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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

#151

Post by chiefalchemist »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #40
teh_infallible wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to call it “marketing.” I am amazed to see people discuss what are essentially the marketing claims of a corrupt industry as if they had scientific validity. Substitute the word “immunity” with “blockchain” or “Artificial Intelligence” and maybe more people would see through it.

Agreed. Came right from the CEO. What else was he suppposed to say? "Skip the booster, it barely helps."? Imagine the public panic, as well as the stock market panic.

Dear Down voters...Communication 101...source matters...context matters...motive matters. These are facts.

Just because someone says X - and you agree - doesn't make it legitimate. Blind confirmation bias is not going to help us.

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

#152

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

kgwxd wrote: post #20
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.

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.

> Is it not just timing? I thought the effectiveness of the vaccines only lasted around 6 months

No, it is not (just) timing.

"Three doses gives better protection than two doses ever did" (1)

Immune response is very complex (2) and we're not experts; but we should not measure it in just 1 number: that gives the impression that the response is a range from "high alert for this recent threat" through to "threat forgotten" - effectiveness did not last that long.

There are there are other states as well when the threat is "on file" in the immune memory. Another exposure months later influences this process. My guess is that the evolved heuristic is that "a threat that recurs more is worth remembering better".

1) https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1460191035531878405

2) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/covid-19-...

3) https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/waning-i...

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

#153

Post by logic_beats_pro »

astrange wrote: post #140
didjathinkmess wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural immunity followed by a single dose is the strongest immunity available supposedly. Many of us likely have cross reactive immunity from a previous Coronavirus infection from before the pandemic. Regarding "better antibodies", that doesn't make any sense to me. More in number perhaps, but better? It's the exact same formula being given as boosters.

Omicron does escape natural immunity + no booster though. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22221751.2021.2... Similarly, immunity to omicron might not be good at the other variants (which are worse for you), which is why reusing the existing boosters instead of making new ones isn't that bad an idea.

I think your first sentence is a bit premature considering the study. Its forgivable to post this because it's so early but seriously, this was done in test tubes.

"One major caveat of the current study is that we used an in vitro assay system and the pseudotyped viruses but not the real viruses were used in the assay."

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

#155

Post by astrange »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #150
astrange wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The schedule we used for vaccines is just what was done for their trials. There is a reason for that - what's being deployed is what has been tested. You could work out an optimal schedule, but that might take years of trials, and meanwhile people are dying.

Other countries stretched them out and saw positive results.

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

#156

Post by a0-prw »

Here's some numbers from 15 December in Denmark, relating to Omicron infections:

76,93% of the poulation are vaccinated.

Of Omicron positive cases 89,59% were either double or triple vaccinated. 8,49% were unvaccinated.

Why are the unvaccinated underrepresented?

Source: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/status-paa-coronavirus-lig...

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

#157

Post by France_is_bacon »

didjathinkmess wrote: post #130
squarefoot wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, a million times. Over here 80-90% of Covid patients in ICUs are either never vaccinated or in need of a boost because of too much time past since their 2nd shot. So, yes, vaccination may not prevent being infected, but for sure it helps immensely in avoiding being hospitalized and shortening the infection, which does actually translate in less people being infected. And believe me, having both lived and seen th…

>So, yes, vaccination may not prevent being infected, but for sure it helps immensely in avoiding being hospitalized and shortening the infection, which does actually translate in less people being infected. On the flip side, infections in the vaccinated who are asymptomatic are more likely to leave the house, simply because they have no idea that they're sick. Perhaps they end up at a restaurant with their mask off…

While this may be true, one's ultimate responsibility is for oneself. Other people should be vaccinated, too, that is their responsibility. There's only so much that people who are being responsible and following the science can do.

Also, while this Omicron is so new, I think anyone who is vaccinated should still wear a mask when around great numbers of other people, and other people should also wear their masks.

And why would one go to a restaurant or other kinds of unmasked events, anyways, while this new variant of covid is so unknown? I wouldn't go to the Sturgis motorcycle event, vaccinated or not, booster shot or not, asymptomatic or symptomatic, masked or not masked.

A lot of it has nothing to do with being vaccinated or not, but having common sense or not. It is not common sense to go to places where there can be a lot of people and hang out there.

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

#158

Post by stephenitis »

mygoodaccount wrote: post #91
sdeframond wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you have to loose?

Well I had a pretty bad second dose response. I was bedridden for a week. That said, my COVID infection was far worse and I'm still struggling with long COVID today. I guess I'm going to have trouble taking a shot (active decision) I know I'll respond badly, albeit temporarily, to. As opposed to waiting around (passive decision) and trying my chances with COVID a second time. Now that I'm writing this all out, I thin…

You might not have a strong reaction this time. Hard to tell.

I would still go for it and just make some arrangements just in case it’s a tough ride.

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

#159

Post by freemint »

lborsato wrote: post #129
notabee wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, the immune system has some capacity to anticipate mutations. The most basic function of antibodies is to stick to and neutralize the target, in this case the spike protein that the mRNA vaccine presents to the immune system via producing some copies in muscle cells. But the immune system doesn't just produce exact form-fitting duplicate antibodies, it also has something like a biological "fuzz…

Unfortunately as a result of original antigenic sin, the fact that the immune system has been trained for by a vaccine for a certain strain means that the body will respond to that strain, likely unable to mount a new defence for the different strain. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33692194/

Virologist are aware of this but I seen no indication that it applies to the CoVi variants we are currently dealing with.

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

#160

Post by freemint »

twox2 wrote: post #113
mypalmike wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can only talk for my own country but politicians seem to have been really careful to either couple the laws to an state of emergency which is justified by the pandemic situation or do laws which have a certain due date and need to be renewed by Parlament every 6 monthish.

Unlike national security against an invisible threat the absence of CoViD can be shown in which case government even if showing the behaviour you suggest can be more easily pressured into doing the right thing.

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