8 ms·

mRNA Boosters Don’t Block Omicron, South African Study Shows

54 points by harambae 5y ago

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manwe150 5y ago
> Strong responses from T-cells were detected in the subjects, the researchers said. “The mild to moderate course of illness suggests that full vaccination followed by a booster dose still provides good protection against severe disease caused by omicron,” they said. So really, nothing new here. The vaccine works, we just like writing headlines that confuse people and generate clicks.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  It is a fear mongering headline, but if you’re only preventing severe disease, it’s correct in that it’s not blocking the virus.
  - bondarchuk 5y ago
    It's clearly dishonest to use the phrasing "don't block" when they know full well many people will interpret it as "don't work" at a quick glance.
    - h2odragon 5y ago
      Its clearly dishonest to claim that vaccines "work" when you know that most people will read that as "blocks transmission and infection" If that's not enough, change the definition of "vaccines". Surely that should convince everyone! Edit: they did that: Aug 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g... > Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease. Today: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm > Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.
      - deleted 5y ago
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      - phren0logy 5y ago
        The Salk polio vaccine was about 60-70% effective and is certainly a vaccine. Please don’t confuse your misunderstanding of what a vaccine is with an attempt to change the definition.
        parkingrift 5y ago
        We're down to 30-40% protection against infection for two dose Pfizer-BioNTech. Is it a vaccine if you need a booster every 6 months the vaccine only protects against severe infection? More important than petty arguments is how this virus was sold to the public. Pfizer-BioNTech suggested 95-100% efficacy after 30 days. Now we're gaslighting people into saying protecting against severe infection was always the goal. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-biontech-announce-positive-topline-results-pivotal https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta... https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577
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        5y ago
    - itbeho 5y ago
      I wonder why many people would think that? "You're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations" - Joe Biden https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn-town-hall-july/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn...
    - ls15 5y ago
      I would read that as "not preventing infection". Are they preventing infection?
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    It's partially blocking the virus. Summarizing that as "it's not blocking the virus" is misleading.
    - peteradio 5y ago
      The offensive line partially blocked the defense while their QB got sacked.
Scoundreller 5y ago
This is what you get when you keep vaccinating/hyper-targeting against wild-type spike protein only for a mutating virus.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  Pretty good result really that it still protects against severe disease. We got lucky to get a variant that spreads super fast but is less dangerous and still protected a bit by our vaccines.
- etiam 5y ago
  Emphatically agreed. Not saying there aren't potential deficiencies with this technology that was more or less completely untried until recently and still hasn't been evaluated long term, but if people insist on trying to make the wrong action work by doing lots of it, what's to expect. I was hoping this would be about results from clinical trials using the updated sequences. That will be interesting, not least whether a broad cocktail can defend against all the major strains simultaneously.
- pfg 5y ago
  My understanding is that existing inactivated (whole-virus) vaccines perform worse than mRNA-based spike-targeting vaccines when it comes to neutralization. Here's a small study comparing BNT162b2 and Coronavac[1]. [1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.13.21267668v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.13.21267668v...
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    It’s a good study and worth reading. Relevantly, it looked at omicron. A few points: > Third, we have not assessed the T cell immunity against the Omicron variant, which correlates with disease severity. Non-antibody immune response is understudied. I suspect antibodies are just easy to measure, but, unfortunately for my academic record, there’s more to immune responses than just antibodies. > Fourth, since all Coronavac recipients had an MN titer of <10 against the Omicron variant and the GMT against the ancestral virus is only 21.73, an accurate fold-reduction in neutralizing antibody titer cannot be determined. Takeaway is that mRNA vaccines are very immunogenic in general. Hard to say if a more immunogenic coronavac would fare well against omicron or not.
cuteboy19 5y ago
Is there any website where we can track the development of "better vaccines"? For example India approved needle free (hypospray!) vaccine Zycov D. https://www.ndtv.com/business/cadila-healthcare-surges-on-receiving-emergence-use-approval-for-covid-vaccine-2516674 https://www.ndtv.com/business/cadila-healthcare-surges-on-re...
- ck45 5y ago
  The BioNTech investor relation website has some information: https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/pfizer-and-biontech-provide-update-omicron-variant https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-det... But I'd not consider it a valuable source for tracking the progress. Edit: It's also from 2021-12-08 - probably way too old to be meaningful, a lot of knowledge has been acquired since then.
- pfg 5y ago
  I've found [1] to be a good resource for this. [1]: https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/ https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/
odyssey7 5y ago
UK Health Security Agency's COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report for January 13, 2022: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1047814/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-2-2022.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Pages 13 to 18 are what relates the most to this. "These estimates suggest that vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease with the Omicron variant is significantly lower than compared to the Delta variant and wane rapidly. Nevertheless, protection against hospitalisation is much greater, in particular after a booster dose, where vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation is around 85-90%%. Further data is needed to estimate the duration of protection against hospitalisation."
sathackr 5y ago
I can tell you first-hand that either it does, or some people are naturally immune. My family of 4 including me just spent 10 days in a hotel room. One(A) was too young to be vaccinated, one(B) was too young to be boosted but was vaccinated earlier in 2021. One(C) was vaccinated also earlier in 2021 but was unable to get a booster due to scheduling issues. One(D) got a booster in December. 3 of us(A,B,C) tested positive via antigen for Covid. The youngest(A) was asymptomatic. The one(D) that was boosted had several negative tests including PCR and never exhibited symptoms. (B) and (C) were symptomatic and (C) still has a sore throat going on 21 days now. The booster works and COVID-19 is not something you want to take your chances with.
m3kw9 5y ago
They block hospitalization, severe disease and death.

