 5y ago
  If you go by the CDC’s hesitancy in accepting natural immunity, including the number of dubious conducted and/or worded studies they pushed, while ignoring studies showing the opposite and what foreign governments were doing (eg 3G), one is forgiven for believing that.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    I didn't say that they were right or wrong to reject natural immunity, I said they are not ignoring natural immunity in terms of their calculus. FYI The reason we're not going to accept 'natural immunity' as a legit form of documented immunity is because millions of idiots will go and get COVID on purpose , as they'd prefer getting it 'the natural way' as opposed to getting a jab. This is the difference between 'Science' and 'Public Health Policy'. I just had an anti-vaxx colleague do exactly that, and it wasn't even for some kind of immune benefit, rather, 'just to get it over with'. I was completely floored when she told me. But I'm now convinced that my anti-vaxx cousins who are now barred from the liquor stores, would get COVID 'on purpose' if they could get their passport to alcohol and not have to get the 'Goddam Fauci Jab'.

jimkleiber 5y ago

I see the Lancet article is from Oct 2021, before the omicron variant. I haven't checked your other links, have you found that the perspective has changed in the last few months? Also, I haven't heard, at least in the US, much government pressure for mandatory boosting of all ages, but maybe I'm not reading the same things.

StanislavPetrov 5y ago
>Also, I haven't heard, at least in the US, much government pressure for mandatory boosting of all ages, but maybe I'm not reading the same things. The largest cities in America, most universities and many of the largest employers all require "boosters" for even minimal participation in society.
- javagram 5y ago
  NYC is the largest city in America and has no such requirement. I imagine you’re referring to some west coast city or cities? NYC: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccines-keytonyc.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccines-keyton... “ Full Vaccination: People 12 and older participating in the below public indoor activities are now required to show proof they have received two vaccine doses, except for those who have received the one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Starting January 29, 2022, children ages 5 to 11 must also show proof of full vaccination.” Washington, DC https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/washington-dc-proof-of-vaccination-entry-requirement-covid/2936855/ https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/washington-dc-proof-of-va... “The proof of vaccination must show you’ve received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. After Feb. 15, you must be fully vaccinated.” Boston https://www.boston.gov/departments/mayors-office/introducing-b-together#info-for-individuals https://www.boston.gov/departments/mayors-office/introducing... “Tuesday, February 15People age 12+ must show proof of full vaccination”

Daishiman 5y ago

The article was posted in September. Since then all analysis has validated the booster strategy, even in individuals who previously had COVID. The increase in incidence in pediatric COVID patients since the Omicron wave supports the assertion as well. I'm sorry but new meta-analyses are coming up every week. It's been 4 months since that article and the conclusions in said opinion piece have been proven wrong.

native_samples 5y ago
Could you explain where you're getting your information because, as timr points out in several different ways, it isn't true.
timr 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  > No, it hasn't. You are making things up -- which is why you keep [etc.] Flamewar swipes have repeatedly been creeping back into your comments here. Please edit them out. Not only are they against the site guidelines, they discredit your position, which is particularly bad in the case that you happen to be correct. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
timr 5y ago
> Since then all analysis has validated the booster strategy, even in individuals who previously had COVID. No, it hasn't. Just a week ago: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/vaccine-effectiveness-goes-down-the https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/vaccine-effectivenes... Vaccine efficacy for 3rd dose, out of Ontario, is somewhere in the 30-40% range. In Denmark, secondary attack rate for 3 doses is essentially equivalent to being unvaccinated. This is the latest data we have. In the UK, December 28, 2021: > efficacy of a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine waned significantly at the 10-week mark, leaving boosted individuals at risk of infection with Omicron....In a December 23 U.K. Health Security Agency (HSA) technical briefing, vaccine efficacy against symptomatic infection generally fell to around 40% some 2.5 months after a booster dose. https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/96412 https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/9641... Also from the UK (January 6, 2022): vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection, 2-4 weeks after dose 3, is essentially equivalent to effectiveness after dose 2: https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1481220965539500032 https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1481220965539500032 Denmark again, January 5, 2022: > data just released from Denmark (where 85% of infections are omicron) show no effect of the booster against being infected and no difference between 2 and 3 doses against severe disease except 3 doses better against severe disease for those >70. https://twitter.com/TracyBethHoeg/status/1478853178699354112 https://twitter.com/TracyBethHoeg/status/1478853178699354112 The overall picture is of a vaccine that is temporarily elevating antibody levels, which then decline rapidly. But this isn't unexpected. It's exactly what we thought would happen. Moderna CEO, January 6, 2022: > Bancel said the efficacy of boosters will probably decline over the course of several months, similar to what happened with the first two doses. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/06/moderna-ceo-says-people-may-need-fourth-covid-shot-as-efficacy-of-boosters-likely-to-decline-over-time.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/06/moderna-ceo-says-people-may-... ...but don't worry! Because the good news is that we have really solid data that after only two doses, even high-risk people remain well-protected against severe disease: > Among 1,228,664 persons who completed primary vaccination during December 2020–October 2021, severe COVID-19–associated outcomes (0.015%) or death (0.0033%) were rare. Risk factors for severe outcomes included age ≥65 years, immunosuppressed, and six other underlying conditions. All persons with severe outcomes had at least one risk factor; 78% of persons who died had at least four. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm

