Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by dgfitz » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 11:33 AM UTC

random314 wrote: post #536

dgfitz wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does getting a vaccine affect a young healthy person negatively? Isn't that a reason people don't want the shot? Because they're not sure of the answer to that question. I got my 2 shots. Had to drive 1.5 hours each way both times, find someone to watch my kids and burn up 2 Saturdays that I could have spent doing something I wanted to do that wasn't getting a shot. To claim there is zero cost is insincere at b…

I am not sure which country you are in because I can walk into pharmacies and grocery stores and get a shot while shopping. Vaccine appointments were booked out early in the year in the United states. You could have just waited. The US government/pharma companies cant produce 600 million doses in a couple of weeks. For me both shots were zero cost, as for every other person I know.

I was flying all over the country for the entire lockdown period. I didn’t want to wait to get the shot.

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

#542

Post by ctrlp » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 12:46 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #471

ctrlp wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People board buses and planes once they cross the border.

Not likely planes. The most mobile people are the richest.

It's not expensive if you're not paying for it. Immigration administration flies people from the border to the interior for processing and release.[0]

"U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which turns over border crossers to ICE after arresting them, has begun flying migrants to other cities for processing and is releasing them directly into communities without going through ICE, saying their own facilities are at capacity." [1]

[0] https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/ICE-says-780-...

[1] https://apnews.com/article/us-news-ap-top-news-mi-state-wire...

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

#543

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 1:01 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #501

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you have evidence of the claim that by being regularly sick your immune system is stronger? Sure, it's run into more things it has learned to fight, but just because it knows how to fight a catalogue of things it doesn't mean that it will be better with the next novel pandemic, right?

The risk is more around autoimmune conditions like asthma and allergies. If the immune system doesn't start fighting off a variety of pathogens from an early age then it might go haywire later. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2841828/ We should be focusing on overall health rather than just individual infectious diseases.

I don't much care for the hygiene hypothesis for allergies. I grew up on an acreage with all sorts of animals. I'm allergic to all of them, so much so that my parents got my allergy shots for several years. I'm most allergic to horses, which we had a trio of. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And if it were true I'd much prefer more allergies to COVID.

Of note in that paper they are suggesting therapeutic strategies that involve controlled exposure of particular items, and how those exposures are fraught with potential dangers as well.

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

#544

Post by dgfitz » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 1:13 PM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #521

dgfitz wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The war was a direct response to 9/11, they're directly related, just like vaccines and mandates are a direct response to COVID. The country was ripped in two back then two, you just didn't hear about it as much. I understand the point you’re trying to make, but I still disagree. I was in high school when 9/11 happened, I remember it well. There was a period of time, I will admit it was on the order of 48-96 hours,…

You talk about an event that occurred over 12 hours uniting the country for a business week, and wonder why a disease that had been politicized and downplayed in contradiction to the science and what we were seeing in other countries for months before we saw significant numbers of infections in the US did not generate the same effect? Of course it didn't. I don't understand why you think it ever had the chance to. >I…

> I remember their comments. I also remember the rest of the statements they made and the context around them. And neither of them said they wouldn't get a vaccine while Trump was president - they said that they wouldn't get a vaccine if Trump was the only one saying to get it, and experts like Fauci weren't.

that is another shining example of how COVID and the vaccine were used for political manipulation. Biden and Harris should have not made the vaccine about donald fucking trump.

Their stance was bullshit and you know it. In what world are global pharma companies going to develop a brand new vaccine using relatively new technology to try and stop a global pandemic, and the only fucking person to talk about them is Trump? Nobody else will say anything until Trump does? Trump would be the first and only authority on these vaccines? That's such a crock of shit.

