Coronavirus: Vaccines

[Volkonski]

[AndyinPA]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... e-studies/

People who were not fully vaccinated this spring and summer were over 10 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 11 times more likely to die of covid-19 than those who were fully vaccinated, according to one of three major studies published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that highlight the continued efficacy of all three vaccines amid the spread of the highly contagious delta variant.

A second study showed the Moderna coronavirus vaccine was moderately more effective in preventing hospitalizations than its counterparts from Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson. That assessment was based on the largest U.S. study to date of the real-world effectiveness of all three vaccines, involving about 32,000 patients seen in hospitals, emergency departments and urgent care clinics across nine states from June through early August.

While the three vaccines were collectively 86 percent effective in preventing hospitalization, protection was significantly higher among Moderna vaccine recipients (95 percent) than among those who got Pfizer-BioNTech (80 percent) or Johnson & Johnson (60 percent). That finding echoes a smaller study by the Mayo Clinic Health System in August, not yet peer reviewed, which also showed the Moderna vaccine with higher effectiveness than Pfizer-BioNTech at preventing infections during the delta wave.

Noting the effectiveness of all vaccines against severe illness and death, public health officials have continued to urge people to get whatever vaccine is available, rather than to shop around and delay inoculation.

[MN-Skeptic]

I’m not sure where to drop this great news, so I’ll post it here.

[keith]

That is hysterical! Considering the 15-20 year age difference between Fauci and Gates, was Fauci a slow learner or was Gates a child prodigy for them to have been college roommates?

Is that the Only thing wrong with that ?

[sugar magnolia]

That is hysterical! Considering the 15-20 year age difference between Fauci and Gates, was Fauci a slow learner or was Gates a child prodigy for them to have been college roommates?

Is that the Only thing wrong with that ?

Oh, absolutely not! Pretty sure there isn't an entire sentence in the whole screed that doesn't contain at least one easily-debunked lie.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/mississippi-h ... d=79931539

Mississippi health officials plea for vaccination after 'significant' number of COVID-19 fatalities in pregnant women
The eight women who recently died were unvaccinated, health officials said.

Mississippi health officials are urging expectant mothers to get vaccinated after a "significant" number of COVID-19 fatalities in pregnant women during the state's delta surge.

The state health department is investigating eight reports of pregnant women who died from COVID-19 in the past four weeks, all of whom were unvaccinated, Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said at the top of a COVID-19 briefing Wednesday.

Compared to the rate pre-pandemic, the health department has seen a "doubling of the rate of fetal demise, or the death of the baby in the womb after 20 weeks," Dobbs said. "It's been a real tragedy."

The warning comes as a majority of pregnant women nationwide have yet to be vaccinated. About three out of four pregnant women in the U.S. have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

[sugar magnolia]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/mississippi-h ... d=79931539

Mississippi health officials plea for vaccination after 'significant' number of COVID-19 fatalities in pregnant women
The eight women who recently died were unvaccinated, health officials said.

Mississippi health officials are urging expectant mothers to get vaccinated after a "significant" number of COVID-19 fatalities in pregnant women during the state's delta surge.

The state health department is investigating eight reports of pregnant women who died from COVID-19 in the past four weeks, all of whom were unvaccinated, Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said at the top of a COVID-19 briefing Wednesday.

Compared to the rate pre-pandemic, the health department has seen a "doubling of the rate of fetal demise, or the death of the baby in the womb after 20 weeks," Dobbs said. "It's been a real tragedy."

The warning comes as a majority of pregnant women nationwide have yet to be vaccinated. About three out of four pregnant women in the U.S. have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

https://www.wapt.com/article/state-heal ... i/37549377

JACKSON, Miss. —
Mississippi's state health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs has issued a new order to vaccinate pregnant women in Mississippi after several died from COVID-19.

The doctor said many women are hesitant about getting the vaccine because they have received conflicting information about its safety.

The order states that women in any stage of pregnancy including those breastfeeding should be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Dobbs' order comes after the state health department said it has investigated reports that eight pregnant women died of the virus in recent weeks.

None of the women who died were vaccinated, according to Dobbs.

"We do try and educate, we don't force anyone to get it," Dobbs said.

"She says many patients are hesitant about taking the vaccine because of contradictory information on social media that's not based on medical science," said Dr. Missy McMinn. "And when you sit down and you really tell a patient what it can do for them, what we see clinically. And just what does it mean for them and what does it mean for their babies patents are very open to be in receptive to getting the vaccine."

