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Updated vaccines _have_ been developed and are in trials. Moderna created a beta variant vaccine last year that is the furthest along in any trial IIRC. Pfize

Updated vaccines _have_ been developed and are in trials. Moderna created a beta variant vaccine last year that is the furthest along in any trial IIRC. Pfizer has an alpha variant specific booster with quite good results from trials too. The problem as I understand it is that it isn't profitable for either company to take a risk on producing these boosters at scale. They have to take a bet that the variant they target for the booster will be the one to dominate in the next months, and right now with variants like omicron mutating and growing at astounding rates it is quite risky. If they target the wrong variant that's a whole lot of completely wasted vaccine doses and they have to start over again. As I understand it their production lines are limited too and can only produce one specific type of vaccine or booster at once (i.e. wild type or new variant, but not both). Honestly we need operation warp speed again. It needs to just never stop, at least while we are in such a critical stage and massive amount of virus spread. We need the government and the billionaires/trillionaires to bankroll parallel development of all major variant boosters at once.

heavyset_go 5y ago
> Honestly we need operation warp speed again. It needs to just never stop, at least while we are in such a critical stage and massive amount of virus spread. We need the government and the billionaires/trillionaires to bankroll parallel development of all major variant boosters at once. This makes sense defense-wise, as well, because the arms race in vaccine development is also an arms race in producing vaccines for diseases you intend to use as weapons. A disease a group has a vaccine or cure for, but no one else does, could be weaponized.
- nusaru 5y ago
  I agree. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I imagine it’ll be a huge advantage to be able to produce new vaccines at the same rate that a weaponized virus can mutate.
  - jimmydorry 5y ago
    It comes at the cost of reducing regulatory burden but also the oversight and safety rails required to make sure the "cure isn't worse than the disease". For the initial wave of COVID-19, it was an absolute necessity, but unless our backs are pinned metaphorically to the wall, is it really worth taking a short cut? In the best case, COVID-19 will become endemic (prevalent every season, but not as harmful for the majority of the population)... so wiping it out by way of universal uptake of a given vaccine is not (and never was) on the tables. A weaponized virus would inflict untold suffering, but there is nothing to stop another Operation Warpspeed. Having OW active all the time? I don't see that being a good thing.
  - sjmm1989 5y ago
    IF I Understand Correctly; this could actually backfire on the entity using it as a weapon by constantly having new vaccines at the ready. IIUC: This means that they would essentially be supplying the new pressure and stressors required for the virus to be forced into mutating more and more since its current environment is not suitable for its current arrangement. Every time it replicates there is a chance for mutation, but greater stressors increase that chance of mutation. Depending on the stressors, the mutation may or may not occur in tandem to that stressor. I.E. Vaccines increase immunity? Virus gains ability to breakthrough easier. Now that may be a rather simplistic understanding of it, I admit; but this does seem to coincide with what is essentially happening so far this past couple years. 1. New variant emerges. 2. More people get vaccinated. 3. Old 'new' variant dies off 4. New 'new' variant picks up. 5. More people get vaccinated, or re-vaxxed. 6. Old 'new' variant dies off, again. 