Covid 2024 Vaccine

[Gumby]

MODERATOR NOTE: Let's avoid going further down this political rabbit hole, because it will get the thread closed. Thanks.

 

[wolf]

MODERATOR NOTE: Let's avoid going further down this political rabbit hole, because it will get the thread closed. Thanks.

Thanks for all your work. Gumby. But, I find the "discussion" interesting, and I'm learning a lot from the various points of views offered. Makes me think. Keep an open mind.
IMHO, would be a shame to shut this topic down.

 

[Gumby]

Thanks for all your work. Gumby. But, I find the "discussion" interesting, and I'm learning a lot from the various points of views offered. Makes me think. Keep an open mind.
IMHO, would be a shame to shut this topic down.

It would be a shame. Hence the note.

 

[JBTX]

At least on my part, I’ve really tried to avoid the political aspects.

An anecdote was shared about knowing doctors who don’t support the shots. As I said I have a similar anecdote myself. But based on the overall data those anecdotes are the exception.

After the rollout of vaccinations 96% were vaccinated.

AMA survey shows over 96% of doctors fully vaccinated against COVID-19

New data point toward high COVID-19 vaccine confidence among practicing physicians.

www.ama-assn.org

Most support them.

COVID-19 vaccination among different types of US Healthcare Personnel - PMC

Increasing vaccine coverage remains the best way to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare personnel (HCP) have long been the most credible and frequently used source of vaccine information for the public, and an HCP recommendation is a strong ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

As to later boosters, a healthy majority recommends them but there is legit debate as to how effective they are at this point, given prior vaccinations, prior natural immunity and rapidly evolving variants.

66% of doctors will recommend new COVID shot to all patients

Click here to learn more about our 66% of doctors will recommend new COVID shot to all patients blog posts. %

www.sermo.com

I’ve found Dr Paul Offit to be the most knowledgeable and trust worthy subject on these vaccinations and others.

Dr. Paul Offit Answers Common Questions About COVID-19 Vaccines

A vaccination expert answers questions about the COVID-19 vaccines, including whether mRNA vaccines were rushed or will affect DNA.

vaccinateyourfamily.org

Offit on boosters

I highly recommend his YouTube videos “Beyond the noise” where he discussed various issues related to vaccination.

 

[Koolau]

You have 2 things going on:

1. Different diseases have different characteristics, which causes them to respond differently to vaccines

2. Vaccines work in a couple of different ways, and that varies depending on the nature of the disease.

Vaccines typically work in the short term by creating antibodies. The antibodies fill the bloodstream and fight the particular disease. But typically antibodies only last a couple or few months. If they didn’t with all of the diseases we experience over a lifetime our blood would become sludge filled with hundreds of versions of antibodies.

Longer term, after the antibodies, vaccines (or natural immunity ) can work by the creation of T cells and B cells. T cells efffectively “remember” the prior invading disease, and activate if it is detected again. T cells tend to have broader protection than antibodies. But T cells take something like 5 days to activate once a disease has been detected. B cells, per my understanding, work like T cells but when they recognize a repeat disease they activate a repeat anti body response.

Now let’s take historical diseases, like measles or polio. When we get a vaccine that activates a short term antibody response. But longer term, if the body detected measles or polio, T cells activate. Measles and polio take something like 10 days to activate - so the T cells knock them out before they activate. The result is most people never get the disease and the disease mostly dies out. Also, as far as I know there aren’t lots of variants of measles and polio disease.

Now let’s take the flu. The strains are very different. Flu vaccines, to the extent they are entirely effective, rely almost entirely on the antibody response. For whatever reason there isn’t a material T cell defense, presumably because of the broad differences of strains. So the flu shot defense only gives a few months of immunity, and you get a new shot every year, but given it’s seasonal that’s probably enough.

Flu incubates in a few days, so even if there were a T cells response, the disease gets a jump on the T cells.

Covid has characteristics of both scenarios above. It has mutated numerous times so the upfront antibody responses are somewhat muted. But the variants are close enough that the T cells response is effective. But like the flu, COVID incubates quickly in a few days, faster than the T cells response. So long term if you are reinfected, you will likely get the disease, but the T cell response lagging a couple of days will beat the disease back - thus the reason that for later variants the vaccine may not have kept you from getting sick but definitely lowered the probability of severe disease.

