CDC has approved 4th vaccine dose for some people

[garyt]

I've had covid, I'm vaccinated and boosted. Unless a more deadly strain surfaces I think I'm done with boosters.

 

[garyt]

Just saw an interesting study that showed a marked increase in antibodies in people who did 90 minutes of vigorous exercise after receiving a vaccination (not just Covid, but also flu, etc.). The effect wasn't there with only 45 minutes; it had to be 90 minutes (heart rate up in the 60-70% of max range).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889159122000319

Maybe people who can do 90 minutes of vigorous exercise just have better immune systems

 

[donheff]

Maybe people who can do 90 minutes of vigorous exercise just have better immune systems

LOL. I wondered the same.

 

[Koolau]

Just saw an interesting study that showed a marked increase in antibodies in people who did 90 minutes of vigorous exercise after receiving a vaccination (not just Covid, but also flu, etc.). The effect wasn't there with only 45 minutes; it had to be 90 minutes (heart rate up in the 60-70% of max range).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889159122000319

Guess I won't be getting the added effect.

 

[Gumby]

Whenever a new booster is recommended, I will happily get it.

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Ive had 3 jabs. Ive had covid twice,

Im done

 

[Chuckanut]

Ive had 3 jabs. Ive had covid twice,

Im done

I've had 3 jabs. I have never had Covid (or if I had it, I was asymptomatic). I attribute my avoidance of Covid at least partially to the jabs.

I may get a fourth jab, perhaps of the Novavax vaccine, if if circumstances demand it. But, I am not running around looking for the 4th jab ASAP. I want to see how thinks shake out after Omicron.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I scheduled my 2nd booster today at Publix in NE. Fla., will get it tomorrow. The Pharmacist said anyone 65 or older with 5 months or more since the 1st booster is eligible.

 

[mistermike40]

Not trying to derail the main topic of this thread, but it seems Omicron is on the decline and I haven't heard of any subsequent significant variants (so far). If this trend holds, I'm guessing only at-risk individuals will need boosters going forward (similar to annual flu shots). At least that's my hope.

 

[RetiredAt55.5]

Not trying to derail the main topic of this thread, but it seems Omicron is on the decline and I haven't heard of any subsequent significant variants (so far). If this trend holds, I'm guessing only at-risk individuals will need boosters going forward (similar to annual flu shots). At least that's my hope.

There were some reports that the effectiveness of the first booster started to wane significantly after 4 months.

If covid follows the trend from last year, things settled down in the spring and summer months, and took off again in the late fall.

I'm just thinking out loud that I might wait for booster #2 till September/October unless something changes.

 

[ivinsfan]

I scheduled my 2nd booster today at Publix in NE. Fla., will get it tomorrow. The Pharmacist said anyone 65 or older with 5 months or more since the 1st booster is eligible.

As a logic question for some of us that aren't quite on board with seemingly endless boosters.


Florida has a 7 day rate of 26 per 100K population down 65% in the last 7 days. If aren't planning on traveling or have a major health condition how do you figure out when to booster, and how many boosters are too many?


For myself I'm absolutely not OK with getting a booster every 5 months like clockwork. I would factor in local conditions, any travel plans I might have and so on before another booster. Even pro vaxx people acknowledge getting a booster in not 100% risk free.




In our case we did a second dose in mid March 21...then Delta popped up and at the same time DH needed to have an inpatient pacemaker swap out. We decided to booster in mid Nov. That was a good decision for us , he got the swap early December and we got max protection through the Delta wave.



Does anyone actually know what issues might popup with repeated and repeated Covid vaxx shots, at this time the answer is no. Now suddenly they shorten it to 5 months what's next 4 months?

 

[audreyh1]

Not trying to derail the main topic of this thread, but it seems Omicron is on the decline and I haven't heard of any subsequent significant variants (so far). If this trend holds, I'm guessing only at-risk individuals will need boosters going forward (similar to annual flu shots). At least that's my hope.

The interesting things is that whike Omicron cases decline, the BA.2 variant of omicron is rising in prevalence. Whether this causes a rise in cases again, we’ll have to see. It didn’t in South Africa, but maybe causing and increase in Denmark which had BA.2 dominant much longer. We’ll see how it plays out here.

Realize though, that variants can show up at any time and spread rapidly worldwide like Omicron did. So I don’t count on any trends holding.

 

[harllee]

I scheduled my 2nd booster today at Publix in NE. Fla., will get it tomorrow. The Pharmacist said anyone 65 or older with 5 months or more since the 1st booster is eligible.

So you don't have to certify an autoimmune disease or similar to get the second booster in Florida? I would like the second booster but here in NC the pharmacies are only giving it to people with autoimmune disease or other similar health issues. They say the FDA has not approved the second booster for anyone else.

 

[Koolau]

I haven't been watching anything but case counts and hospitalizations, dutifully reported each night on KHON. While we were up to nearly 4000 cases per day, state wide at the height of Omicron, it appears we are closer to 10% of that now. Oh, and the drop doesn't appear to be anything we have done. We've been (slightly) relaxing our bar/restaurant policies, vax rate is only up a % or so, more and more folks are ditching their masks outside (no officers in the mangroves anymore), the stores and shopping areas are packed and we have relatively low booster rates. What could go wrong?

