Live data from Hacker News

Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

axios.com

171–180 of 560 posts

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#171

The whole booster conversation seems like a political game. If you have a vaccine, then your risk of death is far below that of the flu (statistically). If you don't have a vaccine by now, you want covid instead and this booster conversation is irrelevant. Kids are banned from taking anything. So I expect booster or no booster, frankly it just won't matter much at the population scale. I also don't understand the mas…

>Is it to protect kids? If so, then all that effort is better directed at the FDA who has banned them from getting the vaccine. I think this is the area where people should have the most anger and Biden should frankly push legislation to replace or reform the FDA. Their behavior has been atrocious.

What specifically has been atrocious? The FDA has ALWAYS been extremely cautious in approving vaccinations for children. The vaccine was just officially approved for adults, they don't feel they have the data to do so for kids yet as far as I can tell.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#172
post #77

There is not strong evidence supporting a 3rd booster dose in immunocompetent people. We have partly seen a misinterpretation of the Israeli data [1] and specifically the single low effectiveness value that appears to be the result of Simpson's Paradox [2]. Dr. Fauci reported this single value decline from the high nineties to the high seventies on Andy Slavitt's podcast [3]. Pfizer's CEO has promoted this same data,…

I don't know how the Israel data is being misinterpreted. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E_F6vV0XoAMbaNO?format=jpg&name=... https://imgur.com/a/fzMdPFE I guess ignoring data to push an agenda can be defined as "misinterpretation", fair enough. Carry on.

[deleted]

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#173
post #166
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link?

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/571022-to-boost-or-no... https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/31/biden-booster-plan-... https://endpts.com/breaking-in-a-major-blow-to-vaccine-effor... These are authors of this report.

[deleted]

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#174
The recent CDC study [1] suggests that vaccine efficacy against hospitalization for people 65+ is ~80% in the US. If we have reason to believe that a third vaccine dose would increase that efficacy, and the immunological data suggests that we do, then IMO it's clearly the right thing to do. Incontrovertible data will mean many seniors being hospitalized and dying in the interim.

There's so much we can do to increase the global supply of vaccines without sacrificing American citizens. Let's focus on those things to improve vaccine equity.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e3.htm

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#175
post #157
post #95

I think this reporting is dancing around the issue, that the vaccine supply is most concentrated in countries that have essentially reached their maximum vaccination percentage. By not providing access to those developing or smaller countries, larger countries are shooting themselves in the proverbial global foot. I don’t think countries like the US and Canada aren’t trying to do that, I just think these experts woul…

The US has not met their maximum vaccination percentage. According to the graph I get in Google the US is stuck on around 50% fully vaccinated. Considering the head start they had on most of the world and the vaccine supplies this can't be described as anything other than a complete and utter failure on all levels.

Funny, how everyone complained about sow start of vaccination campaigns. Only to forget that reaching roughly 70% fast was the goal, not being the first at 10%.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#176
post #95

I think this reporting is dancing around the issue, that the vaccine supply is most concentrated in countries that have essentially reached their maximum vaccination percentage. By not providing access to those developing or smaller countries, larger countries are shooting themselves in the proverbial global foot. I don’t think countries like the US and Canada aren’t trying to do that, I just think these experts woul…

Seems more an acknowledgement that zero-Covid is never ever going to happen. At which point not sure if vaccinating outside of risk populations or to control hospitalizations if they are too high makes any sense.

That's like saying back in the 70s and 80s that we cannot eliminate deaths and injuries from car accidents so it's useless to have seatbelt and air bag campaigns and laws.

>outside of risk populations

Depends on how you define risk, 59 children have died just in Texas from Covid so far. Risk goes up with age.

Every single additional vaccination helps the situation.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe a serious issue with your “protect the unvaccinated” statement is it overlooks the amount of pressure they exert on our shared medical system. If your hospital beds are overrun with unvaccinated Covid patients, there is less room for others.

> hospital beds are overrun with unvaccinated Covid patients, there is less room for others Was in Jackson Hole for Labor Day weekend. They border Idaho, whose voluntarily unvaccinated have filled its hospitals. In four days I met as many nurses and one doctor who quit out of frustration. They could no longer empathise with their patients, each describing a visceral anger at tending to ICUs of COVID patients, all unv…

I was there too. I was also in Boise, and Twin Falls, ID.

I went to no less than 20 doctors or nurses in the space of 2 weeks

Not one doctor mentioned anything about quitting or being short-staffed.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#178
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a strong indicator that the U.S. will follow the same path. British Columbia's Dr. Bonnie Henry indicated yesterday [4] that ...an even stronger indicator is that the Biden administration seems to have asked two multi-decade long FDA vaccine approval experts to resign following them authoring this report saying that the evidence didn't support the widespread use of boosters as a public health measure.

> ...an even stronger indicator is that the Biden administration seems to have asked two multi-decade long FDA vaccine approval experts to resign following them authoring this report saying that the evidence didn't support the widespread use of boosters as a public health measure. What you stated did not occur. What did happen was that the FDA and CDC got into a procedural slap-fight, and because the CDC gave advice…

> - "authoring this report" they never authorized a report, that's what they were protesting.

You are commenting on a HN story which is literally linking directly to the document they authored.

I hope you will delete your misguided and grossly uncivil comment in the time that the site lets you do so, and consider offering another response when you've actually read the article that you're commenting on!

> the FDA and CDC got into a procedural slap-fight, and because the CDC gave advice first

The CDC statement is here: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0818-covid-19-boost... you can see that it is unambiguously conditional on FDA approval: "We have developed a plan to begin offering these booster shots this fall subject to FDA conducting an independent evaluation and determination of the safety and effectiveness of a third dose of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines".

> "Biden had vaccine experts resign to push through the booster" comment above is problematic.

This is a false and fabricated quotation, which I did not say at any point. Your inclusion of it makes it extremely hard to see your comment as a good faith attempt to communicate.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#179

Informed consent disclosure to vaccine trial subjects of risk of COVID‐19 vaccines worsening clinical disease https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7645850/

That's really burying the lede - all they are saying is that there should be bigger, more explicit forms given stating that that there is possibly a chance of ADE. That article doesn't even attempt to prove that as possiblity. They even admit that "Current data on COVID‐19 vaccines is limited, but does not so far reveal evidence of ADE of disease."

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not sure if vaccinating outside of risk populations or to control hospitalizations if they are too high makes any sense Based on this logic, flu shots are useless. As is any treatment without guaranteed success, i.e. most medicine. (Note: prioritising vaccinating when hospitals fill up is programmatically, repeatedly peaking the healthcare system. It will do to it what repeatedly flooring the gas and hard braking w…

> flu shots are useless (I've been struggling with the following sentence for several minutes but here goes): flu vaccines aren't widely distributed - never mind recommended - for healthy young people. Countries appear to prioritise flu vaccine for older and/or more vulnerable people.[0] [0] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/flu-influenza-vac...

On that page NHS seem to make a cost tradeoff for free flu vaccine since they have to pay the costs.

From the CDC

>Who should get a flu vaccine this season?

>Everyone 6 months and older should get a flu vaccine every season with rare exceptions. Vaccination is particularly important for people who are at higher risk of serious complications from influenza. A full listing of people at Higher Risk of Developing Flu-Related Complications is available.

>Flu vaccination has important benefits. It can reduce flu illnesses, doctors’ visits, and missed work and school due to flu, as well as prevent flu-related hospitalizations and deaths.

>Different flu vaccines are approved for use in different groups of people.

>There are flu shots approved for use in children as young as 6 months old and flu shots approved for use in adults 65 years and older.

Post reply on HN