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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

#261

Post by pseudalopex »

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?

The article's main point was 3 doses of the original vaccine is more effective than 2 for omicron. They expect to have an omicron vaccine available by March if 3 doses of the original vaccine isn't enough.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#262

Post by hammock »

pseudalopex wrote: post #211
hammock wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a good reason that they haven't updated their vaccine for Delta, which has been out for much longer than 3 months? Over 99% of cases in the US are Delta now, which the original jab wasn't designed for.

Boosting with the original vaccine was effective for delta.

We do have a Delta-specific jab though that has gone through trials. Why not release it for sale? Just to save the government money on all the older jobs they already bought and haven't used?

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#264

Post by johnvaluk »

listless wrote: post #206
nostrebored wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This has always been my fear. I'm vaccinated (Moderna) and got COVID in September. I recovered quickly - about 3 days. But I'm worried that my body did not get to have a proper immune response and that as such, I'll have to continue get vaccinated forever whereas if I had just gotten COVID without the vaccine maybe I would be set. But I haven't found _much_ data to back up this concern.

I got vaccinated because I didn't want to die from COVID. I'm okay with getting an annual booster, as I am with getting an annual flu vaccine. The risks of not getting vaccinated were too high for me to accept.

I'm still interested in how resistance to the disease emerges in the unvaccinated population. It will help to inform our response to the next pandemic.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#265

Post by phkahler »

hamburglar1 wrote: post #239

Is there a comprehensive white-paper anywhere with sample sizes and error bars? Otherwise this seems like an anecdote. "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" How do we know this study isn't just measuring the effect of that additional week? Also how many subjects was this sera pulled from? Are…

>> Is there a comprehensive white-paper anywhere with sample sizes and error bars? Otherwise this seems like an anecdote.

It's marketing. When the vaccine effectiveness is waning the solution seems to be more of it

If it only took 2 days to create the vaccine, why do they not have an updated one? Is there another in development that targets more than just the spike protein? Why is the entire defense that vaccine?

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#267

Post by lordlimecat »

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.

In the case of the mRNA vaccines (e.g. Pfizer) it is the spike protein targeted, and that has a hard time effectively mutating because most changes to it make it less infectious. Other aspects of the virus may change but the spike so far has been relatively stable.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#268

Post by swayvil »

robotmay wrote: post #192
swayvil wrote: post #168

Now they want us to take the vax every 9 months forever. The pharmacorps have become our landlords. Which is the whole point of course.

Ignoring that the vaccines are free to the individual and therefore not at all similar to a landlord/tenant relationship, you always have the option of not taking it and dying, which is a cool loophole that gets you out of the implied contract. Life hack.

Pfizer's reaping 33billion on vax alone this year. Three guesses where that money comes from.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#269

Post by outime »

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…

In many countries where vaccination rates are very high (think of Spain, Portugal...) the infection cases have been increasing yet people in the hospital or deaths caused by/with the virus have been rather low. Attribute it to vaccines, natural immunity, a potentially weaker variant - or everything at the same time but my point is: I agree with you, at least when it comes to these highly-vaccinated countries.

I wish we would just stop looking at infection rates as it's never going to change as long as the virus exists (and continues to mutate) and/or a sterilizing vaccine of sorts shows up and people take it.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#270

Post by packetlost »

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…

Not an immunology expert, but the focus on antibody titers seems to reek of corporate conflict of interest. It's pretty well understood that antibodies will break down and mostly fall to undetectable levels after a few months of an infection (in most cases, and in individuals who actually produce antibodies, not everyone will such as immune-compromised people) , but there's a huge financial incentive for vaccine producers to focus on these studies because it paints the picture that people need continuous boosters for protection. That being said, it's harder to detect other forms of immunity such as memory T and B cells, so it's not like the studies are completely disingenuous, it's just easier to do the studies that way.

At this point in the pandemic, I think full immunity shouldn't be the goal for most individuals. COVID and it's variants are never going away, so unless you are high risk, live with someone who is high risk, or travel a lot, the first round of vaccinations should be good enough to prevent serious illness in most individuals for a long time, at least until a variant that changes the spike protein enough comes around. At which point, to my understanding, the efficacy of most vaccines will drop significantly below natural infection, as most target specific protein structures on the virus capsid (in this case, the "spike protein").

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