Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant • Hacker News Board

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#221

Post by shmatt » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

avsteele wrote: post #160

If there is an expert in immunology here I'd really like to ask a question: Aren't antibody titers just one measure of immunity? Since ~everyone with just two shots get them a while ago, and people receiving the boosters are receiving them now, wouldn't we expect must higher levels of neutralizing antibodies in boosted people? I know the number of antibodies fades over time, (whether from vaccine or infection) but th…

Hospitalization and death numbers are definitely directly connected to how long its been since you got your shot. So for now, it does not seem like the whole long immunity/T-B-cell thing is happening with Pfizer/Moderna/J&J at least

There is a very real per month affect, every month after your latest mRNA shot, your chances of getting seriously sick get a little bigger. After 6 months they get so big that scientists concluded its time for a booster. Now we wait and see, but so far things seem to be trending in the same direction, in Israel at least (so, no Moderna or J&J). Its not that we are only measuring titers. Its that vaccinated people are suddenly dying. So there seems to be no or very low memory to making more titers

Then, people get a booster, and boom, 90% lower chance of death again with high titers

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114228

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620

The veteran research which had 800,000 participants showed terrible long term results for J&J

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#222

Post by invalidusernam3 » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

soared wrote: post #186

stolenmerch wrote: post #146

If I'm reading this correctly, this is "protection against severe disease" and has little to do with transmission. The National Airport Data from Israel seems to suggest "the absolute number of infected individuals in the Vaccinated (boosted) group is likely to be at least as high as in the Unvaccinated" [0] So it seems to me that as long as we all remain obsessed with case numbers and not actual hospitalizations and…

That’s a weird way to phrase your second paragraph, considering hospitals have been close to full very recently in parts of the us. https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-utilization

Sure, but I'm willing to bet most of the hospitalised are not vaccinated, or at least a disproportionate amount of them aren't vaccinated

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#223

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

fullstop wrote: post #216

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/healthc…

How long does it take to ramp up production? I'm at 6 months and a few days since my 2nd shot. Do I get a booster now or wait a few months in hope of an updated one?

Get a booster when you can, it is worth it.

I had mine last week.

We don't know if and when there will be an omicron-specific jab, and a mRNA 3rd dose cuts your chances of bad outcome (severe illness, hospitalisation) from omicron or previous variants to a lot lower than 2 doses ever did.

https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1458020957457731585

https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1460191035531878405

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#224

Post by hef19898 » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #183

stolenmerch wrote: post #146

If I'm reading this correctly, this is "protection against severe disease" and has little to do with transmission. The National Airport Data from Israel seems to suggest "the absolute number of infected individuals in the Vaccinated (boosted) group is likely to be at least as high as in the Unvaccinated" [0] So it seems to me that as long as we all remain obsessed with case numbers and not actual hospitalizations and…

> all remain obsessed with case numbers and not actual hospitalizations and death It's a balance. E.g. Germanys current trouble is a direct consequence of official policy that had a core of "we only care about hospitalizations now", but ignored "... and based on case numbers and other statistics, what will future hospitalizations look like if we don't change anything about our approach" - not helped by election campa…

As someone who has quite some experience in running operations based on data, numbers and metrics the German approach to COVID on that front alone really puzzled me from the beginning. First the incidence of 50 that they pulled out of their ass for contact tracing, which was ignored basically the next day. Then the fact that resources weren't really increased to improve contract traceability. Then the decision to use a backward looking KPI, ICU occupation, to tackle a highly dynamic situation. Which also meant to ignore the incidence, the only real predictive metric we have. And it is good at predicting ICU occupation and severe cases when combined with vaccination levels.

That's simply amateurish, and means all measures, not all of which are bad, are usually a couple of weeks late. Even better, the 7-day average incidence is based on the daily numbers. Those numbers are, what a surprise, limited to the testing capacities of laboratories, so the incidence is reported based on the day the test was analyzed, not when the sample was taken. This flattens the 7-day average curve. Well, until the new numbers are reported once labs git through their backlog. Thing is, the 7-day average is not changed once published. Again just amateurish.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#225

Post by podgaj » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

podgaj wrote: post #188

cure wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this source https://www.statnews.com/2021/02/02/comparing-the-covid-19-v... the original Pfizer dose was 30 micrograms of vaccine, while Moderna's was 100 micrograms. If that is correct, then Moderna's booster would still be more vaccine (50 micrograms) than Pfizer's original dose. Of course more is not necessarily better!

