Three vaccine doses

[pje16]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58270098

What a dumb headline
Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
I'll ask my mate who (having had both jabs a while ago) got Covid 10 days ago
He feels like sh*t and has been in bed since Monday
ok he's not at death's door, he says it feel like a bad case of flu
but he can't smell anything, doesn't want to eat, can't sleep etc
Who else wants to put their hand up to catch a dose of that?

[88V8]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58270098

There is clear evidence that adults who have not had any vaccine dose will have stronger immune defences if they do get vaccinated, even if they have caught Covid before.
But there are two big questions:
do vaccinated adults need to be boosted, or is exposure to the virus enough?
do children need vaccinating at all, or does a lifetime of encountering build a good immune defence?

I'd hate to be a govt minister trying to decide on a way forward.

A logical way might be to boost some and not others, and monitor the effect over time. But you then have to decide whether to let people know that they're part of a large-scale experiment.

If I'm offered a third, I shall take it.

V8

[onthemove]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58270098

What a dumb headline
Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
I'll ask my mate who (having had both jabs a while ago) got Covid 10 days ago
He feels like sh*t and has been in bed since Monday
ok he's not at death's door, he says it feel like a bad case of flu
but he can't smell anything, doesn't want to eat, can't sleep etc
Who else wants to put their hand up to catch a dose of that?

From the article...

You get a broader immune response after being infected with the virus than vaccination.

Sounds like your mate is seeing the effects of the narrower immune response of the vaccine.

Plus what's the point of the vaccine if you aren't using it as protection?

What are you suggesting? That your mate should isolate indefinitely? Doesn't sound like he would have been due for a booster yet anyway.

No one is suggesting deliberately going out to get infected, but as your mate showed, the vaccines aren't stopping infection, so we aren't going to get herd immunity.

As the article points out...

Of course, with cases continuing to rumble on, there may not be much choice.

"I'm wondering whether it's inevitable," said Prof Klenerman, as if the virus continues to spread then "there will be this ongoing boosting effect".

I just had my second vaccine dose a couple of days ago and have been floored for the past day... really bad headache and fever that put me into bed for several hours during yesterday, was wearing three layers of fleece even though room temp at 20+C yesterday and could hardly move my head from the headache, and then a very interrupted night last night as the fever really started to kick in and had me waking up sweating many times.

My boss at work and my mum both reported similarly bad side effects from their jabs

So at least for some of us, it's not like the vaccine is a walk in the park either!

[9873210]

From the article...

You get a broader immune response after being infected with the virus than vaccination.

There are several vaccines and will be more.

Attenuated and killed virus vaccines (currently used in China) present all the virus proteins so by this theory should be better.

Recombinant virus or mRNA vaccines could be used to deliver different, or multiple, antigens. The beauty of these systems is you can insert any payload that is not too big to fit in the delivery envelope.

You should not assume that the current vaccines are the best possible vaccine, nor the best ones we will ever have. Their primary virtue is that they were first, even if they have other virtues such as outstanding short term protection. If vaccines with different properties are needed they may be developed.

[pje16]

[quote="onthemove"]
Sounds like your mate is seeing the effects of the narrower immune response of the vaccine.
Plus what's the point of the vaccine if you aren't using it as protection?
What are you suggesting? That your mate should isolate indefinitely? Doesn't sound like he would have been due for a booster yet anyway.
No one is suggesting deliberately going out to get infected, but as your mate showed, the vaccines aren't stopping infection, so we aren't going to get herd immunity.
[quote]

I never said anything about isolation
my point was that it is NOT better to catch it than to say NO to another vaccine
just remember, it's not likely, BUT it can kiil you
[quote="onthemove"]
I just had my second vaccine dose a couple of days ago and have been floored for the past day... really bad headache and fever that put me into bed for several hours during yesterday, was wearing three layers of fleece even though room temp at 20+C yesterday and could hardly move my head from the headache, and then a very interrupted night last night as the fever really started to kick in and had me waking up sweating many times.
[quote]
Sorry to hear you had a bad reaction, that sounds worse than some people who have caught it !

[XFool]

Texts received from GP wrt separate appointments in September for Flu and COVID booster vaccinations.

To clarify...

The original text was updated by another, ostensibly an incorrect phone number was included. The second text only mentioned making an appointment for flu vaccination from 12 September, so presently I don't know if the later mentioned appointment (from 25 Sept.) for COVID vaccination still stands or not...

