Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help • Hacker News Board

Re: Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help

#51

Post by volker48 » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

supermatt wrote: post #29

Why would the antibodies be more effective after 3 shots than 2? Shouldn't they be the same/similar antibodies? Is it more a case of the 3rd dose being more recent than the 2nd dose was for participants so there are more present? If so, why are we talking about number of vaccines instead of recency of vaccination?

Many vaccines have multiple doses. DTaP for example is 5 shots and Polio is 4. They are also normally spread out much farther than the 3 or 4 weeks the COVID vaccines are separated. Other vaccines are more like 6 months to years apart.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolesc...

Re: Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help

#52

Post by JPKab » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #14

JPKab wrote: post #3

Less virulent, less dangerous than delta by far, according to the South African medical authorities who first identified and reported it. It's been a long established medical fact that viruses evolve to become less severe over time, due to selective pressures of being able to spread easier if you don't incapacitate your host. Micheal Crichton's Andromeda Strain featured this as a key plot point, written in the 70s. F…

> It's been a long established medical fact that viruses evolve to become less severe over time, Is it? The evolutionary pressure is only that reproductive success, succeeds. A virus that spreads better, well, spreads more. There is no real reason why COVID-19 would have to get less severe to be more successful, as most transmission is pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic already. If the host is more likely or less likely…

Could you please cite a source that says most transmission is pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic? Is that new with the delta variant? The studies I've seen have more recently concluded that asymptomatic transmission is far lower than previously thought. Although it probably doesn't matter, since the plurality of symptomatic people below the age of 55 are going to have symptoms hard to distinguish from a cold.

Regardless, you make a fair point, but for a virus to kill you, it's going to be more severe in earlier phases, and less likely to be transmitted by a person in a bed than one walking around. Sure, they might have spread while they were walking around, but the proportion of time they are infected and mobile (higher spread) is lower than if the virus is milder.

Covid hawks seem to have only one answer for all news items: be more afraid, lock down more. It's tiring, and reminds me of the right-wing equivalent after 9/11: Everything was terror, or potential terror, and you need to be afraid, and if you aren't afraid, it's because you are unpatriotic, stupid, or both.

Re: Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help

#53

Post by JPKab » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

dombesz wrote: post #8

JPKab wrote: post #3

Less virulent, less dangerous than delta by far, according to the South African medical authorities who first identified and reported it. It's been a long established medical fact that viruses evolve to become less severe over time, due to selective pressures of being able to spread easier if you don't incapacitate your host. Micheal Crichton's Andromeda Strain featured this as a key plot point, written in the 70s. F…

100% agree with you. If it turns out that it’s so much less deadly than the other strains, we should definitely be positive about it and stop the fear mongering. But all you can hear these days, is that how so much contagious Omicron is, without mentioning the chance of being a lot less harmful. This biased representation in the news turns me into being a skeptic of all the media outlets, regardless of their politica…

I stopped trusting the media's reporting on covid when it became blatantly obvious that they were completely ignoring and obfuscating the risk stratification by age. It was clear to me that they were motivated to do this by elevating the desire to influence the behavior of the public over the duty to inform them with the actual facts.

They cynically assumed, just like the public health authorities did, that if the average Joe didn't personally feel at risk, they wouldn't change their behavior and would cause high-risk/elderly people to die out of negligence. Academics, I've noticed in my career working with them, are far more prone to view the public in this way. I'm sure a few of that variety will respond to this and tell me that yes, they can't be trusted.

Re: Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help

#54

Post by JPKab » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

yostrovs wrote: post #31

rsynnott wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But all you can hear these days, is that how so much contagious Omicron is, without mentioning the chance of being a lot less harmful. We _know_ that it's spreading very quickly (there is some legitimate question over how much of this is inherent spreading ability vs immunity evasion). The idea that it's "a lot less harmful" is largely speculative; there just isn't the data to say that right now. Now, it may emerge…

Judging by the response of the authorities, the new strain is highly dangerous. There's a lot of panicking going on.

You are judging a response that is motivated by "abundance of caution" with zero limiting principle. They don't trust the South African data (in my opinion this is old fashioned bigotry by rich governments towards government agencies they view as being inferior in poorer countries) even though everything the South Africans has said for weeks has turned out be correct.

Bureaucrats aren't incentivized to do anything but minimize their own risk, with no regard to other factors like creating a panic.