According to Dobbs, most pregnant women are not currently vaccinated.

McMinn said a vaccine can benefit the mom and her unborn baby.

"We encourage in all three stages first, second, and third trimester as well as postpartum. There's some studies and literature that says some of the antibodies will pass through breastmilk to the babies," McMinn said.

The doctor said even when she explains that the vaccine is safe, some patients are still reluctant to get the shot.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

GOOD!!!!!!

[Foggy]

Anybody know of a reason why pregnant women would have a significantly lower rate of vaccination than the general population? I'm not even brave enough to take a guess.

[Slim Cognito]

afraid it would harm the fetus.

[pipistrelle]

afraid it would harm the fetus.

Yes. After thalidomide, hesitancy doesn’t seem as unreasonable as it is in the greater population.

[sugar magnolia]

Yeah, that ESPN reporter specifically said that was her reason when declining to get vaxxed.

[RTH10260]

side effects in special cases

Boys more at risk from Pfizer jab side-effect than Covid, suggests study
US researchers say teenagers are more likely to get vaccine-related myocarditis than end up in hospital with Covid

Ian Sample Science editor
Fri 10 Sep 2021 18.00 BST

Healthy boys may be more likely to be admitted to hospital with a rare side-effect of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine that causes inflammation of the heart than with Covid itself, US researchers claim.

Their analysis of medical data suggests that boys aged 12 to 15, with no underlying medical conditions, are four to six times more likely to be diagnosed with vaccine-related myocarditis than ending up in hospital with Covid over a four-month period.

Most children who experienced the rare side-effect had symptoms within days of the second shot of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, though a similar side-effect is seen with the Moderna jab. About 86% of the boys affected required some hospital care, the authors said.

Saul Faust, professor of paediatric immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Southampton, who was not involved in the work, said the findings appeared to justify the cautious approach taken on teenage vaccines by the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ests-study

[Volkonski]

Sadly some folks have been questioning the value of those other vaccines.

[Lani]

From the morning NYT newsletter:

But many J.&J. recipients are less interested in receiving a second J.&J. shot than a follow-up shot with either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. They know that J.&J. seems less effective than other vaccines, and some J.&J. recipients have been frightened by reports of a very rare but serious blood clot.

Notably, numerous doctors and some prominent experts who themselves received the J.&J. vaccine have chosen to receive a follow-up Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. The list includes Bill Enright, a biotechnology C.E.O.; Zoë McLaren, a health economist; and Angela Rasmussen, a prominent virologist. The city of San Francisco also began offering a Moderna or Pfizer booster shot to J.&J. recipients about a month ago.



During a podcast interview this summer, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the C.D.C., declined to discourage J.&J. recipients from seeking out a Moderna or Pfizer shot. She said there was not enough data to be sure about the benefits and risks. But when Andy Slavitt, the podcast host and a former Biden adviser, asked her whether she would describe it as a “huge mistake,” Walensky replied, “Not with what I’ve seen so far.”

From the head of a notoriously cautious agency, that was a remarkable and telling statement.



You can try different drugstores or clinics, hoping to find one that is willing to give a Pfizer or Moderna shot to a J.&J. recipient — or one that won’t ask questions about your history. Or you can choose to be less than fully honest. You won’t be alone.

People in Europe and Canada who had AstraZeneca for the 1st shot can have Pfizer for the 2nd, apparently with no problems.

If you have access to NYT, the link to the full article is https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/brie ... 48368741aa

[Sam the Centipede]

People in Europe and Canada who had AstraZeneca for the 1st shot can have Pfizer for the 2nd, apparently with no problems.

At the risk of boring readers' backsides to numbness, and apologies to those grannies I am teaching to suck eggs …

There isn't really a compatibility issue, it's not like inches and millimetres or left-handed and right-handed threads: the aim of a second dose or booster is to kick the immune system into responding again to the same threat. In this case, the threat is the S (spike) protein. If a vaccine exclusively targeted a different epitope, such as part of the N (nucleocapsid), E (envelope) or M (membrane) proteins perhaps there would be an issue, but all current vaccines in the US and Europe (China has some different old-fashioned vaccines) target S because it is highly conserved (doesn't vary much) because it needs to bind neatly onto the ACE2 receptor. Other proteins can evolve more easily and perhaps evade some antibodies so S is the obvious and best choice.