54 points by harambae 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

manwe150 5y ago

> Strong responses from T-cells were detected in the subjects, the researchers said. “The mild to moderate course of illness suggests that full vaccination followed by a booster dose still provides good protection against severe disease caused by omicron,” they said. So really, nothing new here. The vaccine works, we just like writing headlines that confuse people and generate clicks.

Scoundreller 5y ago
It is a fear mongering headline, but if you’re only preventing severe disease, it’s correct in that it’s not blocking the virus.
- bondarchuk 5y ago
  It's clearly dishonest to use the phrasing "don't block" when they know full well many people will interpret it as "don't work" at a quick glance.
  - h2odragon 5y ago
    Its clearly dishonest to claim that vaccines "work" when you know that most people will read that as "blocks transmission and infection" If that's not enough, change the definition of "vaccines". Surely that should convince everyone! Edit: they did that: Aug 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g... > Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease. Today: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm > Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - phren0logy 5y ago
      The Salk polio vaccine was about 60-70% effective and is certainly a vaccine. Please don’t confuse your misunderstanding of what a vaccine is with an attempt to change the definition.
      - parkingrift 5y ago
        We're down to 30-40% protection against infection for two dose Pfizer-BioNTech. Is it a vaccine if you need a booster every 6 months the vaccine only protects against severe infection? More important than petty arguments is how this virus was sold to the public. Pfizer-BioNTech suggested 95-100% efficacy after 30 days. Now we're gaslighting people into saying protecting against severe infection was always the goal. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-biontech-announce-positive-topline-results-pivotal https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta... https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        5y ago
  - itbeho 5y ago
    I wonder why many people would think that? "You're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations" - Joe Biden https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn-town-hall-july/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn...
  - ls15 5y ago
    I would read that as "not preventing infection". Are they preventing infection?
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  It's partially blocking the virus. Summarizing that as "it's not blocking the virus" is misleading.
  - peteradio 5y ago
    The offensive line partially blocked the defense while their QB got sacked.

Scoundreller 5y ago

This is what you get when you keep vaccinating/hyper-targeting against wild-type spike protein only for a mutating virus.

gameswithgo 5y ago
Pretty good result really that it still protects against severe disease. We got lucky to get a variant that spreads super fast but is less dangerous and still protected a bit by our vaccines.
etiam 5y ago
Emphatically agreed. Not saying there aren't potential deficiencies with this technology that was more or less completely untried until recently and still hasn't been evaluated long term, but if people insist on trying to make the wrong action work by doing lots of it, what's to expect. I was hoping this would be about results from clinical trials using the updated sequences. That will be interesting, not least whether a broad cocktail can defend against all the major strains simultaneously.
pfg 5y ago
My understanding is that existing inactivated (whole-virus) vaccines perform worse than mRNA-based spike-targeting vaccines when it comes to neutralization. Here's a small study comparing BNT162b2 and Coronavac[1]. [1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.13.21267668v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.13.21267668v...
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  It’s a good study and worth reading. Relevantly, it looked at omicron. A few points: > Third, we have not assessed the T cell immunity against the Omicron variant, which correlates with disease severity. Non-antibody immune response is understudied. I suspect antibodies are just easy to measure, but, unfortunately for my academic record, there’s more to immune responses than just antibodies. > Fourth, since all Coronavac recipients had an MN titer of <10 against the Omicron variant and the GMT against the ancestral virus is only 21.73, an accurate fold-reduction in neutralizing antibody titer cannot be determined. Takeaway is that mRNA vaccines are very immunogenic in general. Hard to say if a more immunogenic coronavac would fare well against omicron or not.

cuteboy19 5y ago

Is there any website where we can track the development of "better vaccines"? For example India approved needle free (hypospray!) vaccine Zycov D. https://www.ndtv.com/business/cadila-healthcare-surges-on-receiving-emergence-use-approval-for-covid-vaccine-2516674 https://www.ndtv.com/business/cadila-healthcare-surges-on-re...

ck45 5y ago
The BioNTech investor relation website has some information: https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/pfizer-and-biontech-provide-update-omicron-variant https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-det... But I'd not consider it a valuable source for tracking the progress. Edit: It's also from 2021-12-08 - probably way too old to be meaningful, a lot of knowledge has been acquired since then.
pfg 5y ago
I've found [1] to be a good resource for this. [1]: https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/ https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/

odyssey7 5y ago

UK Health Security Agency's COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report for January 13, 2022: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1047814/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-2-2022.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Pages 13 to 18 are what relates the most to this. "These estimates suggest that vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease with the Omicron variant is significantly lower than compared to the Delta variant and wane rapidly. Nevertheless, protection against hospitalisation is much greater, in particular after a booster dose, where vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation is around 85-90%%. Further data is needed to estimate the duration of protection against hospitalisation."

sathackr 5y ago

I can tell you first-hand that either it does, or some people are naturally immune. My family of 4 including me just spent 10 days in a hotel room. One(A) was too young to be vaccinated, one(B) was too young to be boosted but was vaccinated earlier in 2021. One(C) was vaccinated also earlier in 2021 but was unable to get a booster due to scheduling issues. One(D) got a booster in December. 3 of us(A,B,C) tested positive via antigen for Covid. The youngest(A) was asymptomatic. The one(D) that was boosted had several negative tests including PCR and never exhibited symptoms. (B) and (C) were symptomatic and (C) still has a sore throat going on 21 days now. The booster works and COVID-19 is not something you want to take your chances with.

m3kw9 5y ago

They block hospitalization, severe disease and death.