[onthemove]

I never said anything about isolation
my point was that it is NOT better to catch it than to say NO to another vaccine
just remember, it's not likely, BUT it can kiil you

My point is your mate HAD the vaccine yet STILL got covid.

The talk about 'boosters' isn't to give even better protection - the current vaccine protection is already considered incredibly good compared to most existing vaccines - the talk is to replace waning vaccine protection back up to original levels of protection.

Using your mate as an example is nonsensical, because he had the vaccine and still got infected, and since it's only around 8 months since the very first people started being given the vaccines, it's unlikely that he'd be due for a booster yet anyway, even if it was decided that boosters were needed! The flu jabs are annual, and that's typically to protect against new strains, not to 'boost' the same vaccine as the year before.

My comment about isolation was stemming from your suggestion that his covid experience was horrible... my point was that he got covid INSPITE of having had the vaccine.

If you still don't want covid even after you have had the vaccine, then you need to make sure you don't come into contact with the virus.... that means isolation, distancing, etc, which would to some extent be making the vaccine a waste of time in the first place.

You typically use vaccines so that you CAN then put yourself in the path of the virus.

I'm really struggling to understand the rationale of your using your fully vaccinated mate who then caught covid as an example.... what exactly are you trying to say?

Chances are your mate was vaccinated with a vaccine designed to target the original 'alpha' strain, and his recent infection was probably the 'delta' strain, showing how 'narrow' the vaccines are, and how it doesn't take much of a mutation to significantly lower the vaccine protection against new strains.

But from the article...

"Whether you've had Moderna or Pfizer or Oxford-AstraZeneca, your body is learning to spot just one thing - the spike protein.

This is the critical part of the virus to make antibodies to, and the results - by keeping most out of hospital - have been spectacular.

But having the other 28 proteins to target too, would give T-cells far more to go at.

"That means if you had a real humdinger of an infection, you may have better immunity to any new variants that pop up as you have immunity to more than just spike," said Prof Riley."

In other words, your mate is probably now far better protected against a much wider range of potential variants than anyone who has only had the vaccines but not caught the infection itself.

You never know, if enough people get the broader protection from vaccine + infection, that might actually allow us to reach herd immunity, which doesn't look like it's going to be possible from vaccination alone.

[XFool]

If you still don't want covid even after you have had the vaccine, then you need to make sure you don't come into contact with the virus.... that means isolation, distancing, etc, which would to some extent be making the vaccine a waste of time in the first place.

You typically use vaccines so that you CAN then put yourself in the path of the virus.

This is an interesting point.

Perhaps fully vaccinated people ought to get out and about, precisely to expose themselves to the virus (at least a little bit!)? For the purpose of keeping their vaccine-trained immune system 'tuned up', rather than risk their immunity fading away over time.

[1nvest]

You never know, if enough people get the broader protection from vaccine + infection, that might actually allow us to reach herd immunity, which doesn't look like it's going to be possible from vaccination alone.

It's not going away, here to stay. The vaccines reduce the number that die. Seems you can catch, spread whether vaccinated or not. For most its a bother, for a small number severe, fatal for a proportion of those. Perhaps when natural selection has progressed the number of fatalities might decline anyway, vaccinations or not. For the remainder, the large majority, becomes accepted as just another 'bug' you contract periodically, vaccinated or not.

If 0.1% are destined to die from Covid, maybe two thirds mild to no symptoms, one third more flu like, of those a 10% admitted to hospital, of those a 10% end up in ICU, of those a third die, 0.1% of the population of 8Bn then 8 million deaths, where over half that number have already died from it.

For younger adults the risk of death from Covid halves for each 6 years, a dozen and a half deaths from the Delta variant out of approaching 2000 deaths. The vaccine risks are questionably greater (unknown), as is the risk of death during a Saturday night out. For them it might be comparable to being vaccinated as like having to walk home late at night rather than taking a taxi (unvaccinated). That the government is forcing such decisions whilst indemnifying the providers and not being liable themselves, well if they have that much confidence they should both be liable if they're to establish faith.

Pfizer is making massive profits out of it, they've even squashed the competitors (Oxford) to better profit from their £15/jab versus £3 not for profit competition. Rightfully the government should put them on the litigation hook as then they'd be less inclined to just drug push and more inclined to take greater care. Additional unknowns are starting to show, such as kidney/renal issues etc.

