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

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

#251

Post by revax »

thesis wrote: post #187
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't have a vaccine by now, you want covid instead and this booster conversation is irrelevant Friend’s mother visiting from Jamaica. People in her country are dying while they wait for first shots. The voluntarily unvaccinated in America are idiots. The author’s point is there are billions of unvoluntarily unvaccinated around the world to whom these doses could go.

Yikes. Idiots? All this condescension all the time. Maybe some people won’t get the vaccine because they already had Covid. Israeli study showed that people who had Covid are more protected than the vaccinated.

Not with the delta variant.

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

#252

Post by [deleted] »

hef19898 wrote: post #175
Thlom wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

[deleted]

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

#253

Post by paulcole »

nafix wrote: post #206
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't have a vaccine by now, you want covid instead and this booster conversation is irrelevant Friend’s mother visiting from Jamaica. People in her country are dying while they wait for first shots. The voluntarily unvaccinated in America are idiots. The author’s point is there are billions of unvoluntarily unvaccinated around the world to whom these doses could go.

It's highly ignorant to call unvaccinated Americans idiots. Over 100 million Americans have already caught and recovered from Covid. I imagine many in that group don't see any value in getting the vaccine (rightfully so).

There is some value in fitting in with society and showing those who are skeptical that there's nothing to be afraid of with a vaccine. And with more mandates going into place it's easier to just get vaccinated.

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

#254

Post by marcosdumay »

hef19898 wrote: post #13
occz wrote: post #5

I think this is the correct analysis - the focus should be to provide vaccines to the rest of the worlds nations that have not yet gotten widespread access to vaccines. This is likely to cause the greatest benefit in the form of fewer global deaths, and reduced global spread of the disease.

But developing countries pay less, so BionTech and Pfizer will have less profits. As cool as having a company like Biontech, run by immigrants, founded in Germany they always rubbed me the wrong way in terms of PR and business conduct since the start of the pandemic. With huge support from German media and politics. The continued dissing of Astrazeneca is just one example, the push for booster shots is another.

Hum, anyway they are making a lot of effort to sell doses around here (Brazil), even with an uncooperative government. And they indeed are asking for a smaller price than on the developed countries.

I guess the rich countries applying a 3rd dose is a net benefit for them, but they seem to be playing the "we will sell as much as we can" game, not the monopolizer "restricting supplies leads to more lucrative prices" one.

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

#255

Post by bwship »

ghaff wrote: post #247
bwship wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dice used my immune system. Yours used whatever the f they decided to inject into you. Looks like I won!

How do you think a vaccine works?

Most vaccines contain the actual virus. This vaccine does not.

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

#256

Post by [deleted] »

octopoc wrote: post #240
mattwad wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason for masks always has been to flatten the curve. The hospitals are too full for everyone just to get it and get it over with, so people without COVID can't get medical help. Right now, the CDC recommends everyone older than 2 years old should wear a mask indoors. This is not just to protect kids but prevent them spreading it. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si... .

There are tons of people coming into the hospitals in my part of the US who are completely asymptomatic but panicking. The solution to this isn't for everyone to wear masks, the solution is for the hospitals to redirect those people to their primary care physicians.

[deleted]

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

#257

Post by bwship »

bigbob2 wrote: post #249
bwship wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I decided not to get the vaccine. Three weeks ago, my friend who had gotten the vaccine got Covid, and then gave it to me. (He also beat me in golf that day which says a lot more about my golf than his ability to play while sick). But anyway, we both lost our sense of taste and smell, had fevers, were achy, him up until about a week ago, me up until a couple of days ago. So, perhaps he would have had an…

Anecdotally, the CEO of my company just died of Covid.

Anecdotally, my uncle who was otherwise healthy died months after getting the jab. And my sister's husband came down with some major fatigue/fever issues recently after the jab. So again, I took my chances based on the facts I had, yet I will get downvoted because they aren't in lock step with most of HN.

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

#258

Post by setgree »

I just got an unsanctioned booster in NY (a 2nd J&J). I expect a 2nd J&J, though classified as a booster, to provide an immunogenic response comparable to a second dose of Moderna or Pfizer; the fact that J&J marketed itself as a 1-dose rather than 2-dose solution seems to have been motivated by a desire to get to market faster [0] rather than something intrinsic about the vaccine, and we already know that one dose of J&J ~= one dose of Moderna/Pfizer [1].

