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Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

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Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#111

Post by nathanaldensr »

version_five wrote: post #62
twofornone wrote: post #24

Record cases across the planet regardless of vaccination rates...how much longer until official sources are willing to acknowledge that these vaccines are not nearly as effective as claimed? How long before official sources acknowledge that breakthrough cases are probably drastically underreported? I can't be the only one surrounded by fully vaccinated individuals testing positive. Its happening far too often for me…

And you can see how you get treated if you question today's narrative. I agree with you, and I think most people are starting to realize that the vaccines didnt live up to their initial promise, but try and question it anywhere and you have people coming out of the woodwork telling you we've always been at war with eastasia and that nobody expected vaccines to do anything other than "limit severe infection"

It's not only that they didn't live up to their initial promise; it's that those who were skeptical were executed in the court of public opinion. Suddenly, real science didn't matter, and everyone was told to "trust the experts"--the same experts who have made companies and careers out of grift, lies, and psychopathic behavior.

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#112

Post by lambdaba »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #73
benmw333 wrote: post #67

Quoted post unavailable.

> I do not wear a mask. No vax. Why not?

For the vax, with omnicron being so mild, it seems like a bad trade-off to get vaccinated with v1 Covid with it's presumably more nasty spike protein rather than risk infection (which seems unavoidable anyway?)

also, it's known that 2 weeks past vaccination your immune system is weakened, you are more susceptible so it seems like a particularly bad idea during a surge

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#113

Post by Vthrowaway153 »

threeseed wrote: post #49
version_five wrote: post #18

If I understand correctly, israel mandates a third shot (to do normal stuff), as do many places in north america, either now or soon. And I can only imagine many people would be happy to mandate a fourth as soon as possible. What I find most frustrating is that politicians are happy to make these mandates live, during an ongoing situation where we actually don't know a lot about how effective things are (and in the c…

a) Billions of doses of vaccines have been administered. We know a lot about their effectiveness. b) Current vaccines with a booster are effective at preventing hospitalisations. It is enough to get the world through Omicron but special vaccines maybe useful for those who are immuno-compromised. c) Children have been forced to take vaccines for decades. It's not new. d) People trust their government every day. Who do…

> Current vaccines with a booster are effective at preventing hospitalisations

From the second part of the article:

> Meanwhile, the latest research from South Africa, New York City and California show that the vast majority of people hospitalised by the COVID-19 Omicron variant are unvaccinated – but that they still experienced less severe disease than those infected with Delta.

Comparing the 3rd and 4th waves in SA, hospitalizations dropped by 72%, ICU admissions dropped by 89%, and deaths dropped by 90% in South Africa even though, per the article, "82% of those hospitalised during its Omicron-fueled fourth wave were unvaccinated."

Similar trends are being seen everywhere so I think it's legitimate to question the magnitude of any benefit from boosters vis-a-vis the hospitalization endpoint, particularly for people who are not in high-risk groups. Are the boosters really responsible for a meaningful reduction in hospitalizations among the already vaccinated, or is the reduction in hospitalization a result of the initial 2-dose vaccine series? Even the WHO casts doubt on the boosters here[1]:

> To date, the evidence indicates a minimal to modest reduction of vaccine protection against severe disease over the 6 months after the primary series. Waning of effectiveness against all clinical disease and infection is more pronounced.

Antibodies aren't the end-all and be-all of immunity and protection. There's plenty of reason to believe (and some data showing) that the cell-mediated immunity from the initial 2 shots is long lasting and provides substantial protection against bad outcomes, even against omicron. What cell-mediated immunity doesn't do is prevent you from getting infected. But, clearly, given the situation in places like the US and Israel, where boosters are being given, antibodies generated by original vaccine boosters aren't doing a great job at preventing infection either.

On a tangential note, I think a lot of people are concerned about long COVID but it's pretty remarkable that at this stage of the pandemic and vaccination campaign, we still don't have a clear answer as to whether vaccination even reduces long COVID risk, or by how much[2].

[1] https://www.who.int/news/item/22-12-2021-interim-statement-o...

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03495-2

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#114

Post by ghaff »

colechristensen wrote: post #52
yed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re in the US, the federal vaccine mandate was quashed by the Supreme Court, so no need to be terrified.

Locally, the mayor decided to mandate vaccines for restaurant customers. I really doubt he has the legal authority if tested in court, but here it is. I am vaccinated but excluded from basically all of the public sphere if I don’t want to go around proving it (I don’t, might for certain circumstances still).

And it's still in place for federal contractors, and it's still in place for states, and it's presumably still in place for private businesses.