[pje16]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58270098

What a dumb headline
Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
I'll ask my mate who (having had both jabs a while ago) got Covid 10 days ago
He feels like sh*t and has been in bed since Monday
ok he's not at death's door, he says it feel like a bad case of flu
but he can't smell anything, doesn't want to eat, can't sleep etc
Who else wants to put their hand up to catch a dose of that?

Please note it was a DUMB headline - proof shown by the links below
as the BBC have done what they do quite often when they are wrong - change the page
today it says
Covid: What’s the best way to top up our immunity
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58270098

Yesterday it said
Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
https://web.archive.org/web/20210821003 ... h-58270098

I'm really struggling to understand the rationale of your using your fully vaccinated mate who then caught covid as an example.... what exactly are you trying to say?

Simple, it is better to get protection that catch Covid and let your body deal with it
Ok my mate still got it having been jabbed, but i bet he would have far worse symptoms if he had had no jabs at all

[onthemove]

I'm really struggling to understand the rationale of your using your fully vaccinated mate who then caught covid as an example.... what exactly are you trying to say?

Simple, it is better to get protection that catch Covid and let your body deal with it
Ok my mate still got it having been jabbed, but i bet he would have far worse symptoms if he had had no jabs at all

Who on earth said anything about recommending catching covid instead of having any covid jabs at all? Please indicate who you think has said that?

You'll note in the headline that you so knee-jerkly strongly objected to it said..

Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

Completely unambiguously referring to the situation "now" where the majority of people are now fully vaccinated and considering whether those who have had their jabs should get "more" vaccine. That's "more" vaccine, not "no" vaccine.

It sounds to me like you've used your mate as a example to argue against a suggestion that no-one was making.

As far as I can see, they haven't changed anything in the body of the article past the headline that you objected to. It still presents all the same evidence and arguments in relation to the idea of fully vaccinated people now using actual infection as a "booster" rather than "more" vaccines.

Prof Riley said there was potential in using vaccines to "take the edge off" Covid, followed by infection, to broaden the immune response.

She said: "We really need to consider, are we just frightening people rather than giving them the confidence to get on with their lives? We're close to just worrying people now."

[redsturgeon]

Moderator Message:
I have removed several posts that were either off topic or personal attacks. Please stay on topic and debate content rather than playing the man.
Thank you

[Hallucigenia]

New preprint looking at immunity from mRNA vaccines :
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 3.457229v1

As previously assumed, antibodies may go down but the immune "memory" from B cells and T cells remains - a booster may increase antibodies short-term but makes little difference to the long-term protection from the memory cells.

Translating that into policy, it sounds like there's a good argument for immunocompromised and the most vulnerable getting boosters in September to help boost their stock of antibodies through the worst of the virus season, but no real reason for others to get a booster.

[stevensfo]

New preprint looking at immunity from mRNA vaccines :
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 3.457229v1

As previously assumed, antibodies may go down but the immune "memory" from B cells and T cells remains - a booster may increase antibodies short-term but makes little difference to the long-term protection from the memory cells.

Translating that into policy, it sounds like there's a good argument for immunocompromised and the most vulnerable getting boosters in September to help boost their stock of antibodies through the worst of the virus season, but no real reason for others to get a booster.

I studied Biology/Biochemistry 40 years ago and Immunology was without doubt one of the most complex topics we covered. Over millions of years, the body has evolved to protect itself and it makes no sense to keep producing antibodies when there is no need. Hence, the memory effect.

But the current therapy only involves part of the virus to produce antibodies. Whenever possible, the drug companies should switch to using real viral particles as vaccine. As with real infections, this will produce a wider antibody response. With luck, the virus may either become eradicated or another influenza that requires tweaks to the vaccines each year.

Steve

[AWOL]

New preprint looking at immunity from mRNA vaccines :
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 3.457229v1

As previously assumed, antibodies may go down but the immune "memory" from B cells and T cells remains - a booster may increase antibodies short-term but makes little difference to the long-term protection from the memory cells.

Translating that into policy, it sounds like there's a good argument for immunocompromised and the most vulnerable getting boosters in September to help boost their stock of antibodies through the worst of the virus season, but no real reason for others to get a booster.

I studied Biology/Biochemistry 40 years ago and Immunology was without doubt one of the most complex topics we covered. Over millions of years, the body has evolved to protect itself and it makes no sense to keep producing antibodies when there is no need. Hence, the memory effect.

But the current therapy only involves part of the virus to produce antibodies. Whenever possible, the drug companies should switch to using real viral particles as vaccine. As with real infections, this will produce a wider antibody response. With luck, the virus may either become eradicated or another influenza that requires tweaks to the vaccines each year.