Now that many months have passed since our first dose, I think it makes sense for people who got Johnson & Johnson to get a second dose, and to treat it as a "full" dosage, equivalent to the Moderna/Pfizer/AZ shots.

I basically decided to go it alone, and diverge from our public health experts, when the CDC started recommending boosters for people who got Moderna and Pfizer shots and not for people who got J&J; as Alex Tabarrok pointed out at the time [2], that makes no sense. In light of that, I think we need to do our best to apply scientific reasoning to the issue, rather than deferring to people with scientific degrees and political authority.

[0] https://apnews.com/article/which-virus-vaccine-shot-is-best-...

[1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/02/si...

[2] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/th...

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

#259

Post by leeter »

ds206 wrote: post #241
leeter wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, exposure to the virus is like exposure to combat. You may not die, but the likelihood goes up the more time you spend exposed to it and the more of it you get exposed to. To keep with that metaphor a vaccine is like a war game, it won't kill you but it's not the real thing either. But if you've done it you're better off than if you hadn't.

This doesn't make sense. Do you have a source that says repeated exposure increases your odds of serious disease?

Repeated exposure increases your chances of disease not serious disease. Increased Viral load increases chances of serious disease. Apologies if that didn't come across clearly.

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

#260

Post by scottLobster »

bedhead wrote: post #190
delecti wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That's probably why the GP comment described it as "their"(our) maximum vaccination percentage. The vaccine and virus have both been politicized too much, and too many people are obstinately refusing it as a result.

It feels like more and more people whom I would consider very partisan (either side) simply act out of spite nowadays. Whatever the other side wants, well, we're just going to unconditionally fight it. You saw this accelerate after Trump won with "Resist", an ethos that literally means to defy regardless of circumstances. And now you see the right's version of "Resist" by avoiding vaccinations. Why? Because screw the…

Yeah, and it didn't help when during the BLM protests, when social distancing was being trumpeted in all contexts, a number of doctors (can't remember if the CDC endorsed it or not) came out and said the massive crowds at the protests were acceptable because "race issues are health issues too" or something to that effect. That's obviously hypocritical to anyone with half a brain.

If there's a kernel of truth to the right's message it's that there is an elite class in DC that is woefully out of touch and seemingly incapable of actual leadership. They just spout what they think, however asinine or poorly phrased, and we're supposed to listen because they're certified "experts". I know enough people in government agencies personally/have the scientific education necessary to filter the signal from the noise, but I can understand someone who doesn't have those advantages just refusing to trust anything they say. They sound like arrogant nerds, and a lot of them actually are.

Someone needs to remind anyone who releases a public statement that they are first and foremost in the business of public persuasion, not absolute truth telling down to the smallest detail for its own sake. That means clear, consistent messaging that a high school dropout who failed 9th grade Biology can understand. Broad strokes. Simple actions. Leave the nuance in the footnotes for the professionals who can handle it. For example, the messaging should have been some variety of "wear a mask as often as you can until we get a vaccine, then you can take off the mask if you get vaccinated" combined with support of mandates to enforce that path. Are there problems with that? Sure, but it gives people a simple path to follow, a light at the end of the tunnel, would have a positive impact on average, and doesn't get bogged down in ultimately irrelevant details about the tactical effectiveness of masks/vaccines and provides an incentive to get the vaccine. And consistency alone can be powerful messaging if there's even a little truth behind it. Much as I wish we were, we are not a nation of scientists and cannot be addressed as such.

And yeah I'm sure there are a million "it's different behind the curtain" excuses for why things were done the way they were. Same way when things are designed by committee at a large company everyone involved is conveniently not individually responsible when things go wrong. I'm not sure what the precise solution is, I'm certainly not in a position to influence anything related to Fauci's/The CDC's messaging, but someone has to start taking actual personal responsibility for the outcomes, and be in a position to relieve those who have proven ineffective. Granted it may already be too late for that, people are entrenched hard.

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