Live data from Hacker News

Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

investors.modernatx.com

161–170 of 198 posts

Re: Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

#161

Meta: Let say I'm 30 years old, healthy, vaccinated with JJ over 6 months ago. Denmark, Sweden, Finland have banned Moderna for younger than 30. Some countries were recommending it to people over 50. Whole communication is a mess. Should I get a booster shot? What are the pros and cons? Is there any data on that? I asked a friend doctor and she said that I should get a test for antibody count (a lab one, not garbage…

The risk of getting a myocarditis from Covid19 is 4 times higher, than from the vaccine. Billions of people got mRNA vaccines in the last year. Probably hundreds of millions of people got Covid19 last year. Can you find an overall number of deaths by vaccination versus deaths by Covid19 somewhere? Germany recommends a second vaccine shot with an mRNA vaccine for everybody who JJ as their first shot. That is only 4 weeks after the original shot.

Re: Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Us sheep will put up with this one, if it’s the last one. Just this one last booster. Now if we tread into the 4th or 5th booster for the n-th variant, then that’s my breaking point and I will have to call out the shenanigans. Moderna’s revenue since 2016: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107794/revenue-and-net-... These companies certainly don’t mind the state of things.

800 million in revenue seems really reasonable for having developed one of the best, it not the best, COVID 19 vaccines in the world. Consider that Apple's annual revenue from just airpods is over 10 billion.

Wasn't the Moderna COVID vaccin funded by the German taxpayers?

Re: Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When asked to grade the severity of symptoms on a scale from 1 (no symptoms) to 5 (significant symptoms), 42% (33/79) reported level 3 symptoms, whereas 11% (9/79) reported level 4 symptoms. None of the cases required hospitalisation up to 13 December 2021. I am extremely optimistic.

Even if Omicron infected patients have half the rate of hospitalization as delta infected patients, that means the wave crushes the hospitals one doubling period later. Currently, the incidents numbers for omicron double every 2 to 4 days. So having less severe cases means the meteor will hit us a few days later. That is not a big improvement. For the individual risk of hospitalization, it is quite significant.

In practice it's worked out ok https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1472664060...

Re: Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When asked to grade the severity of symptoms on a scale from 1 (no symptoms) to 5 (significant symptoms), 42% (33/79) reported level 3 symptoms, whereas 11% (9/79) reported level 4 symptoms. None of the cases required hospitalisation up to 13 December 2021. I am extremely optimistic.

in terms of covid hospitalisations overwhelming our hospitals: i‘m optimistic as well that this might not happen at scale. but in terms of a large part of society getting sick (level 3 still makes you stick in bed) at the same time - this will lead to worker shortage - i’m kind of neutral-pessimistic. in terms of longterm long covid effect on our demographic - i’m fearful. in terms of society getting their act togeth…

The thing with the worker shortage is it'll be brief. SA's already peaked. We'll have maybe a month of worker shortage I guess.

Re: Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

#165
post #130
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Africa has 20,000/day cases which is about the same they had in July, yet they peak at 30 deaths/day vs 400 deaths/day in July. To estimate the fatality rate of a variant, you need to do it within the same population. At the current rate, Omicron is literally as deadly as influenza in South Africa [1] and, as the current wave passed its peak, it might be even less deadly than that. PS: parent post is sarcastic…

You can't go by cases/day though--there's a cohort problem. In the slow growth scenario, when you are at 20,000 cases a day, the deaths on that day are from the seeds of cases that started "long" ago. When you get to 20k on the back of a growth explosion, those cases are all "brand new." This is not to say that it won't be less deadly, just that judging it that way is very flawed.

This is true in theory but I don't think it matters in practice. Median time between symptoms onset and death is 7 days for the 2nd wave in the UK [1] which is pretty short and doesn't allow for "old seeds". The tail of distribution is also quite thin. Those number might be different for Omicron but nothing points to that as far as I know. Unless Omicron-sick people die on average 2 months after infection I don't see how it could be equally or more deadly.