Steve

Strangely enough my first degree was very similar (Applied Biology) but I'd like to caution against too much faith in the denatured virus theory. Whilst I am not saying that it cannot be done well that way, I would like to point out that Sinovac's CoronaVac (which later data suggests may not meet the required efficacy to be classified as a vaccine) is inactivated COVID.

The fact that most of the vaccines rely on the spike protein makes me nervous however as it is functional one hopes that it is harder to evolve changes without effecting transmissiblity however COVID has already produced mutations in this area and improved it's ability to bind and evade so... isn't it all rather tricky!

[servodude]

Whenever possible, the drug companies should switch to using real viral particles as vaccine

I would have thought that only a couple of years ago...
BUT..
Sinovac... Just "Meh!" performance (and it's based on inactivated virus)
AND the real world results for mRNA vaccines..
AND the efficiency in the field of the AZ (so we've a choice of new vectors)
- I've decided that other dudes know better

And I'm prepared to stand back and let them "science the [expletive deleted]" out of this... while I do my own bit to help
-sd

[onthemove]

But the current therapy only involves part of the virus to produce antibodies. Whenever possible, the drug companies should switch to using real viral particles as vaccine. As with real infections, this will produce a wider antibody response. With luck, the virus may either become eradicated or another influenza that requires tweaks to the vaccines each year.

It seems that reinfection after getting the virus is quite uncommon...

Just 0.4% of infections are thought to be re-infection.

"The current data shows that there is a low risk of reinfection with SARS-CoV-2. There were 15,893 possible reinfections with SARS-CoV-2 identified up to 30 May 2021 in England throughout the pandemic, out of nearly 4 million people with confirmed infections. This is equivalent to around 0.4% cases becoming reinfected." https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new- ... hed-by-phe

This would seem to be substantially better protection from (re-)infection than is being achieved from the vaccines.

I still can't help feeling that 'infection-after-vaccination' - whether by intent or default - is likely to form the ultimate end game from here.

Sars-cov-2 still seems to mutate much less readily than flu, and with the T-cell responses still seeming to provide good protection against severe illness from the variants that have emerged, I can't see how a widespread regular booster program could be justified rather than just a selective program to protect clinically vulnerable.

The variants seem to get around the vaccines, but not so much previous infection...

"There is currently no evidence that the Delta variant, or any other Variants of Concern, are more likely to cause reinfection than others, but we will closely monitor this."

It really seems to me that the vaccines have got the virus weakened, but that infection from the virus itself will probably be the virus's ultimate downfall....

... never say never, but it looks like the virus isn't evolving far enough, fast enough to get back into people it's already been in in any significant numbers ... if enough people get infection (post-vaccination) to block of any avenues for it to keep mutating, the virus could find it's check-mate...

[9873210]

Whenever possible, the drug companies should switch to using real viral particles as vaccine

I would have thought that only a couple of years ago...
BUT..
Sinovac... Just "Meh!" performance (and it's based on inactivated virus)
AND the real world results for mRNA vaccines..
AND the efficiency in the field of the AZ (so we've a choice of new vectors)

What is being measured here is how each vaccine works against versions up to delta. What is being postulated is that a whole virus vaccine will work against future mutated versions. So the data on performance is not actually testing the theory.

Data that might test the theory is how the protection changes from wild to alpha to delta for each of the vaccines. I've not seen such data. I can't see how sure such data could be gathered with enough precision and accuracy.

OTOH I don't think the performance of Sinovac, Pfizer, etc. necessarily reflects on the performance of entire classes of vaccine. There are a lot of other details that could be better or worse through skill or luck.

[Hallucigenia]

Whenever possible, the drug companies should switch to using real viral particles as vaccine. As with real infections, this will produce a wider antibody response.

It's always a balance - introducing more epitopes means more risk of side-effects from cross-reactions. A wider response is not always A Good Thing. So if you've got epitopes that seem to produce a remarkably good response, then the balance of risk would be against adding more epitopes.

[jfgw]

It seems that reinfection after getting the virus is quite uncommon...

Just 0.4% of infections are thought to be re-infection.

It would be good to know what data this conclusion is based upon. The press release doesn't say and there is nothing immediately obvious in the links, although I have not waded through them.

Since reinfections are usually less severe (and may not produce the requisite symptoms for a PCR test), they are less likely to be detected. The number of lateral flow test results suggest that few people take them, although I suspect that many people do not report negative results.


Julian F. G. W.