Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest • Hacker News Board

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#51

Post by eganist » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

endisneigh wrote: post #3

Assuming it's only as effective as the original two-dose shot and prevents for the same duration, it seems like COVID will never go away. Assuming the current trend and a 9 month prevention, that pretty much aligns to what happened last year. So we'd need no new significant variants to develop or any outbreaks. Seems unlikely given that there are many countries with vaccination rates under 50% Probably better to focu…

> as effective as the original two-dose shot and prevents for the same duration We're giving boosters of a vaccine developed against the Beta variant. That's better than nothing. But it's inefficient against Delta. Pfizer/BioNTech are working on a Delta-specific booster [1]. If we can get approvals rolling faster without compromising safety, it might mean being able to release variant-specific boosters earlier in the…

> If we can get approvals rolling faster without compromising safety, it might mean being able to release variant-specific boosters earlier in their transmission cycle.

This is basically it. We'd need an approval process similar to what exists for flu shots today. I'm not versed on what that process is, but if that can happen with covid, it'll be the biggest batch of red tape cut.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#52

Post by nradov » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #41

pradn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're saying that we can hope that three shots gives long term resistance, as it happens for other vaccines. We can only hope, and it's not a totally unrealistic hope given how other vaccines work.

What are these other vaccines? are the vaccinations for other coronaviruses? I'm not a biologist so I'm not seeing the connection. Is there reason to believe adding more doses would make the prevention jump from less than a year to a decade?

You can see the recommended vaccine schedule here. Several include 3+ doses.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolesc...

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#53

Post by loceng » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #5

endisneigh wrote: post #3

Assuming it's only as effective as the original two-dose shot and prevents for the same duration, it seems like COVID will never go away. Assuming the current trend and a 9 month prevention, that pretty much aligns to what happened last year. So we'd need no new significant variants to develop or any outbreaks. Seems unlikely given that there are many countries with vaccination rates under 50% Probably better to focu…

[edit] this is in response to the earlier version of your post where you wonder if the virus will ever go away: That I think is a given. Even if we had a bullet proof vaccine, you have such a large reserve of unvaccinated people across the world, plus animals, that the virus is endemic at this stage. Which isn't a problem. If once vaccinated the virus is mostly harmless, then it is just one more of the many endemic d…

Which is why top virologists around the world have been trying to sound the alarm to warn that you don't vaccinate during a pandemic because it drives escape mutant variants; this type of response gets downvoted into oblivion by an ideological mob who are fear driven more than critical thinking, who have memorized the mainstream narrative responses to such statements by experts - or attempting character assassination of experts not toeing the line; https://twitter.com/lefarfadet8/status/1427754200398766087

Edit to add: Look at the critical conversation people are having instead of downvoting me into oblivion! HN's full of so many ideologues it's crazy.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#54

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

runako wrote: post #27

pwned1 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Collapsing" is a serious overstatement.

The trauma center emergency room in my state is diverting patients to less-capable facilities. Elective surgeries (such as for cancer and other life-threatening conditions) are being cancelled. All of this is happening in states representing perhaps a third of the US population. Not being able to get lifesaving cancer removal surgery is the state of affairs that people colloquially mean when say a medical system is "…

> Not being able to get lifesaving cancer removal surgery is the state of affairs that people colloquially mean when say a medical system is "collapsing."

Rural medical systems in places with low vaccination rates are collapsing. The American health system, broadly, is not. Being relocated to a smaller hospital is not good; collapse is being denied altogether. (EDIT: Was not aware that parts of the country are, in fact, seeing collapse.)

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#55

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #25

endisneigh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope - as you allude to, ideally we could spit out these vaccines and just give people 6-month boosters until everyone is vaccinated and we're good. I believe the issue is that too many people fail to get vaccinated so it's challenging. Requiring boosters might also convert small numbers of people who got a vaccine one to not get it subsequent times.

In the first world there is an issue of take up. But around much of the rest of the world, the issues is they haven’t received nearly enough vaccine. If we don’t significantly vaccinate much of the rest of the world, my expectation is a continued high rate of variant creation as well as continued economic instability due to logistics disruption.

[deleted]

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#56

Post by taxicabjesus » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

The best way to prevent your own deterioration and death from COVID-19 is to demand your medical providers implement a science-based approach to your care. This means that you should not consent to your over-oxygenation with medical oxygen.