cthalupa 5y ago

I mean, I can just dump a bunch of links to studies and details about how boosters are highly effective, even for young people. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-11-19/06-COVID-Oliver-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-... https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/10/1/23/pdf https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/10/1/23/pdf https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/01/no-omicron-immunity-without-booster-study-finds/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/01/no-omicron-im... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01575-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01575-4 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.13.21267748v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.13.21267748v... https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/2022-01-07-global-technical-brief-and-priority-action-on-omicron---corr2.pdf?sfvrsn=918b09d_23 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/2022-01... And I can find dozens more. Your comment is basically entirely an appeal to authority in what is linked - these are not studies, they are specific individuals saying things and you saying we should listen to them because of who they are in general, and not because they have actual data to back their specific point.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
timr 5y ago
> I mean, I can just dump a bunch of links to studies and details about how boosters are highly effective, even for young people. And I can find dozens more. This isn't baseball cards. The person with the most URLs doesn't win. You have to read the data and understand what it says. You clearly don't, because you're citing pop-science sources such as "The Harvard Gazette", and irrelevant papers about viral loads in breakthrough infections, as if these are meaningful to the debate. However, it is apropos that you cited the CDC ACIP deck from their November 19 meeting [1], since it quite clearly lays out the lack of data, and shows how reluctant ACIP was to recommend boosters for all. See slides 29 and 35 for a summary. See slide 37 for a (rather hilarious) graph showing "number needed to boost" to prevent one hospitalization in 18-29 year olds (8,000-12,000) vs 65 year olds (481-859), which goes right to the heart of the issue: boosters provide scant benefit against severe illness for younger people. See slide 61 for the CDC ACIP final recommendation, which clearly shows that healthy people under age 50 MAY receive a booster, but weren't recommended to get one. This is exactly what I said above, what is written in the articles I quoted, and what you dismiss as "appeals to authority". It's right there in the source you linked. It couldn't be clearer. Did you read it? [1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-11-19/06-COVID-Oliver-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...

jollybean 5y ago

"You are misinformed. There is a paucity of data supporting boosters, " I think the misinformation might be your own here, or rather, at least based on the time frame. In September, there was little data, because very few had their 3rd shot. Now, we have Omicron - a huge, new, material development - and - large numbers of people with their 3rd shots. Here is some fairly definitive data from one source [1] which clearly shows a drop in protection against infections as Omicron hits, and then an acute rise in protection against infection people start receiving their 3rd shots. During the entire time protection against hospitalization and death remained pretty good, faltering somewhat, then improving after the 3rd doses started happening. According to this [2] it seems we have 100's of millions of boosters administrated across dozens of high quality health authorities each of which can provide similar data. That's not a 'paucity of data'. [1] https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/ https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/ [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccine-booster-doses-per-capita?country=BGD~BRA~CHL~DNK~IND~RUS~GBR~USA~OWID_WRL~CAN~CHN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccine-booster-dos...

native_samples 5y ago
Unfortunately it turns out that the way vaccination effectiveness is measured could create this apparent effect even in the case that the vaccination was saline. This sounds absurd and wrong, but, as is sometimes the case with statistics, it's possible. Prof Norman Fenton has described the issue and also demonstrated it visually in Excel: https://twitter.com/profnfenton/status/1460339552397275149 https://twitter.com/profnfenton/status/1460339552397275149 https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/11/is-vaccine-efficacy-statistical-illusion.html https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/11/is-vaccine-ef... and there's another worked example here: https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/bayesian-datacrime-defining-vaccine https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/bayesian-datacrime-defini... The problem is obscure but already known since before 2021. It's called Immortal Time Bias: https://catalogofbias.org/biases/immortal-time-bias/ https://catalogofbias.org/biases/immortal-time-bias/ The cause is the definitional game playing public health engages in, whereby people are labelled as unvaccinated for a period of time even after they've already taken a vaccine. This effectively makes the vaccinated "immortal" for two weeks, because if they'd died within that two week period they'd have been counted as unvaccinated. Thus even if a vaccine did nothing at all it would be given positive effectiveness by the methodology public health researchers are using. The problem with COVID vaccines is especially serious because there's increasing amounts of evidence that they may have some sort of immunosuppressive effect, and that people are much more likely to catch COVID in the period immediately after taking the vaccine than they were normally. Up until a few days ago this effect could only be seen by observing that many countries experienced a case surge coincident with the start of their vaccination programme. Then it was discovered that somebody in a Canadian public health agency who didn't get the memo had accidentally published proof this was happening: https://web.archive.org/web/20220108064918/https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-statistics.htm#vaccine-outcomes https://web.archive.org/web/20220108064918/https://www.alber... (scroll down to the graph labelled "number of days between first immunization and COVID diagnosis"). I have to link to the Wayback Machine because the moment this graph was noticed, it was deleted from the website. Hence why I say someone didn't get the memo. It's extremely likely that other public health agencies have the same data but they consistently refuse to publish data in which "vaccinated" is defined correctly. Public health will not allow the population to see un-distorted data about VE.

belltaco 5y ago

>and the FDA and CDC advisory committees both recommended against mandatory boosting of younger populations. They were bypassed. Two long-time FDA scientists resigned over the issue Where does it say mandatory booster?