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

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#321

Post by micromacrofoot » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

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…

We need to be able to predict the hospitalization rate to be prepared for surges, so tracking transmission is absolutely necessary. Perhaps after a long period of low hospitalizations (6 months, a year?) the general public can stop paying attention... but we're definitely not there yet.

It's looking like high double and triple vaccination rates can do it (like 80%+), but that's starting to look impossible in some countries.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#322

Post by Auracle » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #220

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.

> Delta now, which the original jab wasn't designed for. Current vaccines have still been "highly effective" against Delta, so I think that's why this hasn't been done: there's no point in using the big guns now when the existing weapon works well, and you might really need the big gun soon (and you can't know when). So it's better to keep it in reserve. The question now is, is Omicron "it" ?

(Fairly) effective at preventing serious disease/hospitalization. It seems to me the original plan on the vaccines was to reduce r0 below 1 in the population as a whole, but when Delta came along we changed the metrics the vaccines were to be judged by.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#323

Post by seoaeu » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

podgaj wrote: post #273

jptech wrote: post #149

I bet they had leaked this article to Wall st. yesterday and that's why we saw the markets rise sharply.

The intense antagonism towards any criticism of the reality of corporate collusion with the news media and Wall Street on HN leaves me confused and depressed. The moment to have any critique against capitalism there is an invisible vocieless army of downvoters to suppress any chance for reality to invade the bubble of libertarianism on here. I get it, this is hosted on a capitalist funding platform, just do not prete…

It isn’t criticism. The comment is unsourced speculation. The stock market moves up and down all the time, so there are tons of other explanations for what happened yesterday and there was no effort to rule them out

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#324

Post by mafuy » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

tppiotrowski wrote: post #112

From reading this article I understood that they drew serum (blood plasma?) from 2 or 3 shot recipients and introduced a similar virus to COVID (pseudo virus?) into the serum because a pseudo virus acts similar but is less dangerous (contagious?) and then I’m not sure if they looked at amount of white blood cells produced. Would love for someone more familiar with the topic to give a layman’s interpretation.

A virus is introduced just to see if/how much it gets attacked. This correlates with the efficiency against the real virus, inside a human. It has nothing to do with the introduced virus being more or less contagious.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#325

Post by gaoshan » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

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…

This is a good point. Hospitalization and death are really all that matter. People will be getting sick (to lesser degrees, likely, but it will still happen) from this for generations to come. What really matters is whether or not you are sick in bed at home and missing a few days of work vs sick in the hospital, occupying emergency health resources and facing potential death.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#326

Post by peter422 » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #299

peter422 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is little evidence right now that immunity through a natural infection is better than immunity from a vaccine. Given the strains circulating now I don’t think your concern is valid. Vaccines are better and less risky than having your naive immune system deal with covid. Maybe that will change with a future strain (though I’d bet against it), but it isn’t the case now.

> There is little evidence right now that immunity through a natural infection is better than immunity from a vaccine. This is a very strong claim to make without any evidence or proof. To the contrary, there is strong evidence that natural infection brings considerably better immunity than any vaccination does. [0] Study analyzed: > 2.5 million people in Israel, spanning March 1st 2020 to August 14th 2021. Full stud…

There is a more recent U.S. study [1], which comes to a different conclusion, and neither of these studies take into account boosters (or a longer delay between shots), which by all accounts improves vaccine effectiveness by ~10x.

Being vaccinated and then boosted offers as worst equal protection, probably better, against infection and disease, with much much lower risk of side effects, serious disease, long covid or death.

1: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/pdfs/mm7044e1-H.pdf

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#327

Post by hef19898 » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

twofornone wrote: post #274

hef19898 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, maybe not. It is clear, even to someone with zero background in vaccines, that the COVID vaccines are no resulting in sterilizing immunity. Everyone said as much since the first trials. What does this mean? IMHO it means that once we reached sufficient levels of vaccinations (no idea what that would be, definitely above 70%) COVID will be nothing more than a severe flue / cold for most of the population, if th…

It was already on the scale of a cold approximately for some 90%+ of people. This virus is mild or asymptomatic in the vast majority of cases and that has been apparent for a long time. The only possible justification for vaccines at this point is to minimize overloading of hospitals because of the contagious nature of the virus, the overall complication rate is still very low. >anti-vaxxers (among a lot of things wi…

I am not aware of a common cold that resulted in hospitals being overloaded to the point planned surgery needed to be postponed. Severe cases maybe a rather small percentage, yet in absolute numbers they are big enough to be real problem.

Well, if I were an anti-vaxxer, why would being called one be a slander? Either I am one or not. And yes, they are conspiracy theorists, even worse they are of becoming even more radical every day.

But thanks for showing again the main problem I have with them: pure egoism. Covid wont be an issue for me (singing in the dark, lalala), so screw everyone else.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#328

Post by detaro » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

4ggr0 wrote: post #318

detaro wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's something like 20 or 25, so really trivial to hit for any genuine user. (Although it's possible there is some weighting going on, so maybe new accounts get less flagging power or something like that)

Nope, I have 213 karma and the only thing I can do is upvote comments.

Can you flag submissions?

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#329

Post by jrk » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

podgaj wrote: post #225

podgaj wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They did not use the exact same mRNA sequence: https://github.com/NAalytics/Assemblies-of-putative-SARS-CoV...

The different doses were guesses made to balance effectiveness with severity of side effects. (Earlier Moderna trials, at least, had included even higher doses, which could cause pretty severe side effects.) Their choices had to be locked in early, based on very limited preliminary trial data, in order to run their phase 3 trials as quickly as possible, to actually bring the vaccines to market quickly in 2020. They just made somewhat different bets. I think it's as simple as that.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#330

Post by jaspax » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

mitchdoogle wrote: post #304

listless wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We get flu vaccine every year, what's wrong with getting vaccinated forever?

Who's "we"?

I don't intend any hostility here. But I have never gotten a flu vaccine in my life, and it seems deeply silly to me to get a yearly shot just to cut down on the chance of mild illness. A quick poll of my acquaintances reveals that almost no one in my social circle gets flu shots, either. This makes me wonder whether the antagonism to mandatory COVID boosters is just an intensification of an existing divide between people who already get yearly jabs and people who don't, a divide which was mostly unobserved until now because it wasn't politically relevant.

(Minor grammatical edits.)