7. New variant emerges, or a subvariant, or double mutation. Repeat. Eventually we will all be vaccinated 3 times or more, easily. Or at least a very large majority of us. What happens when some super variant emerges and has the capability to breakthrough all that resistance? More vaccines? You do see where this is going, right? Doctors and scientists were concerned about a very similar situation with anti-bacterial resistant bugs. Stuff like H.Pylori in hospitals if I remember correctly. Well, now we have the same situation potentially occurring on our hands. We can only hope that the mRNA vaccines or something better is/are able to keep ahead of the game. The only way we are beating this thing out, is by completely snuffing it out. And that's going to require removing all its potential hosts. That means we might have to vaccinate wild animals, because deer have been catching it for instance. And apparently spreading it in some cases. Once so far for sure is confirmed I believe. So yeah, Deer-vid is a thing now. Hooray? It's going to be either a lot of animal vaccinations going on out there... or a huge culling. Of all sorts of animals. Or letting them catch it and suffer through it for better resistance for a time being; and then hoping to snuff out the virus finally at that point. I'm sure you can see how hopeless this all is at this point. It's part of why the politicians are now saying "we need to learn to live with Covid." And I agree, I guess. Not really much choice at this point. It's here to stay in its current forms, and further. For now at least. So, huge advantage? Sure, maybe. Depends on your goals.
bsaul 5y ago
isn't omikron acting like a vaccine anyway ? with its astounding spread, everyone will have been contaminated anyway. And it seems that natural immunity is as good if not better than mrna induced immunity ( although i'm not sure if it's controversial or not).
- bobdobbs666 5y ago
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Hypocritelefty 5y ago
    - high_pathetic 5y ago
      Source?
  - qeternity 5y ago
    "I don't have the study in front of me, so let me make some numbers up." This is not even remotely true. If you'd like to read an actual study that shows the opposite, here you go from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm?s_cid=mm7104e1_e&ACSTrackingID=USCDC_921-DM73434&ACSTrackingLabel=MMWR%20Early%20Release%20-%20Vol.%2071%2C%20January%2019%2C%202022&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM73434 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm?s_cid=mm... Studying infections as they occur is extremely difficult. People who get vaccinated take greater precautions than those who don't. People who get infected take greater risks, and those who are unvaccinated and have been infected are the greatest risk takers of all. Breakthrough infection rate has more to do with cohort behavior than efficacy of natural vs vaccine. The biggest advantage a vaccine has is repeated exposure to viral material without illness and risk of death. But ultimately the vaccine is just trying to trick your body into creating natural immunity.
jack_pp 5y ago
How about this : https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vaccine https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vac.... > The large majority of the cost (about $850) was the peptides If we could produce just the peptides at scale then everyone is free to produce local vaccines. Not sure if the peptides themselves have the same extreme storage requirements as the vaccines do. If we can give every country the techniques to build their own vaccines we wouldn't depend on mega-corps and some of the "anti-vax" arguments would become moot.
lvs 5y ago
No, the problem has been that the variant vaccines have not shown superior responses to variants vs. the original spike isolate in preclinical and small trials.
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  Incorrect, the beta variant vaccine for example showed quite good strength at stopping the beta variant vs. the wild type vaccine (which beta much more easily evaded). The problem is beta variant grew for a bit last year but is entirely gone now.
  - lvs 5y ago

