No, you didn’t read carefully enough.
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I guess I’m lost.
None of the vaccines provided immunity, they do keep people from being dead and out of hospitals.
That makes me feel safer than with no vaccine.
In my opinion that’s what reporting should emphasize.
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This is timely, I think…
And I hadn’t noticed…
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Well, I was responding to this.
As far as I can see, the article does not say that.
Again, the original mRNA vaccines still provide very good protection against severe disease. This remains true even while there are more cases due to the new subvariants being better at infecting people who’ve previously had vaccines and/or boosters and/or covid.
The NPR piece refers to Pfizer and BioNTech’s claims that their new boosters stimulate higher antibody production against BA.5 than the originals. The point the manufacturers are making is that since BA.5 is a subvariant closely related to BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, there is reason to hope the new shot will be more effective against them than the original vaccines and boosters are.
I’m sorry if I’m not getting what you’re saying. The virus continues to evolve, so the news is mostly bad, but it’s not “vaccine doesn’t work” bad.
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Thanks for the effort to further parse out that piece’s info.
Right, and I don’t mean to say that the article’s info implies that vaccines don’t work. What I meant was that it seems to imply that while the second booster specifically helps fight BA.5, it doesn’t specifically help fight the new subvariants. Which makes me think, despairingly, that the second booster that I’ll be getting soon is already behind the times (if not entirely useless).
So, I still don’t see how the article supports this:
Did I miss a part where the manufacturers are quoted saying that?
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Reminder to those who’ve had COVID – be even more careful, not less!
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Of course, “effective” vs “not effective” is all a statistical function. The BQ variants more closely resemble the BA.5 variant than the BA.5 variant resembles earlier variants. That’s relevant for antibody matching, but even more relevant (and important) for memory T cells. We can measure antibodies, but we can’t measure specific T-cells, so we measure antibodies as a rough analog. Unfortunately, with COVID, that analog is very rough when it comes to predicting actual outcomes. The good news is, so far, high antibody production has correlated with better outcomes while low antibody production is less predictive, a.k.a. sometimes low antibodies still means good outcomes and sometimes not.
Which is all to say the new BA.5 -specific vaccine is as good at “neutralizing the new variants” as any of the previous vaccines were at neutralizing their contemporary variants, as long as we recognize that “neutralizing” doesn’t mean sick or not sick but rather a statistical distribution of responses.
And @tcg550, here’s my periodic reminder that “immunity” is also a statistical continuum in multiple dimensions when it comes to viral infection. It’s a probability curve of different responses to infection as well as being a probability curve in contagiousness during infection, and those two curves don’t necessarily align. But we do know that the vaccines modify contagiousness such that a vaccinated individual tends to be less contagious for a shorter duration while infected than a non-vaccinated individual, even with previous COVID infection.
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Thanks, I’m not in a med field so some of that is proverbial Greek to me, but the upshot that I gather from it is reassuring.
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It’s definitely a mix of reassuring and WDKS, but mostly reassuring.
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I’ve just decided to tell myself that I like taking vaccines for the interim.
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I’m going to attempt the Hep B vaccine again! (First time, I was majorly busy and the third shot was skipped/delayed a couple years, so I have to start over again.)
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I qualified for a pneumonia vaccine, even tho I’m only 40ish. Allergy doc noticed something in my records that signaled reactive airways. She offered it, and I could see her bracing for vaccine hesitance (or aggression). But I was like YES give me this vaccine that might help me avoid secondary infections every time I have a respiratory infection!
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I’m 58, have asthma and have had pneumonia 3 times, twice as a kid and once as an adult.
I ask all my doctors every year and they keep telling me when I’m 65.
I trust them and they don’t seem concerned so I wait.
My last routine visit to my cardiologist the nurse updating my records was surprised I had all the current boosters. I said I called and the heart doctor said to get it. She said no one listens.
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Make sure you ask again. My allergy doc said it was a recent change!
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… oh shit, were we supposed to be keeping track
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You lost count?
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I don’t know, in my case it’s hard to forget. It was not fun.
There is still scar tissue on my lungs that causes concern every time I get a lung xray.
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Neutralizing antibodies are not the whole story. They are just the easiest to measure, and are related to not getting infected. Memory B cells and other “deep immunity” factors are a lot harder to measure, and are usually assessed by “hey, vaccinated folks aren’t landing the hospital, or the morgue.” It will take some time for that data to come in. But it makes sense. This thing throws variants like crazy, and some are bound to be more successful.
@DukeTrout
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Thanks for the further insider info, doc! Guess I’ll get that 5th shot for sure, and hope for the best. And keep masking up like a bandit who always has an eye for the main chance.
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Digging the scene with a gangster lean!
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