Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 560 posts

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

#351

Post by tharne »

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).

> It's highly ignorant to call unvaccinated Americans idiots.

Agreed. The correct term for them is "immoral". The only world in which it makes sense to forgo the vaccine is one in which your life is only one that matters. So a healthy unvaccinated person is making a perfectly rational decision, just a morally bankrupt one.

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

#352

Post by blagie »

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #68
blagie wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm not flying to Vietnam tomorrow, so I'm not claiming I personally need a booster shot. However: - Vietnam is an epicenter right now, so my odds of catching COVID would be high. - They are well beyond hospital capacity, so if I do have a serious case, it's uncertain I'll receive quality care (and if I do, I'm taking a bed from someone else) We don't have full data, so the right way to think about this is with…

> We do have multiple studies about how immunity wanes over time from vaccination. Those provide better ground-truth data than theoretical arguments. I believe the studies you're referring to are those that address efficacy against symptomatic infection, not severe illness. Unless you're in a high-risk group because of age or comorbidities, with two doses of an mRNA vaccine within the past 8 months, to my knowledge a…

Now we're getting into value systems.

- How much do you value your life?

- How much do you value the trip?

- How much do you worry about spending two weeks in a hospital?

- How much do you mind memory lapses and brain fog from long COVID?

From what you wrote, it's clear we have at least somewhat different value systems. Since you're an avid traveler, you should realize that's good, common, and healthy.

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

#353

Post by JohnWhigham »

setgree wrote: post #258

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 o…

Get a 2nd dose of what? J&J? I'm in the same boat as you (also got J&J). I thought it was temporarily pulled off the market by the FDA too?

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

#354

Post by spookthesunset »

chitowneats wrote: post #292
mr_overalls wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choosing to risk catching a disease with a 1-2% case fatality rate, while refusing an overwhelmingly safe and effective vaccine is the definition of idiocy.

IFR is a better metric than CFR: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s... The overall IFR is misleading, given how age-stratified the risk is: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0

I absolutely adore when publicly available data sourced from government agencies gets downvoted.

Since March of 2020 any kind of statement suggesting covid isn’t as bad as some make it out to be is met with fierce vitriol. The number of times I’ve been called “dangerous” for posting well sourced data that clearly shows the IFR of covid is not 1-2%…

It’s as if people believe that any good news will result in others “not taking this serious”. They must feel that everybody needs to be scared stiff of this thing all the time… the result is the average person thinks if they catch covid they have a 10% chance of dying, which for most age groups is like 1000x off[0].

It’s super evil, really. If people were better informed about the risk profiles of covid, how many would have sacrificed a year and a half of their short life? Wouldn’t that imply that forcing this “new normal” crap by scaring the daylights out of people is a tad misguided and perhaps very unethical and immoral? If the only way you can get people to comply with your draconian interventions is lying to society about the risks of covid… well that is pretty fucked up.

Worse, by the way, is peoples risk assessment for covid is so completely wrong it makes debating public policy impossible. If the average adult thinks they have a 10% of dying if they got covid, of course they will want to mask little kids at school, of course they’ll cheer vaccine passports, of course they’ll rat each other out for sitting on a park bench. If they knew kids were at almost zero risk of covid, and their age bracket had minimal risks, would they have agreed to any of that?

[0] a fascinating data set: https://covid19pulse.usc.edu/

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

#355

Post by treesknees »

ufo wrote: post #322
treesknees wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part I don't understand. There is an oversupply of vaccines, why not let me go get my 3rd shot if it's already here? I understand the desire to take those "extra" vaccines and ship them to other countries, but if the vaccine is already distributed out around the country, it would be more expensive and hazardous to collect them back up safely than to just administer boosters to those who want it.

The vaccines that are already distributed were distributed considering the original plan of only two doses per person. More vaccines would need to be ordered to get enough for a third dose.

Right, but if you order enough to give 100 people 2 doses (200 doses) and only 50 decide to get the vaccine, you have 100 doses left over.

