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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

#551

Post by ifyoubuildit »

dahart wrote: post #542
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be relevant to your question: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

Do you believe this is what parent was referring to? I must assume not because they used the word “authoritarian”, which implies they’re complaining about minority groups imposing their will on the majority. Do you believe that Tyranny of the Majority is a valid concern with the vaccine mandates? Which minority groups are being oppressed?

I can't speak for parent, I'll leave that to them. I just meant to show evidence that because something is approved by the majority doesn't disqualify it from being tyrannical.

Personally, I don't see why it wouldn't be a concern with the mandates, but I think this conversation has already been repeated by others ad nauseum:

I say bodily autonomy, you might say we mandate all sorts of vaccines, I say these aren't those vaccines, you might say well they're safe and effective, and I say talk to me in 5 or 10 years when we have long term data, and you might say well we've never linked adverse effects to previous vaccines after n days, to which I'd say good luck actually finding those impacts if they do exist and again these aren't those vaccines, and we eventually arrive at a difference in beliefs/biases and an impasse.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#552

Post by CountDrewku »

brandon272 wrote: post #390
hef19898 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And case numbers are the best metric we have to predict deaths and hospitalization. Together with vaccination rates, age and so on. But overall, if cases go up, hospitalization will go up a couple of weeks later. Why would we not use that to enable to us act instead of reacting once it's too late?

Exactly. Case numbers are not meaningless. They are a leading indicator. People unexpectedly showing up to hospitals is a lagging indicator of disease prevalence.

They are not a meaningful indicator in less virulent strains. At some point you will HAVE to accept risk. COVID is not disappearing.

The next step is allowing law enforcement to force vaccinate people. Is that what you want? Do you want to continue masking, vaccine boosting, locking down indefinitely? COVID will not be eradicated so what threshold do we need to meet for this response to stop and let everyone return to normality?

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#553

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

peter422 wrote: post #430
beerandt wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an unbelievably poorly designed study, for many reasons. It basically says unvaccinated people who are already or recently sick (with any "covid-like" symptoms) are more likely to go to the hospital once they catch covid (vs vaccinated). (Duh.) Worse, it presumes any of those sick people with respiratory symptoms had natural immunity to covid without any confirmation. So it's not comparing natural immunity to…

Your interpretation of the study is wrong (and probably shows your internal bias in this matter). I’m not suggesting it is a perfect study, but the methodology makes sense. The point is that if somebody gets hospitalized for covid-like sickness, then they’ll be hospitalized (and trackable), and they hope that is a stable cohort. So you start with hospitalized patients with covid-like symptoms, then look among them an…

You start out by saying their interpretation is wrong, but their interpretation is that it:

> presumes any of those sick people with respiratory symptoms had natural immunity to covid without any confirmation.

This is an accurate statement to make about the study. Until you can effectively prove somehow this is not the case, it's only you who

> shows your internal bias in this matter

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#554

Post by CountDrewku »

nope96 wrote: post #501
ostenning wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No its not fine because not everyone reacts well to these vaccines. I know numerous people, including myself, that have had crippling heart inflammation after their second dose. I can apply for an exemption but ultimately that does little for what rights I am afforded. People are being left behind, and its not okay.

And I know people who died from Covid, who'd be alive today if they'd took the vaccine.

The difference here is no one is forcing you NOT to take the vaccine.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#555

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

jerf wrote: post #362
mentat wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Remain obsessed" with transmission of a highly contagious virus that has shown significant ability to mutate at scale? That sure seems worth being obsessed about. When it mutates to spread past all current defenses then consistently kill because we failed to stop current spread it will indeed be "depressing".

"a highly contagious virus that has shown significant ability to mutate at scale" That doesn't uniquely describe COVID. It describes pretty much every virus you have heard of. The gradient for viruses trends strongly towards trading severity for contagiousness. They do not generally "mutate past all defenses and kill", the generally "mutate past defenses and give slight to non-existent symptoms", for several reasons,…

> And viruses have no particular interests in making you ill... they want to spread.

To restate this without the teleological angle: virus will not become widespread unless they are easily transmitted, and they are not easily transmitted if they make the subject excessively ill. Ergo, the most common viruses are better at being transmitted than making people really ill.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#556

Post by q1w2 »

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…

This is the meat in the meat...