It was blatantly obvious to those of us who give a shit about India (not the myopic, inward focused US media) in February that the delta variant was horribly dangerous based on what the doctors in India were saying. But in South Africa, we're ignoring their doctors and pretending like we're superior, and are the only ones capable of collecting and analyzing data in Excel.

My prediction:

Omicron will turn out to not increase hospitalizations (only cases, which don't really matter anymore with 90% of senior citizens being vaccinated), the media will focus on the cases, and the percentage of people who think the authorities/media are untrustworthy will go up even more than it already has. This is really really bad. I live in a county in Colorado with a mask mandate. It's a suburban, blue county. Heavily blue. And the mask mandate is universally ignored. That wasn't happening earlier in 2021. It is now, and it's very noticeable. They don't trust the authorities anymore, and this will make that worse.

Re: Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help

#55

Post by JPKab » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #44

yostrovs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by the response of the authorities, the new strain is highly dangerous. There's a lot of panicking going on.

The authorities don't have any special secret knowledge here; they're responding to the (reasonably likely) possibility that it's as dangerous as Delta but will spread much more easily. Honestly, given the rate of spread, even if it had half the hospitalization risk of Delta it's _still_ terrifying.

What's the hospitalization rate of delta in the vaccinated? It's pretty low.

At this point, the vast majority of the unvaxxed are younger, lower risk people. The high risk people who aren't vaxxed (fucking idiots) are now highly treatable. We've got at least two, but a third coming soon, potent treatment options that radically reduce hospitalization. The new Pfizer pill is a true game changer, and we already have the monoclonal ABs.

It doesn't appear that the public health authorities or the media are updating their policies based on these new realities. 90% of the people most at risk are vaxxed, and for those who are hospitalized (vaxxed or not) we now have treatments shown in clinical trials to further reduce hospitalization rates by roughly 88-90%. Translation: the hospitals aren't going to get overwhelmed anymore.

Science won, even with a sizable chunk of the populace not wanting the vaccine. People can debate the moral hazard of treating unvaxxed with these new therapeutics, but that's a moral argument, not a practical one. Give them the pill or the infusion, keep them out of an ICU bed, and wag your finger at them later. This pandemic is over, and the fear needs to go with it.

Re: Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help

#56

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

yostrovs wrote: post #31

rsynnott wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But all you can hear these days, is that how so much contagious Omicron is, without mentioning the chance of being a lot less harmful. We _know_ that it's spreading very quickly (there is some legitimate question over how much of this is inherent spreading ability vs immunity evasion). The idea that it's "a lot less harmful" is largely speculative; there just isn't the data to say that right now. Now, it may emerge…

Judging by the response of the authorities, the new strain is highly dangerous. There's a lot of panicking going on.

There isn't really a choice for such a fast spreading virus. If you wait until you are certain it is dangerous the response will be too late.

Re: Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help

#57

Post by rsynnott » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #55

rsynnott wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The authorities don't have any special secret knowledge here; they're responding to the (reasonably likely) possibility that it's as dangerous as Delta but will spread much more easily. Honestly, given the rate of spread, even if it had half the hospitalization risk of Delta it's _still_ terrifying.

What's the hospitalization rate of delta in the vaccinated? It's pretty low. At this point, the vast majority of the unvaxxed are younger, lower risk people. The high risk people who aren't vaxxed (fucking idiots) are now highly treatable. We've got at least two, but a third coming soon, potent treatment options that radically reduce hospitalization. The new Pfizer pill is a true game changer, and we already have the…

The pills won't be available in large quantities for a couple of months.

In countries with high vaccination rates, most ICU beds are now occupied by youngish, largely unvaccinated people. In Ireland, for instance, 60% of covid patients in ICU over the last 5 months have been under 65, and this is _growing_. They have a decent survival rate, but they're still taking up ICU beds, and the pandemic isn't over until they stop doing that.

The pills _may_, if they work as advertised, be the point where we can just stop caring about unvaccinated people. But there are another couple of months to go, even assuming they work as well as expected.