Oxford/AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson might become less effective in subsequent doses as it is possible to become immune to the adenovirus vector, which could cause the immune system to clear the vector before it has an opportunity to produce spike protein. Take whatever is on offer, it's all good stuff, but, whisper it quietly, I'd always go for the mRNA vaccines of preference (there's no vector to become immune to).

Of course public health authorities are always ultra-cautious with vaccines, as they are medicating the general population for public benefit, so they always try to follow the evidence from the clinical trials. Each manufacturer trials only its own product, so information about mixing is not available early on. And there are reasons for the deep caution; the disastrous roll-out of an RSV (respiratory syncitial virus) vaccine in the 1960s haunts the trade.

The UK authorities (and later other European countries) seemed bold when opting for a long gap between first and second doses (to prioritize rapid deployment of first doses) when that wasn't in the clinical trials, and that caused some screaming, but it was a decision based on good immunology: two weeks is too early for a second dose, four weeks is borderline, because it doesn't give the memory B-cells and memory T-cells much time to mature. A later second dose is more effective long term, even if the patient is slightly less protected for a few weeks beforehand. The second dose persuades the immune system to set up a more stable response and to evolve more variety in its response; a significantly later third dose (as proposed) persuades the immune system to respond as if this is a chronic threat, not an acute threat that might have passed.

Many diseases and vaccines don't need that third bump, but some do: Hepatitis B (HepB) vaccine requires a second dose after one month and a third after six months, and then a blood test to confirm that it has provoked immunity.

As I understand it, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was deliberately designed as a single-dose vaccine for rapid deployment, halving the vaccination effort. Perhaps that wasn't super-wise. But a booster will improve its performance. There's nothing intrinsic in its design that makes it particularly single-dose as I understand it; it's just how they trialed it and determined dose amounts.

One issue not to get too obsessed with is antibody levels. Antibodies are only the first line of defense against viruses; it's really T-cells that do the clean-up. Antibodies buy time for the T-cell response to build up and clear the infection. That's why vaccinated people are getting infected and sometimes sick, but only mildly so. Antibodies are expensive for the body to produce, so levels drop over time, but that doesn't mean the immune system has forgotten how to respond.

I'm old enough that I had measles as a kid, pre-vaccine, but I have no documentary proof of that, so some time ago my hospital wanted me to take a blood test and then MMR vaccine if that was negative (it's policy because I have contact with patients; it's not a plague pit). I refused the blood test because I think it would only test for antibodies, and after five decades with no exposure to infected people, the circulating level of antibodies in my blood would be negligible, even though the memory B-cells and T-cells are almost certainly there and ready to leap into action if necessary. So I just had the jab regardless; one prick less, it's a welcome booster, and I don't think I ever had mumps (the second M of MMR). (No local reaction to the jab suggests I was immune!)

One silver-lining positive for those vaccinated people who do get a mild SARS-CoV-2 infection is that it is not only a good booster, but also is better targeted. The vaccines are injected into muscle, so the immune system develops a systemic response, mainly with heavier immunoglobulins (IgG, IgM, antibodies) in the plasma. But the virus typically enters through the respiratory mucosa. After discovering that, the immune system is likely to respond by generating proportionately more lighter IgA antibodies that tend to work in those areas. That said, I'd certainly prefer not to be infected!

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

This is why I missed you, Sam!!!

[Uninformed]

Just announced in the UK.

“Covid: Vaccine should be given to 12 to 15-year-olds”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58547659

[Volkonski]

[raison de arizona]

[p0rtia]

Which explains why 90 percent of the people I know are vaxxed.

[Foggy]

We're number three! We're number three!

[Jim]

@USATODAY
Gorillas, tigers and lions are among the animals at the Atlanta zoo expected to receive a COVID-19 vaccine developed for animals.

There you go...if you want to take medicine meant for animals, now we have a vaccine just for you!

[AndyinPA]

[Sam the Centipede]

@USATODAY
Gorillas, tigers and lions are among the animals at the Atlanta zoo expected to receive a COVID-19 vaccine developed for animals.

There you go...if you want to take medicine meant for animals, now we have a vaccine just for you!

Phew! And that means zookeepers won't have to persuade tigers to wear face masks any more!