It's clear that humans are having much less intentional effect on the virus than the virus is having on itself. Amazing how a just-barely-alive or not-alive (depending upon your 'religion') pathogen is driving the numbers as we watch. I still believe in doing all the things we can to protect ourselves - and I do (boosted and still wearing a mask, limiting interactions, etc.) but it appears we are more like racing spectators, hoping not to be hit by a passing car than participants in this whole thing we call a pandemic. End of my philosophical rant as YMMV.

 

[Dtail]

There were some reports that the effectiveness of the first booster started to wane significantly after 4 months.

If covid follows the trend from last year, things settled down in the spring and summer months, and took off again in the late fall.

I'm just thinking out loud that I might wait for booster #2 till September/October unless something changes.

Kind of where I am.

 

[Scuba]

Kind of where I am.

Ditto. We had our booster in October 2021. Never contracted Omicron as far as we know, but not anxious to get another booster so soon. The shots seem to be at least one variant behind anyway.

 

[pacergal]

Same here.
Unless BA.2 or another variant starts spreading like wildfire, I will get my 4th (maybe beginning of annual?) booster in the Fall with my flu vaccine.
That is if CDC recommends a 4th to everyone.
Still wearing masks and distancing. Probably masks forever, really like no colds or illnesses for the past few years!

 

[Turbo29]

This is interesting: " Macaque monkeys were dosed twice, four weeks apart, with the standard Moderna coronavirus vaccine, and then 41 weeks later one group of them got a booster of the same shot, while another got a booster of the new one with an Omicron variant sequence. Subsequent tests for neutralizing antibody levels, B-cell expansion, and response to a challenge with the Omicron virus itself showed that there was no difference between the two treatments at all."


Omicron Boosters and Original Antigenic Sin

 

[Sojourner]

This is interesting: " Macaque monkeys were dosed twice, four weeks apart, with the standard Moderna coronavirus vaccine, and then 41 weeks later one group of them got a booster of the same shot, while another got a booster of the new one with an Omicron variant sequence. Subsequent tests for neutralizing antibody levels, B-cell expansion, and response to a challenge with the Omicron virus itself showed that there was no difference between the two treatments at all."


Omicron Boosters and Original Antigenic Sin

Thanks for posting this. Very interesting article.

 

[audreyh1]

Thanks for that article. I’ve been wondering about that.

My own take is that if a variant comes along that's horrific enough to show major immune evasion, that very property will make it something that a new vaccine booster is likely to be able to target usefully. Omicron isn't it, though. It's different enough to be much faster-spreading, but it's similar enough for the current vaccines to still provide a huge amount of protection.

I’m still wondering about the waning of the current booster protection over time with respect to hospitalization or worse. And I would like to see it addressed for those of us >4 months out.

 

[Sojourner]

I’m still wondering about the waning of the current booster protection over time with respect to hospitalization or worse. And I would like to see it addressed for those of us >4 months out.

Here is a quote from a WebMD article from 4 days ago.

Fauci pointed to CDC research that found vaccine effectiveness after two doses of mRNA vaccines -- either Moderna or Pfizer -- drops to 58% after 4-5 months. After a booster dose, the vaccine is 91% effective, at first, at preventing hospitalizations. But that drops to 78% at months 4 to 5. "Nonetheless, the level of 78 [%] is still a good protective area," Fauci said.

"The future requirement for an additional boost, or a fourth shot for mRNA or a third shot for [Johnson & Johnson], is being very carefully monitored in real time," he said, adding that recommendations will be updated as needed.

It's useful to keep in mind that the 78% number included many elderly folks, as well as people with multiple comorbidities, etc. I would suspect the level of protection is substantially higher among younger, healthier folks.

 

[audreyh1]

Yes, I’ve read the reports.

I agree that 78% is still good at 4 months, but it continues to drop - that’s the point!

 

[zinger1457]

For those interested in getting a measure of their covid antibody levels a company called Serimmune is doing a covid immunity research study and still looking for participants, no cost involved. I signed up about 3 months ago, they send out a blood collection kit and you mail it back for analysis, about 3 weeks later you'll get a report back with your results. The blood collection is painless, similar to a prick when checking your glucose level at home except it's done on your upper arm. This is a long-term study and they will send you a collection kit every 6 months and provide you the results.
They also offer an optional expanded report that isn't covid related but will check your antibody levels against 5 different tick or mosquito borne diseases like lyme and report the likelihood if you've ever been exposed to any of those diseases. They use the same blood sample used for the covid test.
https://serimmune.com/covid19study/

 

[Turbo29]

"As people across the world grapple with the prospect of living with the coronavirus for the foreseeable future, one question looms large: How soon before they need yet another shot?Not for many months, and perhaps not for years, according to a flurry of new studies.
Three doses of a Covid vaccine — or even just two — are enough to protect most people from serious illness and death for a long time, the studies suggest.
“We’re starting to see now diminishing returns on the number of additional doses,” said John Wherry, director of the Institute for immunology at the University of Pennsylvania. Although people over 65 or at high risk of illness may benefit from a fourth vaccine dose, it may be unnecessary for most people, he added."


Got a Covid Booster? You Probably Won’t Need Another for a Long Time

 

[audreyh1]

The beef I have with articles like that, is:

“Memory responses can last for ages,” said Wendy Burgers, an immunologist at the University of Cape Town who led one of the studies, published in the journal Nature. “Potentially, the T-cell response is extremely long lived.”

They are speculating for Covid-19, they don’t know.

Meanwhile waning protection is being measured, for real.

The CDC is looking at who shows up in urgency care centers, emergency departments and hospitals. Their waning protection indications aren’t based on antibody measurements, but on those needing treatment. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7107e2.htm