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Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

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Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#691

Post by nly »

landemva wrote: post #603
peter422 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is little evidence right now that immunity through a natural infection is better than immunity from a vaccine. Given the strains circulating now I don’t think your concern is valid. Vaccines are better and less risky than having your naive immune system deal with covid. Maybe that will change with a future strain (though I’d bet against it), but it isn’t the case now.

What does 'better' mean to you? I am in relatively lower risk group, and in good health. I got it and recovered on my own. I got blood test and have Dr. letter to prove it. It appears I now have sterilizing immunity, which is not available with the present vaccines. I suggest sterilizing immunity is better for everyone around me.

Bullshit of course. You can get COVID multiple distinct times, with or without a vaccine

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#692

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

swader999 wrote: post #657
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's preferable to let your immune system have a go at it. Again, citation needed, as you appear to be saying that a COVID infection is preferable to a vaccination. > Especially if you have things like ivermectin and vitamins at your disposal. Are you joking? I can't tell if this is supposed to a serious suggestion for discredited quack remedies, or sarcasm.

No I am not joking. Ivermectin worked for me. Cured me of long covid rapidly after three months of suffering through it this past spring.

Quackery it is.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#693

Post by jkepler »

blawson wrote: post #593
ericmay wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> about whether catching something gives you better protection than having a vaccine It's also medically incorrect. When you get a vaccine you are literally getting a live virus injected into you. There's no difference for your immune system. One isn't "fake" and the other "natural". Period. To your point, viruses mutate and so similar to the flu and flu vaccine, if COVID-19 continues to mutate in ways that are diffe…

> When you get a vaccine you are literally getting a live virus injected into you. This is false for the mRNA vaccines according to the CDC: mRNA vaccines do not use the live virus that causes COVID-19 and cannot cause infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 or other viruses. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different...

> mRNA vaccines do not use the live virus that causes COVID-19

That has caused resistance among friends I know, who say that its not a real vaccine, since vaccines give you a small dose of a live virus to trigger one's immune response. Perhaps the mRNA injections should have used a different name to clear misconceptions.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#694

Post by swader999 »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #692
swader999 wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I am not joking. Ivermectin worked for me. Cured me of long covid rapidly after three months of suffering through it this past spring.

Quackery it is.

Well I hope you never get as desperate as I was because this inability to see and evaluate alternatives would hurt you.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#695

Post by eloff »

swader999 wrote: post #436
eloff wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you about the focus on cases instead of hospitalizations. However, even in places with high levels of vaccination, so far cases does translate into stressing hospitals to the edge, followed by lockdown and other restrictions. See Alberta, Canada in September, or Austria two weeks ago and Germany now. This doesn't end until nearly everyone is vaccinated, recovered, or dead. To paraphrase the German health…

Alberta delayed a few surgeries, nobody was triaged out of ICU care. Bringing on enough staff to up ICU by 50 more beds is the right goal for them.

They had to backtrack and place severe restrictions on what activities were allowed and also restrict activities of the unvaccinated. There were hospitals transfering patients out of province, as well as surgeries cancelled - which is a big harm. The hospitals likely would have reached breaking point had no action been taken.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#696

Post by st1ck »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #411
mrtksn wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone have a list where BionTech distributes directly? It's Germany and Turkey. In a press release earlier this year[0], BioNTech described their relationship with Pfizer and they listed the countries it covers. Also, for China they have another company instead of Pfizer. Why Germany and Turkey, you may ask? Well, the inventors and founders of the company are Turkish immigrants to Germany. So they are able to…

You wrote: > I double checked on Wiki. There are two founders -- husband and wife. While both have Turkish heritage, only one is a Turkish immigrant. To be fair, I agree with the overall sentiment of your comment! Husband: Uğur Şahin was born in Turkey, and immigrated to Germany at age 4 Wife: Özlem Türeci was born in Germany. Her parents immigrated to Germany from Turkey. If anyone is interested to learn more about…

You can say one is 1st generation immigrant, and other is 2nd gen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrant_generations

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#697

Post by _ea1k »

hef19898 wrote: post #413
_ea1k wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because as new variants with lower virulence emerge, and we see more breakthrough and reinfection cases, that direct link will become less direct. We don't lock down for the flu because the virulence of the flu is lower than covid and we consider it acceptable. At some point, we'll pass those acceptability thresholds for COVID as well. For some people, and regions, they already have passed those thresholds, as both s…

I'm not into modelling, I would imagine that, depending on how good the vaccines work against variants, even that could be modelled quite well. For me, the threshold when Covid becomes an acceptable fact of life is when hospitals can work normally without any measures in place. We seem to be quite far from that.

In my state, we have ~10k hospital beds. There are currently ~450 covid patients that are hospitalized and that's actually significantly higher than last week. I think a lot of places are pretty close to that situation now.

Of course, total hospital bed utilization is still over 80%, but overwhelmingly its non covid.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#698

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

bluGill wrote: post #596
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of evidence that Omicron has been around for a substantial period of time. I believe the lower bound is at least a month in the US and Europe at this point, presumably longer at the point of origin.

technically you are right. However delta is dominate and we don't sequence most tests so we don't really have any data to work with.

sewage treatment testing happens behind the scenes, involves essentially the entire population, and is incredibly valuable. it confirms omicron's "long term" presence in the US.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#699

Post by throwaway2037 »

cbhl wrote: post #575
throwaway2037 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searching the CDC in Taiwan, I was unable to find any press releases announcing they bought vaccines from Fosun Pharma. Everything I could find said they only received BioNTech vaccines when they were donated . Please correct me if wrong. I assume "Taiwan region" is simply something to satisfy the PRC gov't (CCP) which believes Taiwan is a part of its country and governed by PRC. TW CDC PR: https://www.cdc.gov.tw/En/…

My understanding is that folks locally didn't trust the Fosun-made batches, but Taiwan couldn't purchase vaccines from Pfizer due to Fosun holding the distribution rights Hence the donations

I tried to Google about this issue, but I couldn't find anything. Can you suggest a link or a Google search? I would appreciate to read more about this issue.

Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant

#700

Post by throwaway2037 »

ulfw wrote: post #583
throwaway2037 wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doses of BioNTech vaccine distributed by gov'ts in Hongkong and Macao were manufactored by Fosun Pharma. As vaccination rate has dropped dramatically since the initial rush, I don't know if Fosun Pharma is still manufacturing the BioNTech vaccine. Weirdly, I still don't think any foreign made vaccines are approved in mainland China. Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosun_Pharma#COVID-19 I cannot find any reference…

That is not true. All BioNTech doses used in Hong Kong were manufactured by Baxter in Germany for BioNTech and then distributed in HK by Fosun. Latest: https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202110/16/P2021101600482... (they keep falsely claiming Baxter to be a city in Germany. It's a company that manufactures for BioNTech, not a city. https://www.baxter.com/ )

Outstanding. Thank you to correct me! It is so weird that a mainland Chinese company is "arranging" delivery of a vaccine from Baxter (a German company) to Hongkong that is not approved by mainland China. Simply bizarre.
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