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.
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.
But the fourth dose did work, just not significantly better than the third. So for people who might have had their third too long in the past to still be confident about their imminent encounter with omicron, it is exactly the obvious short term solution you describe.
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.
Oh, maybe it is context specific then. No one I know in Australia is really talking about variant vaccines yet so maybe our media is being a bit quiet about it. Late March is a long time away considering we are dealing with peak COVID now.
yes but these are for-profit companies and the developing world can't pay for those doses so what's the point to Pfizer?
That's a cynical take, but tbf don't the vaccines require logistical infrastructure that those parts of the world don't have? Other vaccines like j&j are perhaps more appropriate for that reason.
Given what happened with delta, it seems likely that by the time a variant-specific booster is ready (i.e. gone through safety trials and bureaucratic approval and have manufacturing lines switched over), the variant will already have come and gone.
It should be pretty clear at this point that we're not going to vaccinate our way out of transmission.
I doubt there's a lot of utility to boosting a 4th time with anything unless you're immunocompromised in some way.
And by the time we start vaccinating for Omicron it'll likely be too late and we'll be onto the next variant which the Omicron booster will only partially cross react with.
But the vaccines have largely done their job, the boosted mature T-cell response is what is going to be saving lives and keeping people out of the hospitals. And the virus probably can't mutate enough to ever escape from T-cells.
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.
Antibody levels are transient and not very important. What matters over the long term is cellular immunity. We're just chasing our tails by focusing on antibody levels.
> Does an extra booster reduce hospitalizations and deaths?
A meta question: how do these studies control for the fact that people who care enough to get a booster are more likely to care proactively about their health?
Usually they used randomized controlled trials for this sort of thing, which in a well designed study will account for this sort of bias
Whether the population in the trial generalized to the population at large is a bit different question and I think is where the bias you’re highlighting could come into part
'... people who care enough to get a booster are more likely to care proactively about their health'
Are there studies to show people who care about health get boosters? My neighbors are hyper healthy and undosed. I am undosed and I exercise regularly.
I generally see many people who sat on couch for two years put on considerable weight. Getting dosed while eating ourselves into 2x pants sizes doesn't seem to be good for health, as it increases the co-morbidity counter.
There's no need for a variant-specific booster. The vaccines are still very effective at preventing severe disease with Omicron. Just like they were with Delta.
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.