kurtster wrote:

I don't see a lot of fretting or consternation or anything else out of the ordinary besides some of us saying that we maybe don't see that we need more shots. And you were saying something similar. No drama here.

Sheesh.  later

 kurtster wrote:
“Have fun scaring yourselves.”

”Let me know when there is something new to worry about.”

“.Just said I was over it all and that y’all can keep fretting over it.”

 steeler wrote: 
Not at all. 

Looked in here for the first time in days and saw everyone still fretting about more boosters.

Just said I was over it all and that y'all can keep on fretting over it. 

That makes me superior how ?

 kurtster wrote:
Have fun feeling superior.

 steeler wrote: 
ooooohh, and touchy, too.

There's a vaccination for that I hear.

Let me know when there is something new to worry about.

Carry on as usual.

 steeler wrote:

It's what he does.

 kurtster wrote:

Fail.

We'll be getting our second boosters this coming Friday.

No offense to anyone but I am over and done with it.  Not getting any boosters.

Had 2 Moderna's.  Been directly exposed (that I know of) 3 times and when it was nasty.

Evidently we now have post infection therapies available now.

Time to be more worried about being struck by lightning.  My 3rd Pandemic. Not gonna look back.

Have fun scaring yourselves.  To each their own.

Peace 

 Steely_D wrote:
It seems the recommendations against getting a 2d booster are based on the mildness of the illness of those who were infected by Omicron and now the sub variant. And the expectation that this trend will continue — I.e, the virus will continue to weaken in terms of the severity of the illness. This makes sense to me. It also might mean no need for further vaccinations unless the virus evolves differently than expected.

Contrastingly, last summer/fall, at the time many of us were getting the first booster, there pretty much was agreement among experts that it was necessary. At that time, of course, the severity of illness of those infected had not definitively turned toward mildness.

I also agree with the predictions that almost all of us will get it at some point. Since many who get it are asymptomatic, I guess it is possible I already have had it and did not know it.

Still, I do not think there is a significant downside for me. But who knows? I think the downside would be possible side effects, known or unknown. Since, I have had 3 shots without problem, I would guess possible downside for me would be possible unknown effects that show up later.

I did read a while ago — only time I saw it mentioned — that it is possible that getting too many shots might at some point have the opposite effect on the immune system. That, I thought, was interesting. But my guess would be that I would not be at that point by getting a 2d booster.

The CDC is being criticized for saying people can get the booster without recommending it. However, everything I have read from experts seems to say it is safe to get it but maybe not necessary.

The guy that taught me biochemistry lab, and then became my anatomy partner in med school, and I'm still friends with today after four decades, seems to be not too enamored with this 4th shot. He gives talks on the topic that are way over my head but the upshot is that shots 1&2 were very important but the latter two less so. Not that they're hurtful, and I would certainly support their use in the frail and ill. But in terms of its necessity for someone who's cruising, he sounded less than impressed.

 steeler wrote: 
I got mine Saturday so I could be protected while I pondered the issue...But then again I'm an old man.

 black321 wrote:
I am thinking through getting 2d booster now (past 6 months since first) or waiting. I am guessing that this eventually will become 2 shots a year, and if it does, I would want to get one around late September and the other around end of March. Under that thinking, it would make sense for me to get my 2d booster now. I know it is not variant-specific, but the variants are evolving anyway. And I know the available data is not complete, but my understanding is that the data (mostly from Israel) seems to show that efficacy begins to wane after 4 months. Not sure why I would wait until late summer or early fall . . . 

 miamizsun wrote:

Haven't seen any hard data re. 1 in 15...but did read that most cases in Hong Kong have been asymptomatic. 
Meanwhile, China cites in extreme lockdowns with kids/babies being separated/quarantined from parents.  
So very odd. 

 black321 wrote: 

listened to offit on several occasions and i think he makes sense

regarding the new variant - i thought i just heard in the background that about one in fifteen are symptomatic
say what? has anyone else heard something similar?
during my lunch i'm going to see if can verifry that

Interesting, found this article from WSJ oped, discussing the science (or lack) behind approving a fourth shot;


Topol noted that the FDA's move legitimizes what many Americans are doing anyway. Anyone who wants a fourth dose can go to a pharmacy and receive one just by saying that they need one because they are immunocompromised.

Others felt there wasn't yet enough science available to support the decision.Dr. Eric Rubin, editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine who sits on the FDA's VRBPAC, said he hadn't yet seen enough data on fourth doses to make a determination about whether they are needed for anyone beyond those who are already recommended to get them — adults who are severely immune deficient." The only data that I've seen has been for participants followed for just a few weeks. The most important information is going to be how well a fourth dose protects highly vulnerable people against serious disease and death, and I don't know when that will be available," Rubin said in an email to CNN. Rubin said the FDA might have access to that data, but he had not seen it yet.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the vaccine education center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA's VRBPAC, also said he felt the administration was acting ahead of the science. "Where's the evidence that somebody over 50 benefits from a fourth dose? Because the evidence to date appears to support the possibility for those over 65, although I haven't, we haven't, seen all the data," Offit told CNN, speaking of the VRBPAC committee members. "But where's the evidence for a 50 to 64 year old? Where's that evidence? Because absent that evidence, then there shouldn't be this recommendation," he said.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/26...

Big article on Dr. Robert Malone in today’s NYT. FTA:

The idea that he is the inventor of mRNA vaccines is “a totally false claim,” said Dr. Gyula Acsadi, a pediatrician in Connecticut who along with Dr. Malone and five others wrote a widely cited paper in 1990 showing that injecting RNA into muscle could produce proteins. (The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines work by injecting RNA into arm muscles that produce copies of the “spike protein” found on the outside of the coronavirus. The human immune system identifies that protein, attacks it and then remembers how to defeat it.

But Dr. Malone was not the lead author on the paper and, according to Dr. Acsadi, did not make a significant contribution to the research. While the paper stated that the technology could “provide alternative approaches to vaccine development,” Dr. Acsadi said none of the other authors would claim that they invented the vaccine.

“Some of his work was important,” said Dr. Alastair McAlpine, a pediatric infectious disease doctor based in Vancouver, British Columbia, “but that’s a long way away from claiming to have invented the technology that underpins the vaccines as we use them today.”

 R_P wrote:

Early in the pandemic when the testing capacity was just ramping up and people were guessing at how prevalent it was outside of the ones showing up at the hospitals, I maintained that we needed a random sampling program in the community. That's needed even more now when we have confounding factors of people who have recovered from covid that may or may not have immunity, people who are vaccinated and usually have minor symptoms, and multiple variants.

The British government on Friday shut down or scaled back a number of its Covid surveillance programs, curtailing the collection of data that the United States and many other countries had come to rely on to understand the threat posed by emerging variants and the effectiveness of vaccines. Denmark, too, renowned for insights from its comprehensive tests, has drastically cut back on its virus tracking efforts in recent months.

As more countries loosen their policies toward living with Covid rather than snuffing it out, health experts worry that monitoring systems will become weaker, making it more difficult to predict new surges and to make sense of emerging variants.