the number is misleading due to the Sampson’s paradox… each of those two group eff is actually still holding up well Until there are stronger evidences, I still think booster might not be necessary for years except for certain groups (older, weak immunity)
I get that it's strongly among older people at the moment, but that doesn't make it particularly less alarming to me. I'm assuming efficacy falling isn't only occurring in the old and weak, those are just the ones who are suffering the most from it, as has always been the case.
Makes sense that the boosters could accelerate mutations. There was discussion about this in 20 odd pages back. My model to this is akin to one person taking antibiotic treatments. They're supposed to take pills twice a day for five days, but most skip out at the last few days after recovering and feeling good enough to work. The patient hopes their body can fight off the remaining bacteria, but if it doesn't, the children who survived the treatment become stronger. That negligence repeated over and over is how the world started getting superstrains of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Now imagine the country as one person. Patient US is taking treatments, but only half the time. They decide to take another treatment at the end, but this time only a quarter of the time (on top of that 1/2). So 1/8th has variants incubating in booster bodies spreading to people w/o booster and those w/o any vaccination. That's highly competitive pressure for covid strains without outright elimination. Yeah, I think I'll mask tf up indoors.
I have a lot of questions about waning and efficacy. The way efficacy is measure is to compare vaccinated vs unvaccinated. It is not a measurement of how much an individual is protective in absolute terms, but how much an individual is protective vs the unvaccinated group. There is bias there and it's biased toward "waning immunity". As more unvaccinated obtain natural immunity through natural infection, efficacy will no doubt go down. A better measurement would be to compare vaccinated vs unvaccinated without previous infection, but that's almost impossible to do.
Here's a good paper outlining the difference between drug resistance and vaccine resistance evolution of pathogens. Drug resistance development is a fairly common occurrence (like the antibiotics example you gave), but vaccine resistance happens rarely and even if it happens, it often takes years or decades for the pathogen to develop resistance. The author contends that one of the main difference is that vaccine mostly work prophylatically as opposed to therapeutically. Resistance happens when a genetic mutation happens to gave the pathogen a favorable outcome. A vaccine works prophlatically to stop the pathogen replication very early in the process, ideally before transmissibility. Since there are fewer replications, you give the pathogen much fewer chances to randomly chance into a 'good' mutation. So in a population that is well vaccinated, the chance of a mutation that happens to evade the vaccine is very very low. Giving boosters to immunocompromsed people will give these people a better chance to stop the infection before it has a lot of chance to roll the dice on getting a advantageous mutation. Viruses aren't 'smart' and they don't 'learn' from being inside a boosted person. It's just throwing billions of darts on the wall and see what sticks. A boosted person will give fewer darts to the virus to throw. So the goal should be to vaccinate everyone then give boosters to people that is at risk of a breakthrough infection. Then send billions of vaccine shots to the rest of the world as fast as we can. The 30% of antivaxxers in the US is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions of unvaccinated people across the globe. EDIT: The NPR article isn't saying that a booster is going to cause covid to develop resistance. It's saying that shots that takes a population from 0 to 80% resistance is much more valuable than giving it as boosters that take a population from 80% to 90% resistance. Vaccines are a limited resource that can be spent more wisely by not using it as boosters. Personally I'm not fully convinced that it's true in the real world. There are other considerations other than medical in the real world. It's like how the food I couldn't finish at dinner aren't useful to someone starving in Africa. I doubt the public can be convinced to give away billions of vaccination shots to the rest of the world and not save some for ourselves as boosters.
Y’all taking the booster? At this point, idk why anyone would till they start offering incentives again. Be patient and you’ll get a hundo
Pressley Stutts, a Republican leader in South Carolina who fought COVID-19 vaccination efforts, died on Thursday of the coronavirus after a weekslong battle, including six days spent on a ventilator, The Greenville News reported. Stutts, a 64-year-old veteran, frequently shared conspiracy theories about the virus, the vaccines and the 2020 election on Facebook, including in posts made from his ICU bed. Stutts and his wife were rushed to the hospital Aug. 1 after his oxygen levels dropped. "The COVID has created double pneumonia in my lungs," he said in a Facebook post at the time. He further said in his post that as a proponent for "freedom and liberty," no one should be forced to wear a mask and get vaccinated. at least he went out on his own terms I guess
The best tools these societies have for avoiding COVID outbreaks is vaccination, lockdowns, and using personal protection when in public settings. The more people you can get vaccinated, the less need for the other two. And yet, too often those agitating against the latter two are also the ones most likely to be discouraging vaccination — which means more outbreaks and more restrictions. What places like Melbourne need is a rapid escalation in vaccination. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/australia/covid-vaccines-melbourne.html
Well I didn’t think I would read that today on here. Good job sir. On a sad side note. In the last few months a member of blackalicious and Zion I have passed. Sucks