Thinking seriously about this, I will ask, were these different dosages a work of collusion between these companies and the government because they were so unsure of the reaction and efficacy at a specific dose? Was it, in effect, a huge "clinical trial"? Between Pfizer and Moderna what is the difference other than dose? Didn't they use the same mRNA? So what was the science behind them choosing different doses? Were…

If someone could answer my question with a logical response instead of just down voting it I would appreciate it because it is a serious question I am trying to understand about the vaccines. I am debating on getting a booster but I have a risk profile that makes this more of an issue for me.

So, what was the science behind the different doses? Does anyone know if Pfizer and Moderna used different mRNA?

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#226

Post by johnchristopher » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

Slartie wrote: post #96

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…

BioNTech distributes directly in Germany for sure. Also as far as I know in all European Union countries, because they basically bulk-ordered their vaccine supply together (though the deliveries are individually split up to each country). But in the end it shouldn't matter anyway from a financial perspective, since BioNTech and Pfizer have a 50:50 split agreement on all costs and revenues related to the vaccine. That…

Is it possible to officially buy a BioNTech dose in Germany ?

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#227

Post by bildung » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

silent_cal wrote: post #170

acdha wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: you're replying to someone who recirculates propaganda from antivaxers like Alex Berenson. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29322688

Alex Berenson, unlike Pfizer, has nothing to gain from taking the journalistic stance he holds. In fact he was banned from Twitter for it. In your mind, an independent/skeptical/critical journalist is a propagandist, and Pfizer is a neutral public health authority? Time to wake up.

Berenson apparently was already caught earning money with false information about cannabis effects, and has zero medical background.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#228

Post by JamesBarney » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #158

logicchains wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting, this differs from recent results suggesting that boosting with vaccines derived from the original Wuhan variant is relatively less effective against newer variants like delta: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.12.21261952v... .

Well the problem suggested by other research is that when vaccinated people are infected with a functionally different strain they don’t appear to create new antibodies. This is consistent with other research showing that people who are vaccinated then infected are more likely to get reinfected than those who were simply infected and recovered. The alternative outlook here is that vaccinated people are more likely to…

I've been following the research closely and haven't seen this anywhere. Mind linking to the studies?

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#229

Post by Thiez » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #177

junon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Admittedly a weird way of communicating it but I think they're trying to accommodate those who are already confused. I personally think it's having the opposite effect.

I wager it's more to avoid the "what, a 3rd dose?" reaction. "Booster" is more positive than "we told you it would be immunization, but actually it's partial and limited, and you have to do it again. Woops, now again". Especially since people have been talking about a 4th dose. In the context of distrust of the pharma industry, it would be easy to have the social networks to claim pfizer is trying to become the netfl…

I strongly feel like it's the other way round. There are already diseases where we have multiple doses, like Tetanus[1]. If they said "hey, turns out we need a third and a fourth dose like with Tetanus, and then maybe a booster every 10 years" then that would be fine, and I think most people would accept that. But the word booster suggests to me they want to become (I hadn't heard the expression before, but I love it) "the Netflix of vaccine". Especially now that the EU has declared that vaccination certificates will expire 9 months after the last vaccination.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus_vaccine

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#230

Post by snovv_crash » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

silent_cal wrote: post #170

acdha wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: you're replying to someone who recirculates propaganda from antivaxers like Alex Berenson. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29322688

Alex Berenson, unlike Pfizer, has nothing to gain from taking the journalistic stance he holds. In fact he was banned from Twitter for it. In your mind, an independent/skeptical/critical journalist is a propagandist, and Pfizer is a neutral public health authority? Time to wake up.

Well, there are also a bunch of people who are by default untrusting of authority who will latch onto and give YouTube ad revenue to anybody who puts out material that matches their confirmation bias.

If Alex Berenson was saying we should all get the vaccine he would never have gathered the following he did. So don't pretend populist journalists don't have a monetary incentive to propound the material they show, either.