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

#545

Post by _-david-_ » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #522

_-david-_ wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that has proven to be incredibly safe and effective, There are no long term studies so calling it incredibly safe is misleading at best. What happens if some issues start cropping up in 5 or 10 years. >Research has not yet shown how long you are protected from getting COVID-19 again after you recover from COVID-19. So it could be longer than vaccines? Some places are already pushing for boosters since vaccine effica…

>There are no long term studies so calling it incredibly safe is misleading at best. What happens if some issues start cropping up in 5 or 10 years. Do you think this is a thing we do in general before starting to produce and distribute vaccines? If you are under that impression, I must inform you, it is not the case. We do not spend a decade watching for vaccine side effects before we begin vaccinating people, even…

I don't really care if people want to take a vaccine without knowing the long term effects. I have an issue with trying to force others to take it. If you believe it is safe then take it. If somebody doesn't then they shouldn't be required to. If you are going to force people to take a vaccine they should have all the information.

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

#546

Post by adolph » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

ufo wrote: post #519

adolph wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is a difference be determined between between vaccine enhanced immune response, normal immune response and not exposed?

The basic structure of a phase 3 vaccine efficacy trial is that you give the vaccine to half of the volunteers and placebo to the other half. Then you you wait for them to naturally be exposed to COVID. When a pre-determined number of infections is reached, the data is unblinded and they compare how many infections happened in the vaccine group vs the placebo group. If less people are infected in the vaccinated group…

The initial comment wrote:

The FDA initially wanted 2 months of data for under 12, just like adults. Then they changed their minds and wanted 6 months instead. I'm sure they had a reason, but in 70 years of vaccines, we've never had a side effect after 2 months. If they changed their minds once, they can damn well do it again and get this thing out there.

If child mortality and clinically significant infection are low, then would it not potentially take longer to see a statistically difference in a difference between vaccine and placebo subjects?

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

#547

Post by coolgeek » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

uselesscynicism wrote: post #140

sradman wrote: 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'm fairly convinced that the pharmaceutical companies want Uncle Sam to buy and mandate 350 million shots per year and that's why the boosters are being pushed and combined with flu shots, while Dear Leader figures out the best way to dictate the health choices of his subjects without so much as first having Congress vote on it.

Is this a parody account? Because you've nailed it

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

#548

Post by random314 » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

dgfitz wrote: post #541

random314 wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure which country you are in because I can walk into pharmacies and grocery stores and get a shot while shopping. Vaccine appointments were booked out early in the year in the United states. You could have just waited. The US government/pharma companies cant produce 600 million doses in a couple of weeks. For me both shots were zero cost, as for every other person I know.

I was flying all over the country for the entire lockdown period. I didn’t want to wait to get the shot.

You had a peculiar outlier situation that simply isn't true for 99% of Americans. Glad to see that you judged that the vaccine was worth spending 2 entire days on.

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

#549

Post by subsaharancoder » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

scottLobster wrote: post #260

bedhead wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

>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

Here's the letter https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jyfn4Wd2i6bRi12ePghMHtX3ys1... This quote is mind boggling "Even so, we continue to support demonstrators who are tackling the paramount public health problem of pervasive racism."

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

#550

Post by newbamboo » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

alexktz wrote: post #345

newbamboo wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> For those who get a vaccine 8 months ago, it’s almost worthless now. You need to back this claim up with data please.

We don’t have it past early midsummer yet but this[1] goes to the beginning of summer. You can extrapolate out from the trend lines. I prefer to take a conservative ie. maximally pessimistic view because of the potential for human suffering. Ymmv

[1] https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2113

““In my opinion, a reasonable worst case scenario could see protection below 50% for elderly people and healthcare workers by winter,” he said. “If there are high levels of infection in the UK, driven by loosened social restrictions and a highly transmissible variant, this scenario could mean increased hospitalisations and deaths. We urgently need to make plans for vaccine boosters and decide if a strategy to vaccinate children is sensible.””

Nothing past 6 months or so yet, but again the original British report which is discussed in the bmj article shows trend lines and it’s easy to extrapolate if you are good with charts/data.