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#115

Post by Something1234 »

version_five wrote: post #18

If I understand correctly, israel mandates a third shot (to do normal stuff), as do many places in north america, either now or soon. And I can only imagine many people would be happy to mandate a fourth as soon as possible. What I find most frustrating is that politicians are happy to make these mandates live, during an ongoing situation where we actually don't know a lot about how effective things are (and in the c…

To the people asking for caution about these vaccines, how long did it take from development to roll out for the polio shot? Was there the same reluctance?

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#116

Post by jollybean »

timr wrote: post #65
Daishiman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I can only imagine many people would be happy to mandate a fourth as soon as possible. I'm sorry but I'm not understanding the logic. The booster was recommended after several rounds of research across multiple countries suggested it was a good idea, with Israel doing some of the first testing and reaching the conclusion that it was worthwhile (and it was, by a substantial margin). Their research is now indicat…

> I'm sorry but I'm not understanding the logic. The booster was recommended after several rounds of research across multiple countries suggested it was a good idea, with Israel doing some of the first testing and reaching the conclusion that it was worthwhile (and it was, by a substantial margin). You are misinformed. There is a paucity of data supporting boosters, what little exists is for people over 65 (to be fai…

"You are misinformed. There is a paucity of data supporting boosters, "

I think the misinformation might be your own here, or rather, at least based on the time frame.

In September, there was little data, because very few had their 3rd shot.

Now, we have Omicron - a huge, new, material development - and - large numbers of people with their 3rd shots.

Here is some fairly definitive data from one source [1] which clearly shows a drop in protection against infections as Omicron hits, and then an acute rise in protection against infection people start receiving their 3rd shots. During the entire time protection against hospitalization and death remained pretty good, faltering somewhat, then improving after the 3rd doses started happening.

According to this [2] it seems we have 100's of millions of boosters administrated across dozens of high quality health authorities each of which can provide similar data.

That's not a 'paucity of data'.

[1] https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccine-booster-dos...

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#117

Post by exo-pla-net »

Jimmc414 wrote: post #59

Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, has stated that vaccines do reduce severity, but they do not stop transmission. Assuming her words represent the scientific and expert opinion, could someone offer a coherent argument as to why there is so much pressure for others to get vaccinated? Is fear of the unvaccinated clogging up hospitals the primary motivation?

There are two sides to the coin: susceptibility to infection, and infectiousness after infection.

Given that vaccination reduces disease severity, it seems likely that vaccination decreases your viral load after infection.

Therefore, though vaccination may not help much in preventing omicron infection, it will nevertheless reduce both disease severity and your infectiousness.

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#118

Post by rsfern »

RhysU wrote: post #101
not2b wrote: post #5

There are two separate questions: Does an extra booster prevent infection? Does an extra booster reduce hospitalizations and deaths? Seems this study only addressed the first question. But instead of giving a fourth shot based on the OG Covid, seems an updated version based on omicron, delta, and any new variants of concern would be a better idea.

> Does an extra booster reduce hospitalizations and deaths? A meta question: how do these studies control for the fact that people who care enough to get a booster are more likely to care proactively about their health? Lots of good outcomes correlate with caring.

Usually they used randomized controlled trials for this sort of thing, which in a well designed study will account for this sort of bias

Whether the population in the trial generalized to the population at large is a bit different question and I think is where the bias you’re highlighting could come into part

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#119

Post by rkk3 »

divbzero wrote: post #71
version_five wrote: post #18

If I understand correctly, israel mandates a third shot (to do normal stuff), as do many places in north america, either now or soon. And I can only imagine many people would be happy to mandate a fourth as soon as possible. What I find most frustrating is that politicians are happy to make these mandates live, during an ongoing situation where we actually don't know a lot about how effective things are (and in the c…

In what places or contexts are boosters mandated? As far as I know they aren’t in the US right now.

In many college's Boosters are mandated for students, who are simultaneously the least likely to benefit from more protection and have a higher likelihood of side effects.

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#120

Post by peteradio »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #47
version_five wrote: post #18

If I understand correctly, israel mandates a third shot (to do normal stuff), as do many places in north america, either now or soon. And I can only imagine many people would be happy to mandate a fourth as soon as possible. What I find most frustrating is that politicians are happy to make these mandates live, during an ongoing situation where we actually don't know a lot about how effective things are (and in the c…

If they don't mandate, people will die. If they do mandate, potentially less people will die. By mandating before there's some kind of irrefutable proof that it'll help, they're saying that saving people's lives is worth any social or economic headache. Also: your government is, I take it, some form of representative democracy? Saying you don't trust the government is identical to saying you don't trust the people of…

Personal choices rarely come under democratic rule and only begrudgingly.
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