> Neutralization against the Omicron variant after three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was comparable to the neutralization against the wild-type strain observed in sera from individuals who received two doses

This means that the vaccine is still effective - but very clearly LESS effective than it was against earlier variants.

We need UPDATED booster shots each year. The new normal will be boosters every year as we have with the flu.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#557

Post by boc »

bavell wrote: post #397
ohyes wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had the vaccine so you recovered quickly, if you didn’t have the vaccine you might not have recovered and needed hospitalization. I mean, the alternative where you don’t get the vaccine includes much higher risk of lung damage, nervous system damage and total organ failure. I think even if there was data to back this up (that somehow vaccine gives less protection than a real infection…), getting a booster every y…

> I don’t think that your model of how vaccines work really makes sense. I believe OP is referencing "Original antigenic sin" [0]. "This leaves the immune system "trapped" by the first response it has made to each antigen, and unable to mount potentially more effective responses during subsequent infections." [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin

If this was true vaccines would be ineffective against Delta and other mutated variants, but it turns out the vast, vast majority of cases that are severe or result in death are among the unvaccinated.

This is just bad science and isn't supported by real-world outcomes.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#558

Post by ohyes »

fluidcruft wrote: post #544
sjg007 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t make sense. If the infection continues the immune system will generate new antibodies and responses. After all it’s a new thing not seen before.

The linked article both describes the mechanism and has plenty of recent references observing and studying the effect whether or not you think it makes sense. The general mechanism is that recognition of the antigen by memory B cells produces a response that also inhibits (non-memory) B cells from reacting to the antigen. So when the antigen has drifted enough that memory B cells still recognize it, but the antibodie…

So, down the line, you might be more susceptible to a similar mutation. (Based on no hard evidence for this particular virus).

(Social media reports aren’t exactly reliable and everything seems to indicate that your chances of serious complications are worse without a vaccine).

Right now, there’s a deadly virus going around and there might not be a “later” for me if I don’t get the vaccine. I think I’ll take my chances with the vaccine. It seems like a no brainer to me.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#559

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ptaipale wrote: post #422
jerf wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a highly contagious virus that has shown significant ability to mutate at scale" That doesn't uniquely describe COVID. It describes pretty much every virus you have heard of. The gradient for viruses trends strongly towards trading severity for contagiousness. They do not generally "mutate past all defenses and kill", the generally "mutate past defenses and give slight to non-existent symptoms", for several reasons,…

This theory of "killing means they can't spread anymore" doesn't really work out with diseases like sars-cov2. It might have worked in a medieval world where people travel by foot, horseback or sailboat, and with a disease where the carrier stays contagious forever. But we are in a modern world where travel around the globe happens in 24 hours. Covid is contagious for some time before the patient has any symptoms, an…

A virus that kills the patient will still infect less people than one that doesn't.

The fact that viruses in general can spread more widely and more qiuckly doesn't change this.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#560

Post by junon »

swader999 wrote: post #457
junon wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it reduces spread and thus reduces the chance of mutations becoming dominant. The vaccine is not only about protecting the individual.

It doesn't reduce spread in a significant enough amount to make a difference. This seems especially true with Omicron and the spread through vaccinated air travellers. It encourages mutating variants to escape/prevail because it reduces severity so you are more likely to function socially and keep spreading it.

> It doesn't reduce spread in a significant enough amount to make a difference

Yes, it does.

> This seems especially true with Omicron and the spread through vaccinated air travellers.

Nobody knows yet. We don't have enough data. Anyone who says something definitive about Omicron is either basing it off of a small amount of early data, or is lying to you. Things like infection rate, hospitalization and death are all lagging indicators. We do not have enough data to make such assertions yet.

> It encourages mutating variants to escape/prevail because it reduces severity so you are more likely to function socially and keep spreading it.

This we agree on - which is why vaccination is so important. It does reduce spread. Not sure where you got the idea it does not.

---

E (to the person who responded to me): Your response was flagged and dead before I even came back to look, so it wasn't me. Nice try calling me "cowardly" though.

The vaccine does reduce spread of the virus(es) it is made for. That statement had little to do with omicron.

My second point about assertions still stands. I don't think my comment was that hard to decipher, and certainly didn't warrant calling me names.

Being purposefully obtuse about relatively simple concepts is generally not well received on HN. Perhaps that's why you were immediately flagged.

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