The COVID vaccines have essentially a 6-month shelf life before they are considered expired [1]. So if the example doses above were delivered several months ago, the period for collecting and transporting them to another country is pretty small.

Instead of throwing away this unused vaccine, it could be given to people who are willing to participate in a booster study or would like to have it, without making the booster mandatory. Obviously a mandate wouldn't work for the excess supply sitting around.

[1]https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/unused-co...

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

#356

Post by crackercrews »

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).

It would be very useful to know what percent of the unvaccinated population are not getting vaccinated because they already had COVID. What are their demographics, compared to the larger demographics of the unvaccinated population? And is it worth spending any effort (or White House budget paying TikTok influencers) trying to convince them to get a vaccine for an illness they have already had?

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

#357

Post by 34679 »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #234
refurb wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling the unvaccinated idiots is about as effective as calling the obese, alcoholics, people who don’t take their medication, etc, idiots. Apparently we have sympathy for people who fail to make good health choices except for the unvaccinated. Not effective at all.

If someone were struggling with alcoholism, and I offered them an FDA approved shot to remove their addiction to alcohol, I would consider them fairly stupid if they refused it. Handling diseases and addictions is a long term struggle, not similar to a one time choice at all. It is orders of magnitude easier to get a covid shot than to rid yourself of an addiction.

It's not really fair to compare a healthy person to someone "struggling with alcoholism".

If you run into a bar shouting about the dangers of consuming alcohol while promising an injection that makes a person never want to drink again, I would consider you fairly stupid.

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

#358

Post by poopypoopington »

newbamboo wrote: post #338
tzs wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a vaccine, then your risk of death is far below that of the flu (statistically). That seems worth checking. US flu deaths per year over the last 10 years ranged from 12000 to 61000, averaging 35900 [1]. That's 3.7 to 18.6 per 100k, averaging 10.9 per 100k. Weekly COVID deaths among vaccinated people is 0.1 per 100k [2]. The flu season is typically about 8 months. A weekly death rate of 0.1 per 100k over…

I get so frustrated by this stuff. Here’s where you went wrong. Your number is not based on efficacy last week. It’s cumulative! The vaccine efficacy wanes. For those who get a vaccine 8 months ago, it’s almost worthless now. The worst part of you logic, you lump all risk groups together! A 90 year old is not a 20 year old. Argh! People have been doing this, even public health people, since the beginning of the pande…

How are you going to get frustrated and then make wild claims with 0 evidence?

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

#359

Post by mactrey »

newbamboo wrote: post #338
tzs wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a vaccine, then your risk of death is far below that of the flu (statistically). That seems worth checking. US flu deaths per year over the last 10 years ranged from 12000 to 61000, averaging 35900 [1]. That's 3.7 to 18.6 per 100k, averaging 10.9 per 100k. Weekly COVID deaths among vaccinated people is 0.1 per 100k [2]. The flu season is typically about 8 months. A weekly death rate of 0.1 per 100k over…

I get so frustrated by this stuff. Here’s where you went wrong. Your number is not based on efficacy last week. It’s cumulative! The vaccine efficacy wanes. For those who get a vaccine 8 months ago, it’s almost worthless now. The worst part of you logic, you lump all risk groups together! A 90 year old is not a 20 year old. Argh! People have been doing this, even public health people, since the beginning of the pande…

Er, so can you show any numbers to the effect that Covid is deadlier than the flu among some Covid-vaccinated subpopulation? Even if it's true that Covid "scales" (becomes deadlier) as a function of age more steeply than influenza does, it's not clear to me that Covid is deadlier in any single age group.

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

#360

Post by adolph »

ufo wrote: post #307
adolph wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they going to model efficacy if child mortality is very low already?

I think the first efficacy data is going to be about preventing infections. Data about preventing deaths will take longer to obtain.

Infections in a world where asymptotic spread is possible seems tough to measure. Are infections measured by symptoms such as cough, fever, etc, or by enough virus replication to shed or expel viral enough material to infect others?
Post reply on HN