Science figured out 200 years ago that oxygen is toxic. Doctors knew this, then the antidote got forgotten. Some modern doctors are still aware of the toxicity of oxygen, but use oxygen as supportive therapy when people have low oxygen saturation levels without the antidote for toxicity: https://twitter.com/robertpdickson/status/126525483948485427...

To quote the Tuberculosis doctor's tweets:

> We've known that oxygen causes lung injury for 250 years. Lavoisier stuck guinea pigs in "l'air vital" and watched them die from "une fièvre ardente" and a "maladie inflammatoire." Their lungs were flacid, red, and engorged with blood. Their right ventricles were dilated. 2/n

> He was describing ARDS (w/ cor pulmonale), 200 years before we named it. If he'd had microscopy, he'd have seen epithelial necrosis, hyaline membranes: diffuse alveolar damage. Same injury pattern that COVID causes. (Image from my lab: healthy mouse, 95% FiO2 for 4 days.) 3/n

Published science has found that over-oxygenation drives deterioration and death: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993262

NASA originally specified a mixed-gas atmosphere for the Apollo spacecraft: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25883728

I've taken to calling medicalists' insane use of oxygen #MedicalHyperventilation:

"The Folly of Medical Hyperventilation" - https://www.taxiwars.org/2021/06/folly-medical-hyperventilat...

Gotten a little positive feedback from the twitter, but the people with large followings haven't amplified my message.

To survive your own inevitable infection, don't let them hyperventilate you to death.

Questions for HN:

1. Were you previously aware that oxygen is toxic at high pressure or in excess, and that this is as settled as science can possibly get?

2. Can doctors be convinced that they are worsening their patients' conditions with their cavalier use of medical oxygen?

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#57

Post by sfteus » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #41

pradn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're saying that we can hope that three shots gives long term resistance, as it happens for other vaccines. We can only hope, and it's not a totally unrealistic hope given how other vaccines work.

What are these other vaccines? are the vaccinations for other coronaviruses? I'm not a biologist so I'm not seeing the connection. Is there reason to believe adding more doses would make the prevention jump from less than a year to a decade?

HPV is a 3-dose vaccination in most cases. I believe Hep A and Hep B vaccines also have 3-dose versions, but I'm not sure if the 2 or 3 dose schedule is standard.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#58

Post by JackFr » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #48

serial_dev wrote: post #6

It's like Linux on the desktop and fusion reactors. It seems like we are always one jab away from being safe and overcoming covid.

In fairness, I think it's been just as frustrating to the health officials setting out those targets— between non-compliance with the initial guidelines (both due to idiocy, and due to governments dragging their heels on the income/rent supports that would have allowed poor people to actually stay home), and then the appearance of the delta variant just as vaccination campaigns were getting seriously under way, I'm s…

> due to governments dragging their heels on the income/rent supports that would have allowed poor people to actually stay home

Government supports or not, you do realize everyone can't stay home?

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#59

Post by whatshisface » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #35

whatshisface wrote: post #23

As far as I can tell is bad news for rare vaccine side effects. If the side effects are rare but you take a booster twice a year for 50 years, rare outcomes become much more likely. (Referring here to the high count but not that high stuff that shows up in VAERS like tinnitus.) Hopefully more vaccines are developed that become safer over time so that the danger falls faster than the repeated risk accumulates. Or perh…

People take the flu shot annually and are generally fine. Unless it’s showing that COVID-19 vaccines are much more dangerous than flu vaccines, this isn’t a big concern.

With regards to the side effects that don't matter (feeling really tired for one or two days) they're stronger than the average flu shot, so maybe they're stronger in other ways, or maybe not.

Nobody can quantify the reporting bias on VAERS, and the side effects of midrange severity showing up there aren't scary enough to justify the kind of regulatory investigation that the blood clotting thing received, so we are unlikely to see a study on this in the near term.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#60

Post by endisneigh » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #52

endisneigh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these other vaccines? are the vaccinations for other coronaviruses? I'm not a biologist so I'm not seeing the connection. Is there reason to believe adding more doses would make the prevention jump from less than a year to a decade?

You can see the recommended vaccine schedule here. Several include 3+ doses. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolesc...

I'm aware of the 3 dose vaccines - what I'm asking is if there's any connection between the duration and the type of vaccine and the type of underlying virus.

The flu, for example as existed longer than COVID and we do not have a "3 dose" vaccine that prevents the flu for a decade. Why would we expect this for COVID as opposed to an annual booster?