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Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

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Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#131

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

nsxwolf wrote: post #128

Why haven’t they updated the vaccine? I thought one of the major benefits of this technology was the ease with which you can modify them.

Pfizer are on it (1). They estimate that it takes around 3 months. Which actually is really easy.

And the others are following suit in similar timeframes (2)

The hard part is deciding if this variant is the one that you're going to vaccinate against for a year or more. That takes data, which also takes time.

1) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/26/biontech-say...

2) https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/omicron-oxford-covid-a...

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#132

Post by gonehome »

disambiguation wrote: post #73

I have a few relatives in the medical field (all vaxxed and boosted) that have explained the booster shot is just more of the same stuff - they haven't had time to make a new recipe.. so isn't this just the same study all over again? i.e 2 shots had high protection in the beginning and waned over time. Can we expect the same from the booster shot?

I think immune response doesn’t necessarily work that way. It’s possible the third shot could improve immunity for a longer time frame of 1-3yrs.

I think I read there is also a new omicron specific mRNA vaccine in the works too.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#133

Post by _Understated_ »

mminer237 wrote: post #109
_Understated_ wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not. Taking the last available data point which is 24 Sep 21: Unvax 80+ - 28 deaths Double-vax 80+ - 243 deaths What does that mean? It lools like more die with a double-dose. Is that not correct?

You are not. Slightly more vaccinated people died than unvaccinated. However, not from COVID-19. The elderly are more likely to be vaccinated and also more likely to die of heart disease or cancer. You'll note in Table 8 that 34k unvaccinated died of COVID, compared to 14k vaccinated. Also, 83% of people are vaccinated, meaning the unvaccinated would have had to have died at even greater rates, at over 900% the rate…

Ok, so that makes some sense to me. Thanks for explaining it.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#134

Post by funcDropShadow »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #81
1cvmask wrote: post #2

This is the scientific meat of the press release where it claims a 25 times neutralizing antibody titers against the Omicron strain with a third dose of Pfizer-BionTech: The sera were collected from subjects 3 weeks after receiving the second dose or one month after receiving the third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Each serum was tested simultaneously for its neutralizing antibody titer against the wi…

The real question is how this translates to actual protection against serious disease. These increased responses sound impressive but, beyond some threshold, additional response offers only negligibly better protection. Do we know what those thresholds are?

No, at least to Christian Drosten [1], he explained multiple times in his podcast, that it is quite hard to compare antibody titers from different laboratories and therefore it is hard to define general safe thresholds.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Drosten

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#135

Post by swayvil »

Pfizer and Biontech provide update on their big fat bank accounts, more like.

Taking the opiates-vs-weed situation as a model, keep a lookout for somebody trying to acquire a piece of that sweet vax pie.

(Flagged? Seriously? You can stick that flag where the sun doesn't shine)

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#136

Post by bufferoverflow »

altacc wrote: post #102
mwint wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, does anyone believe we’ll get back to normalcy? What’s the path?

Personally I think the path is countries which have a high vaccination level need to stop implementing restrictions whilst making mitigations such as increasing healthcare capacity (which they should have done 18 months ago but many didn't), paying for rapid testing, enabling PTO for people who think they are sick, sensible mask mandates, etc... These countries need to lead the way to accepting we've waited for vacci…

None of what you described is a path to normalcy. We've been doing it for over a year. Look at Australia, they have concentration camps.

Vaccines don't really stop the spread of the virus, neither do they stop you from getting infected, they just reduce the symptoms and the odds of death. Which is still great, but it's not stopping the virus.

We need next level meds, real vaccines.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#137

Post by politician »

efficax wrote: post #44
neither_color wrote: post #11

It's not deadly enough for me to consider a booster, I'll pass on this supplementary shot https://www.marketwatch.com/story/who-has-not-seen-any-repor...

Omicron isn't the only variant or even the dominate one outside of South Africa. If you've already gotten the initial doses, why wouldn't you complete your vaccination? There's only upside to it at that point

It's not at all clear that it's possible to complete this vaccination. Given the discussion around the 3rd booster shot, it seems likely that Pfizer and others are shifting the market to accept the vaccine as an annual product like the flu shot.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#138

Post by detaro »

nsxwolf wrote: post #128

Why haven’t they updated the vaccine? I thought one of the major benefits of this technology was the ease with which you can modify them.

Previously it wasn't deemed necessary (i.e. the original design was good and universal enough), for Omicron as far as I know tests are running, depending on how that goes and how countries decide to treat the regulatory part of updating it we might see an adjusted one now. (EDIT: "universal enough": we don't want a vaccine extremely optimized for a variant, but one that has a good chance to work well against other/new variants too, so there's a balance if a improvement against one variant makes it worse overall)

EDIT 2: apparently some small trials for modified variants are also running for Delta, so I guess this statement needs to be modified and it wasn't considered justified to rush out a new anti-delta variant, but testing is done so the findings can be used for upgrades.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#139

Post by [deleted] »

silent_cal wrote: post #126
unclebucknasty wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're all acting like it's an announcement from a public health authority. I think people are "acting like" it's scientific data about a vaccine of interest to the public. Are you suggesting the data is unreliable or falsified? If so, and you have a basis for that, please cite. Otherwise, it's difficult to understand why you're implying people shouldn't be interested in this information.

Yes, it's unreliable because the publisher has a massive conflict of interest. Or did you not know that Pfizer makes money when people use its shots?

[deleted]

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#140

Post by lambdaba »

drewcon wrote: post #52
neither_color wrote: post #11

It's not deadly enough for me to consider a booster, I'll pass on this supplementary shot https://www.marketwatch.com/story/who-has-not-seen-any-repor...

I’m fascinated by this thinking. Do you really want to roll the dice on an infection and long term consequences including permanent loss of smell (and taste)? If this virus killed exactly no one but it just commonly removed one of your senses…is that not motivation enough to avoid it? Additionally, I just got over a two week adenovirus infection and it absolutely sucked. Not the sickest I’ve been, but the most sympto…

For anosmia I'd just take LSD or Psilocybin: https://twitter.com/hamiltonmorris/status/135642177740093849...

Of course, these are illegal, dangerous drugs that you can't get prescribed, so you know, just find a way.

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