(Also, I think there's at least a decent risk that many anti-vaxers will just refuse to take the pill anyway)

Re: Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help

#58

Post by Amezarak » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #26

Amezarak wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been skeptical that antibodies are a good proxy for vaccine effectiveness. Your immune system "remembers" how to create antibodies, and there's no clear reason why it would continue to produce them after an infection has been eradicated. So I would expect antibody levels to always drop off naturally over time until your next exposure (or vaccine) with little or no impact on actual effectiveness, regardless of…

This is the reason for the split between getting sick and having a severe case. In pandemic conditions, having antibodies present is desirable means you’re less likely to spread it to someone else because the virus doesn’t have time to replicate much before your immune system fights it off.

How much are antibodies present in your sinuses versus your bloodstream or various organs? My layman education here would suggest that antibodies are not really a big factor with the initial infection and spread, only when someone develops a serious infection and is sick enough they probably aren't walking around willy-nilly in public anyway. So that would explain why the vaccine protects against serious illness, but is less helpful in preventing infection and spread.

[EDIT: A quick google suggests that, fascinatingly, the mucosal system in your sinuses apparently has its own independent antibody development and production. The vaccines apparently don't trigger antibody production in your sinuses.]

Similarly, it might be beneficial if we could train this initial immune response better. I am not sure how it works. I know that despite extreme and very prolonged exposure to a very sick Covid-19 victim, I was unable to test positive for Covid and didn't have antibodies.

Re: Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help

#59

Post by JPKab » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:13 AM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #16

vpavicic wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, the SA population is quite young and we are waiting for more data to come in on the effects of omicron (says so in the link you provided as well)... let's not forget we dismissed the whole virus as "just a common cold" at the beginning of the whole story as well. The problem with letting others deal with their consequences is that they are overworking the medical staff, and are disregarding the po…

> the SA population is quite young Quite young, and quite highly likely to already have had COVID-19: over 3/4 of the population has had it. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-18/deaths-da...

Isn't this the case in the US, but in a slightly different manner? We're talking about a majority of adults being vaccinated, and then according to seroprevalence tracking over time, it's estimated that a large percentage of the population (both vaxxed and unvaxxed) have already recovered from an infection as well. But there is one delta on top of the age difference: We have a high rate of obesity, and the latest research shows that adipose tissue contributes to bad outcomes due to the virus infecting it and the cells then being a potent source of cytokines that dramatically and dangerously increase inflammation.

The great irony is that as much as we focus (rightly) on unvaxxed clogging the healthcare system, the obese who have been increasingly clogging it over the last few decades are the ones clogging the ICUs when they catch covid. All for a chronic condition that, for most, can be alleviated with voluntary lifestyle changes.

Re: Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help

#60

Post by JPKab » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:23 AM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #19

JPKab wrote: post #3

Less virulent, less dangerous than delta by far, according to the South African medical authorities who first identified and reported it. It's been a long established medical fact that viruses evolve to become less severe over time, due to selective pressures of being able to spread easier if you don't incapacitate your host. Micheal Crichton's Andromeda Strain featured this as a key plot point, written in the 70s. F…

> We have a few treatments that are highly effective, including monoclonal AB and the new Pfizer pill Monoclonal antibodies are not highly effective and Paxlovid is not FDA approved yet (oe EUA”d). > Let the rest deal with their consequences Let me fix this for you: let all of us deal with their consequences.

Where did you get the idea that monoclonal antibodies aren't highly effective? Do you have any data to back this up? They are an FDA approved, clinically proven first-line treatment for anyone with symptoms showing them at risk of hospitalization.

Your statement is misinformation, scientifically inaccurate, and irresponsible. You are painting a scientifically proven and life-saving therapuetic as "not highly effective" when the data shows it absolutely is.

Here's a quote from a peer reviewed study in a little blog called the New England Journal of Medicine. Maybe you've heard of it?

"A total of 3 of 291 patients in the sotrovimab group (1%), as compared with 21 of 292 patients in the placebo group (7%), had disease progression leading to hospitalization (for >24 hours) for any cause or death (relative risk reduction, 85%; 97.24% confidence interval [CI], 44 to 96; P=0.002) (Table 2). The primary reasons for the 24 hospitalizations were consistent with progressive Covid-19 (Table 3), with one probable exception: 1 patient in the sotrovimab group who had a notable medical history of small-intestinal obstruction presented 22 days after infusion with a small-intestinal obstruction."

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107934?query=fe...

Hope you will stop spreading misinformation. It's not acceptable when people shit on the vaccines due to their right wing partisan echo chamber induced ignorance, and it's not helpful when people shit on effective treatments due to their left wing partisan echo chamber induced ignorance.