heavyset_go 5y ago

> Honestly we need operation warp speed again. It needs to just never stop, at least while we are in such a critical stage and massive amount of virus spread. We need the government and the billionaires/trillionaires to bankroll parallel development of all major variant boosters at once. This makes sense defense-wise, as well, because the arms race in vaccine development is also an arms race in producing vaccines for diseases you intend to use as weapons. A disease a group has a vaccine or cure for, but no one else does, could be weaponized.

nusaru 5y ago
I agree. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I imagine it’ll be a huge advantage to be able to produce new vaccines at the same rate that a weaponized virus can mutate.
- jimmydorry 5y ago
  It comes at the cost of reducing regulatory burden but also the oversight and safety rails required to make sure the "cure isn't worse than the disease". For the initial wave of COVID-19, it was an absolute necessity, but unless our backs are pinned metaphorically to the wall, is it really worth taking a short cut? In the best case, COVID-19 will become endemic (prevalent every season, but not as harmful for the majority of the population)... so wiping it out by way of universal uptake of a given vaccine is not (and never was) on the tables. A weaponized virus would inflict untold suffering, but there is nothing to stop another Operation Warpspeed. Having OW active all the time? I don't see that being a good thing.
- sjmm1989 5y ago
  IF I Understand Correctly; this could actually backfire on the entity using it as a weapon by constantly having new vaccines at the ready. IIUC: This means that they would essentially be supplying the new pressure and stressors required for the virus to be forced into mutating more and more since its current environment is not suitable for its current arrangement. Every time it replicates there is a chance for mutation, but greater stressors increase that chance of mutation. Depending on the stressors, the mutation may or may not occur in tandem to that stressor. I.E. Vaccines increase immunity? Virus gains ability to breakthrough easier. Now that may be a rather simplistic understanding of it, I admit; but this does seem to coincide with what is essentially happening so far this past couple years. 1. New variant emerges. 2. More people get vaccinated. 3. Old 'new' variant dies off 4. New 'new' variant picks up. 5. More people get vaccinated, or re-vaxxed. 6. Old 'new' variant dies off, again. 7. New variant emerges, or a subvariant, or double mutation. Repeat. Eventually we will all be vaccinated 3 times or more, easily. Or at least a very large majority of us. What happens when some super variant emerges and has the capability to breakthrough all that resistance? More vaccines? You do see where this is going, right? Doctors and scientists were concerned about a very similar situation with anti-bacterial resistant bugs. Stuff like H.Pylori in hospitals if I remember correctly. Well, now we have the same situation potentially occurring on our hands. We can only hope that the mRNA vaccines or something better is/are able to keep ahead of the game. The only way we are beating this thing out, is by completely snuffing it out. And that's going to require removing all its potential hosts. That means we might have to vaccinate wild animals, because deer have been catching it for instance. And apparently spreading it in some cases. Once so far for sure is confirmed I believe. So yeah, Deer-vid is a thing now. Hooray? It's going to be either a lot of animal vaccinations going on out there... or a huge culling. Of all sorts of animals. Or letting them catch it and suffer through it for better resistance for a time being; and then hoping to snuff out the virus finally at that point. I'm sure you can see how hopeless this all is at this point. It's part of why the politicians are now saying "we need to learn to live with Covid." And I agree, I guess. Not really much choice at this point. It's here to stay in its current forms, and further. For now at least. So, huge advantage? Sure, maybe. Depends on your goals.

bsaul 5y ago

isn't omikron acting like a vaccine anyway ? with its astounding spread, everyone will have been contaminated anyway. And it seems that natural immunity is as good if not better than mrna induced immunity ( although i'm not sure if it's controversial or not).

bobdobbs666 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Hypocritelefty 5y ago
  - high_pathetic 5y ago
    Source?
- qeternity 5y ago
  "I don't have the study in front of me, so let me make some numbers up." This is not even remotely true. If you'd like to read an actual study that shows the opposite, here you go from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm?s_cid=mm7104e1_e&ACSTrackingID=USCDC_921-DM73434&ACSTrackingLabel=MMWR%20Early%20Release%20-%20Vol.%2071%2C%20January%2019%2C%202022&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM73434 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm?s_cid=mm... Studying infections as they occur is extremely difficult. People who get vaccinated take greater precautions than those who don't. People who get infected take greater risks, and those who are unvaccinated and have been infected are the greatest risk takers of all. Breakthrough infection rate has more to do with cohort behavior than efficacy of natural vs vaccine. The biggest advantage a vaccine has is repeated exposure to viral material without illness and risk of death. But ultimately the vaccine is just trying to trick your body into creating natural immunity.

jack_pp 5y ago

How about this : https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vaccine https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vac.... > The large majority of the cost (about $850) was the peptides If we could produce just the peptides at scale then everyone is free to produce local vaccines. Not sure if the peptides themselves have the same extreme storage requirements as the vaccines do. If we can give every country the techniques to build their own vaccines we wouldn't depend on mega-corps and some of the "anti-vax" arguments would become moot.

lvs 5y ago

No, the problem has been that the variant vaccines have not shown superior responses to variants vs. the original spike isolate in preclinical and small trials.

qbasic_forever 5y ago
Incorrect, the beta variant vaccine for example showed quite good strength at stopping the beta variant vs. the wild type vaccine (which beta much more easily evaded). The problem is beta variant grew for a bit last year but is entirely gone now.
- lvs 5y ago