Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

healthpolicy-watch.news

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 272 posts

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#21

Post by dnadler »

top_post wrote: post #11
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.

I can't for the life of me understand why your last statement isn't what the world is driving for at the moment. mRNA vaccines are easily(-ish) updated, so punch out an Omicron specific dose and get on with the regular single/dual (if needed) regime. It seems strange we'd opt for 3-4-5 shots given the benefit of mRNA was its ease of creation and modification.

They are working on Omicron-specific vaccines. Here's an article about Pfizer, not sure about anyone else, though.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-pfizer-omicron-va...

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#22

Post by jleyank »

jleyank wrote: post #12

Then they just rush-approve the mRNA vaccines with the modified payloads for Omicron and possibly Delta. The same delivery systems, merely different mRNA sequences, so I would think there's reasonable chance the (side)effects are the same. I thought this is already happening on the normal timeline. And there's a whole lot of vaccines coming on line that use different delivery systems and/or targets. There's a chance…

FWIW, both Pfizer and Moderna have announced Omicron specific vaccines in March. Approval is at the rate set by governmental agencies. I would be curious why this is being downvoted so quickly and quietly...

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#23

Post by ImaCake »

top_post wrote: post #11
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.

I can't for the life of me understand why your last statement isn't what the world is driving for at the moment. mRNA vaccines are easily(-ish) updated, so punch out an Omicron specific dose and get on with the regular single/dual (if needed) regime. It seems strange we'd opt for 3-4-5 shots given the benefit of mRNA was its ease of creation and modification.

I think they are making these strain specific boosters. But it seems “they”* want to keep it quiet until they are ready to release them. My first through on this is that there is over-supply of the OG vaccine and it takes time to switch production and the booster story is designed to give some hope and confidence to the masses (which is good I think). There is also some paperwork involved which takes time, but as we saw with the OG vaccines that can be done pretty damn fast.

Best guess would be the strain specific boosters will come out of nowhere and suddenly saturate news coverage. But don’t quote me on that.

* presumably the pharma companies and national governments funding them. So a conspiracy, but not a QANON conspiracy.

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#24

Post by twofornone »

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 to dismiss as anecdote. And if officials are this wrong regarding effectiveness, why should we trust them regarding safety? How can anyone have any trust in these institutions after the last two years?

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#26

Post by danhor »

top_post wrote: post #11
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.

I can't for the life of me understand why your last statement isn't what the world is driving for at the moment. mRNA vaccines are easily(-ish) updated, so punch out an Omicron specific dose and get on with the regular single/dual (if needed) regime. It seems strange we'd opt for 3-4-5 shots given the benefit of mRNA was its ease of creation and modification.

Biontech (and probably all other vaccine manufacturers) are working on it and expect to have it available in march: https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-det...

The omicron surge is happening now so health authorities are looking at solutions and a third shot worked great, so a fourth one is an obvious (short term) solution. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work.

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#27

Post by CyberDildonics »

top_post wrote: post #11
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.

I can't for the life of me understand why your last statement isn't what the world is driving for at the moment. mRNA vaccines are easily(-ish) updated, so punch out an Omicron specific dose and get on with the regular single/dual (if needed) regime. It seems strange we'd opt for 3-4-5 shots given the benefit of mRNA was its ease of creation and modification.

A third shot showed large antibody increases. I haven't seen a fourth shot being suggested. Here it was being studied. Omicron specific vaccines are being worked on and expected to arrive in a few months.

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#28

Post by kashunstva »

From the article:

> A similar trend was reported by the New York City (NYC) Health Department, which reported that about 2% of Omicron cases were hospitalised in comparison to around 5% of Omicron cases.

Huh? I'm assuming they meant: "...in comparison to around 5% of _Delta_ cases." but who knows?

For further comparison, according to data from the U.S. CDC for the 2018-2019 influenza season, the hospitalization rate was about 1.3%.[1]

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#29

Post by Daishiman »

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…

> 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 indicating that this is about as far as it goes, which is quite reasonable as most vaccination regimens generally require two or three shots to achieve maximum effect.

The subtext of what you're saying is that politicans came to a knee-jerk conclusion that a third shot was necessary and inductively any further shot will so as well. The science does not bear this out, and the third shot was backed by science, not by politicians wanting to do something.

Your position sounds like misplaced skepticism.

Re: Israel Finds Fourth Covid Booster Is Ineffective

#30

Post by jollybean »

This is click bait verging on vaccine minsinformation.

The headline could be: "4 doses may not more effective at reducing Omicron infections than 3 doses, but 3 doses is actually very good at preventing infection, hospitalization and death from all known variants - and even 2 doses - while not providing a lot of protection against Omicron infection ... does actually provide good protection against infection from other variants but also hospitalization and death from all variants, including Omicron."

1) 3 doses are actually fairly effective at stopping Omicron infections, at least for 12 weeks - we can see this definitively in data from around the world.

They indirectly mention this in the article.

Ontario data [1]

In the first graph, you see COVID 'cases' increase with the onset of Omicron, even among those with 2 doses - clearly 2 doses are less effective at preventing Omicron cases - but still pretty good at stopping Hospitalization and Death. Later in the time series, precisely when people started getting their boosters, you see a rapid increase in levels of protection against infection, hospitalization and death.

2) The vaccines by all accounts still seem to be effective at preventing cases (and hospitalizations and death) of previous, more deadly variants.

3) The difference between 4 and 3 doses is noteworthy, but it's definitely misleading to indicate 'ineffective when the baseline of comparison, i.e. 3 doses, is actually 'effective'.

4) As we can see from the Ontario - even 2 doses - but certainly 3 doses - are very effective in reducing hospitalization rates and death.

(From that data 'minimum 2 doses' reduces Hospitalization by 5x and death by 20x. That is mixed data from 2 and 3 doses, given the ratio of those having 3rd dose, we can estimate that 3 doses is even considerably more effective than those numbers).

Given the inconsistency between the headline, their own stated information, and easily available data from various legitimate authorities - I suggest that this article, at least the headline, constitutes purposeful misinformation.

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

Post reply on HN