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Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

imperial.ac.uk

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Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#111

Post by astrange »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #78
Symmetry wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you assume an unlimited supply of vaccine then the shorter dose interval gets everybody to good level of sterilizing immunity as quickly as possible.

Yep. if you need to fight against a raging pandemic, then quickly as possible (as quickly as is tested to be safe, quickly as makes a significant difference) is the over-riding concern.

That implies we thought about it in the US, but we didn't really, and our public health people seem to be completely inflexible about everything. The schedule we used for vaccines is just what was done for their trials.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#112

Post by chasil »

Retric wrote: post #34
kgwxd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not just timing? I thought the effectiveness of the vaccines only lasted around 6 months. In the US 18+ were able to get it 7 or 8 months ago.

Vaccines can last your entire lifetime, but their effectiveness decays over time it largely depends on the disease and your risk of infection. Booster shots for various vaccines have been common for example, it’s recommended people take a Tdap booster every 10 years, Tetanus every 4-6 etc. The flu vaccine is a special case as it’s changed every year.

In the original use of the vaccina virus against variola (smallpox) infection, symptomatic smallpox could present after vaccina exposoure of at least five years past.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Prevention

"Smallpox vaccination provides a high level of immunity for three to five years and decreasing immunity thereafter. If a person is vaccinated again later, the immunity lasts even longer. Studies of smallpox cases in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s demonstrated that the fatality rate among persons vaccinated less than 10 years before exposure was 1.3 percent; it was 7 percent among those vaccinated 11 to 20 years prior, and 11 percent among those vaccinated 20 or more years before infection. By contrast, 52 percent of unvaccinated persons died."

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#113

Post by twox2 »

mypalmike wrote: post #82
chiefalchemist wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the promises aren't panning out, and with each stutter step comes another heavy handed proposal (e.g., tracking, vax passports, etc.) In desperation the public has abandoned "trust but verify." Put another way, given the lessons of history, governments should be trusted less, not more. The default shouldn't not be, "Sure, whatever you say."

Governments are adapting to new information. If you expect government policy to be based on an all-knowing oracle, of course you are going to be disappointed.

Governments are not known to relinquish control once a new baseline of normal is established... so it does seem that they are adapting to new information only when it serves a certain agenda.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#114

Post by throwaway_2009 »

triactual wrote: post #75
figaroniguzo wrote: post #5

Anecdotal but I currently have Omicron. I had COVID in March 2021 and got vaccinated in September. I have no symptom except back pain.

While anecdotal data isn’t very useful, it is good to remember that people actually do get this disease. It seems like it’s always at arms length in online discussions; that someone else will get it surely, probably due to some implied moral failing, but not OP. Thanks for sharing and I hope you get better soon.

I'm not sure it's really considered a moral failing here in the UK, everyone gets it unless they're barricaded inside.

The official Government stats claim that over 15% have had a confirmed positive test at this point[1], I'd be surprised if the reality weren't over half.

Half of my friendship group currently have it (no idea whether it's Omicron or not, but, well, probably).

[1] https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk 11.2M positive tests/67M population makes 16.7%

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#115

Post by eightysixfour »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #57
eightysixfour wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen speculation that the second dose was given too quickly.

Firstly, YMMV, different people got different separations of different vaccines. The US doing Pfizer 3 weeks apart was the fastest. The UK gave out AZ and Pfizer. First at a 12 week interval, then shortened to 8 weeks The question is: too quickly for what? My understanding is that a) If the goal was optimal immunity in the longer term then yes, it might be overly quick. b) But if the goal was fighting the raging pand…

Agreed, I was only referencing a.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#116

Post by 1123581321 »

corin_ wrote: post #107
1123581321 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a valid opinion. The principle is regulatory capture and it happens when a regulatory agency isn’t competent and effective enough to remain independent in its acquisition and evaluation of knowledge. Likewise, the “capturing” is not malicious but happens when the pharmaceutical company persuasive over time, or, in extreme situations, when it appears to have the only solution. This can be exacerbated by inherent…

In the case of covid vaccines there's plenty of real world data and lots of governments, universities, etc. running different studies all the time. Pfizer would be stupid to fake some initial data because it would be very quickly found out once real world results didn't stack up. For example, this thread you're commenting in is about research from a prestigious London university which found 3 jabs provides better pro…

For sure. I don't think regulatory capture would be about faking data, rather, interpretation to the end of best improving public health (in this case) at the appropriate cost. Again, theoretically.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#117

Post by cwdegidio »

figaroniguzo wrote: post #5

Anecdotal but I currently have Omicron. I had COVID in March 2021 and got vaccinated in September. I have no symptom except back pain.

I'm fighting it right now myself. Have my initial vaccines and got my booster about a month and a half ago. First two days were terrible, but now it just feels like a cold. What I can't handle is the brain fog. I've been awake enough to do some last minute code reviews for people before we start the Christmas shutdown and they have taken me double/triple the amount of time they usually take me. Answers to questions don't come as fast, etc. I really hope the fog clears up soon, it's pretty demoralizing for me right now.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#118

Post by corin_ »

pakitan wrote: post #22
SubiculumCode wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, since the booster seems to protect, no? I am hoping that Omicron will boost immunity versus delta while being more mild. This makes me suspect that this will be the case: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/omicron-dominant-was... "Even though there have been practically no cases of clinical infection, wastewater samples show that the new omicron variant is now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the Florida…

> Well, since the booster seems to protect, no? That hasn't been proven, as far as I know. Pfizer did some in vitro study but we still have no idea if that translates to real world results.

From the article this thread is about (italics emphasis added by me):

> The researchers found a significantly increased risk of developing a symptomatic Omicron case compared to Delta for those who were two or more weeks past their second vaccine dose, and two or more weeks past their booster dose (for AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines).

> Depending on the estimates used for vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection from the Delta variant, this translates into vaccine effectiveness estimates against symptomatic Omicron infection of between 0% and 20% after two doses, and between 55% and 80% after a booster dose. Similar estimates were obtained using genotype data, albeit with greater uncertainty.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#119

Post by pa7x1 »

robbmorganf wrote: post #12

Does anyone understand why a third dose of the same vaccine improves immunity to Omicron? I'm willing to believe the empirical evidence that boosters make a meaningful difference, but I can't figure out intuitively why the same mRNA a third time helps to address this new spike.

The CEO of BioNTech said they don't know for sure but speculated that memory B cells may keep hypermutating after a third shot which could result in the improved effectiveness against Omicron. Or that's what I understood with my very rudimentary knowledge of biology.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#120

Post by spurgu »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #101
eagsalazar2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are all these studies and conversations from or led by pharma outsiders? If so can you provide any evidence of that? I mean it sounds like people are starting with a strongly held belief that there is a conspiracy and everyone is evil/corrupt (true of pharma I admit), then accepting, rejecting, and constructing arguments and evidence just to suit their preexisting beliefs which in turn have simply been constructed to…

It's because of human psychology. You start off with a small group of "vaccines cause autism" crackpots, and they're irrelevant. Because vaccines still cause R But the crackpots are really loud and refuse to be defeated by science or logic. So some genius decides that what we need to own the refuseniks are vaccine mandates. From a human psychology perspective, this was an incredibly bad idea. Because now you've gone…

Yup. I'm twice vaccinated but still labeled as an anti-vaxxer because I show skepticism towards for example vaccinating young kids and I'm outright against vaccine mandates, to the point where I will refuse any boosters just out of principle.
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