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Re: Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

#166

Meta: Let say I'm 30 years old, healthy, vaccinated with JJ over 6 months ago. Denmark, Sweden, Finland have banned Moderna for younger than 30. Some countries were recommending it to people over 50. Whole communication is a mess. Should I get a booster shot? What are the pros and cons? Is there any data on that? I asked a friend doctor and she said that I should get a test for antibody count (a lab one, not garbage…

I recently pondered the should I bother boosting thing. I had covid in 2020 and 2x pfizer. I decided to get a pfizer booster - seems a bit less side effecty than moderna, and while I wasn't really worried about getting omicron myself I figured I'd be less likely to pass it to family at Xmas (I'm in London with crazy infections presently). Also it renews the vax pass thing so it should be ok for summer in the EU who are talking about a 9 month validity from the last shot. Anyway... maybe get a pfizer booster.

(Random aside - it took me till now to figure my past injections hurt because I tensed the muscle - if you relax it you feel way less)

Re: Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

#167

Meta: Let say I'm 30 years old, healthy, vaccinated with JJ over 6 months ago. Denmark, Sweden, Finland have banned Moderna for younger than 30. Some countries were recommending it to people over 50. Whole communication is a mess. Should I get a booster shot? What are the pros and cons? Is there any data on that? I asked a friend doctor and she said that I should get a test for antibody count (a lab one, not garbage…

The risk of getting a myocarditis from Covid19 is 4 times higher, than from the vaccine. Billions of people got mRNA vaccines in the last year. Probably hundreds of millions of people got Covid19 last year. Can you find an overall number of deaths by vaccination versus deaths by Covid19 somewhere? Germany recommends a second vaccine shot with an mRNA vaccine for everybody who JJ as their first shot. That is only 4 we…

He's given his age and sex, are you sure the 4x higher number is accurate with that additional context?

Re: Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

#168
post #151

If my net worth is 1 cent, and I pick up 37 cents on the street, I’ve increased my net worth over 37-fold. But I’m still worth only 38 cents. Maybe I can buy a gumball. Maybe. 37-fold is meaningless. Unfortunately this press release doesn’t have anything more useful either.

Compared to not having the booster (but being previously vaccinated). >37-fold compared to pre-boost levels It's there in the first paragraph. Why are you doing this?

[deleted]

Re: Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

#169
post #151

If my net worth is 1 cent, and I pick up 37 cents on the street, I’ve increased my net worth over 37-fold. But I’m still worth only 38 cents. Maybe I can buy a gumball. Maybe. 37-fold is meaningless. Unfortunately this press release doesn’t have anything more useful either.

Compared to not having the booster (but being previously vaccinated). >37-fold compared to pre-boost levels It's there in the first paragraph. Why are you doing this?

GP didn't ask "compared to what". They said that showing an increase is not relevant without knowing the base value amount (or final value amount). Or hell, what the implications of the increase are in meaningful terms. Is this more than expected from a booster? Less? About the same?

I get this is a report to investors so I'm not the target audience, but unless the reader is familiar with the field, it's just "big number increase good".

Re: Moderna booster increased neutralizing antibody levels against Omicron ~37-fold

#170
post #160
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That study did not measure anyone's zinc status, it just assumed people were not zinc deficient based on the food supply. "The estimate was based on the food balance sheets, the bioavailability of Zn in the food supply, the estimated physiological requirement of Zn in individuals, population demographics, and stunting observed in children." I am not pushing it as a population level mitigation. But what if 50% of peop…

>But what if 50% of people could avoid covid if they fixed their zinc deficiency? That's a truly absurd exaggeration. We're talking about a marginal effect on at best a marginal proportion of the population. >So why are they not letting people get tested for nutritional deficiencies? "they' (whoever "they" may be) are preventing people from getting tested for mineral deficiencies? Really? How are 'they' doing this? I…

>We're talking about a marginal effect on at best a marginal proportion of the population.

You have no evidence for this statement because it is not being tested. When they test patients with severe covid they find a high level of zinc deficiency.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7482607/

"The study data clearly show that a significant number of COVID-19 patients were zinc deficient. These zinc deficient patients developed more complications, and the deficiency was associated with a prolonged hospital stay and increased mortality."

I do not see how you could deny the importance of that. Does that sound marginal? So why are they not testing EVERY every COVID patient for a zinc deficiency?

>but if you're worried about your Zinc levels can't you just talk to your doctor?

1) You have to KNOW to ask and doctors SHOULD know this but they do not. 2) Doctors here will say it is useless even when you are chronically ill. 3) Most health insurance companies in the US will not reimburse for the test if they cannot give a medical reason. 4) If Fauci came out and said all doctors should test their patients for nutritional deficiencies Doctors it would help. But he never talks about it.

So no, it is not easy.

Post reply on HN