So when people are getting annual, or semi annual boosters, they are boosting their immediate antibody protection. Those antibodies may provide modest protection for 2-3 months. The level of protection is somewhat dependent on how close the vaccine is to the disease variant. The antibody protection is at this point probably comparable to the flu shot - better than nothing but far from perfect.

As to long term covid T cell protection, I don’t know the latest on that. I recall there was measured T cell immunity early on of at least a year, perhaps longer. Has the T cells response weakened with variants? I don’t know. Does repeated boosters help the T cell response? I don’t know.

It’s worth noting that early in the pandemic they found evidence that those that had SARS (another coronavirus) 20 years earlier still had some residual T cells response.

So when people express opinions about the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine vs other vaccines - the difference is really due to the different nature of the disease, between the multiple variants and its fast incubating nature, not the vaccine.

So whether one or even two boosters a year is worth it is really a judgement call. Chances are it does give a modest antibody boost, somewhat similar to that of a flu shot. But is that modest and somewhat temporary boost enough to warrant the actual repeated booster for a healthy younger person with no risk factors?

In the past the CDC has recommended repeated boosters, but experts like Paul Offit, had said there wasn’t enough evidence to recommend multiple boosters for healthy people. To be clear, he wasn’t against it, and did not take the position that the current HHS secretary that you shouldn’t take it.

In my case the first year I got two boosters but after that I get one booster every fall. Partially for my own benefit, but partially for my 90 year old parents benefit. As far as I know I’ve had COVID twice.

In December my dad got Covid (I did too as I was visiting ) and got sick, took a fall, and developed blood clots. He was in the hospital and in rough shape for a few weeks. Ultimately he recovered but then went to rehab and now is in long term care. I don’t think he had a booster this year due to his cognitive decline and his stubbornness as I urged him to do so earlier in the fall and offered to take him but he wanted to do things his own way.

Thanks for the primer on vaccines. Very helpful.

 

[explanade]

Why? Because the odds of getting the flu are higher than the odds of getting Covid. And the flu vaccine has never caused an issue with either my wife or myself. On the other hand almost immediately after getting the initial two Covid shot regimen, my wife wound up in ICU for a week with AFib. The medical staff believed it was a cause and effect of the Covid shots. We believed it since many friends who are in the medical field themselves absolutely will not get the Covid shots, and never have. That tells us something.

No Covid has a much higher reproduction number or R0 than influenza.

Basic reproduction number - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[EastWest Gal]

Why? Because the odds of getting the flu are higher than the odds of getting Covid. And the flu vaccine has never caused an issue with either my wife or myself. On the other hand almost immediately after getting the initial two Covid shot regimen, my wife wound up in ICU for a week with AFib. The medical staff believed it was a cause and effect of the Covid shots. We believed it since many friends who are in the medical field themselves absolutely will not get the Covid shots, and never have. That tells us something.

As of this year, right now, you are correct. We've had a bad couple of years of flu, and Covid numbers seem to be going down, the lowest since the beginning of the pandemic. Flu is clearly seasonal though-we don't see much flu between June and November, but Covid occurs year round with peaks after various holidays.

So in July, the odds of getting Covid are much higher than getting the flu. In January, the reverse may be true.

Flu vaccine side effects are indeed rare. The most serious side effect is Guillain-Barré syndrome, occurring at a rate of 1-2 cases/million doses. The incidence of Afib after Covid vaccine is estimated at 5 cases per million doses. Both are pretty rare, but they are serious side effects.

I've observed that many people in the "medical field" are not knowledgeable about immunology, and should not be the best way to judge a vaccine's effectiveness or riskiness. CNAs who have nine months of training, radiology technicians, and most nurses have not had extensive training in infectious diseases or immunology. As a pediatrician, the vast majority of illness that I saw was a large variety of infections, both viral and bacterial.

 

[ychuck46]

I've observed that many people in the "medical field" are not knowledgeable about immunology, and should not be the best way to judge a vaccine's effectiveness or riskiness. CNAs who have nine months of training, radiology technicians, and most nurses have not had extensive training in infectious diseases or immunology. As a pediatrician, the vast majority of illness that I saw was a large variety of infections, both viral and bacterial.

Perhaps you are correct, but on the other hand people put a person on a pedestal, proclaiming him to be the top disease "expert" in the country, when he had been nothing but a bureaucrat and a political (bad word) kisser for many decades. Also in his case many in the infectious disease area disliked him and his grandstanding very much, and were vocal about it.

 

[Alan]

Thanks for an interesting discussion, after discussion we have decided to close the thread.