Who is taking second booster?

Stocks A to Z
21

Here’s a current article in the NY Times on the question of whether to get the second booster or not:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/opinion/covid-booster-sho…

"
Should you get another Covid booster shot?

It seems like a straightforward question, but experts continue to butt heads over its answer…

One big point of dispute concerns the purpose of boosters. “Are we trying to keep people out of the hospital, or prevent mild illness, or decrease population-wide transmission?” said Dr. Luciana Borio, a former acting chief scientist at the F.D.A. “If you don’t have a clear, agreed-upon goal, I think it’s easy for there to be disagreement.”

…
For some, timing considerations also loom large. Right now, coronavirus infection rates in the United States are near two-year lows…Considering that a boosters’ impact can be short-lived, some say U.S. authorities should wait a bit longer before pushing out another shot…

Dr. Regev-Yochay has studied the efficacy of the fourth Covid shot. While she fully supports a first booster for all adults, she says the evidence backing a second booster at this time is shakier when it comes to people who don’t have major risk factors…
"

Lots of back and forth from different experts. Most seem to agree that the first booster for all adults was appropriate, but there was some dissension from experts who thought it was only appropriate for high risk individuals. Second booster is almost universally recommended for high risk populations, but many suggest holding off if you are not high risk.

As a healthy mid-50s adult with 3 shots under my belt, I’m waiting a while to get my 4th: with cases so low right now and with my last booster less than 6 months past, I think saving that bullet for at least another month is wise, when I’ll pass 6 month since the prior shot. I’ll monitor community spread and if another significant wave is building and I’m past 6 months, I’ll pull the trigger.

3 Likes
22

Just facts for you. The two living on oxygen? No, they won’t admit making a mistake; they are believers that God did this to them for a reason…and of course that God will get them through it. Both have been turned down so far for lung transplants.

Each of us has anecdotes and also access to the big studies and official advice, we have to make our own mind up between the larger data samples and the local, real life experience. A friend of mine (40s) was put into hospital by the vaccine with bruising (clots?) on his torso, that put a few of us off the vaccine. Then again, clotting seems to be a feature of the virus itself - damned if you, maybe damned if you don’t!

Even if there are risks with the vaccine, the virus is more dangerous for older people, so the risk / reward probably shifts in favour of the vaccine at older ages, I wouldn’t criticise anyone for getting it.

Anyway, to my point. If you can, suggest they try a low-carb, or preferably ketogenic (basically no carb) diet - maybe it doesn’t help noticeably, but it helps some people with breathing issues, and a change in diet is easy enough to try when it’s your quality of life at stake. It might take 2 weeks or a month to help. Healthy protein, fat*, and low carb veg or salad, and then more of the same. If they’re in a bad way, then eating salmon and a bit of salad, steak and some low carb veg, followed by dessert based on cheese or cream is no great hardship. And suggest they eat plenty of protein (if they don’t already), the body needs protein to maintain muscle and to repair, especially when we’re older.

SA

  • Eating fat is important, the idea is to get energy from the fat (in the diet or on the body) instead of from carbs.
1 Like
23

Each of us has anecdotes and also access to the big studies and official advice, we have to make our own mind up between the larger data samples and the local, real life experience. A friend of mine (40s) was put into hospital by the vaccine…

While the personal experiences make an impression, the big studies are professionally done and statistically relevant. In every case, the vaccines have reduced the risk of bad outcomes from that nasty virus more than the risk of side effects.

I would offer as an analogy “I’m sure some people made money on BRK, but I have a friend who has bought into it three times and every time it declined and he sold sold at a loss”. The big picture offers a different story.

5 Likes
24

Each of us has anecdotes and also access to the big studies and official advice, we have to make
our own mind up between the larger data samples and the local, real life experience. A friend of mine
(40s) was put into hospital by the vaccine with bruising (clots?) on his torso, that put a few of us
off the vaccine. Then again, clotting seems to be a feature of the virus itself - damned if you, maybe damned if you don’t!

Some vaccinated people die, and some unvaccinated people die. Everybody dies of something, eventually.
But a decision has to be made about vaccination.

Fortunately, the data are in, and absolutely clear.
An unvaccinated US person over age 18 has about 97 times the risk of death from Covid19 as someone fully vaccinated.
9.7 per 100000 weekly versus 0.1 per 100000.
“Unvaccinated” defined as “has not been verified to have been vaccinated”.
“Fully vaccinated” defined as >14 days after second dose of the Moderna vaccine (given four weeks apart), or >14 days after one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Measuring it in slightly different ways gives slightly different numbers, but the same incontrovertible conclusion.

Note, that’s just death risk reduction.
It doesn’t count the additional benefit from the vaccine of substantially reducing the chances of long Covid, not something you want.

There are many pretty smart people giving weight to very bad information sources.
That’s the only reason the subject is even discussed.
Even pretty dumb people with good information sources will conclude that reducing the risk of death from a disease by a factor of 50-100 is a pretty good deal.

Vaccines aren’t 100% risk free. Neither is breathing.
But the vaccines are a spectacularly safer bet than the alternative. Also like breathing.
All the rest is just noise and memes and political posturing.

Jim

71 Likes
25

For opposing views, consider:

He lost me when he stated “Wuhan”. If you have to use emotional terms in science, I get very suspicious. He could have omitted “Wuhan”, so the question is why did he include “Wuhan”?

Furthermore, I doubt that the vaccines are “designed to poison people”. Perhaps poisoning as a side effect would be more appropriate language.

From (Natural News) Dr. Michael Palmer, an associate professor of biochemistry, pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, warned people against taking the mRNA Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines because they are designed to poison the recipients.

Craig

1 Like
26

In a world of people where people can still remember polio and smallpox, it’s absolutely ludicrous we are debating whether vaccines are effective.

35 Likes
27

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/……

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/……

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2790595#:~……

“for some reason”

Reduced risk of infection, death and brain damage are my reasons for betting boosted. And a desire not to use up an ER bed that could save the life of a heart attack, stroke or car wreck victin.

First article: death rates: 78% mortality rate drop in Israelis getting the 2nd booster, compared to Israelis that only had the 1st booster, i.e. 92 in the first group and 232 in the second. This certainly makes sense: you can’t die of covid if you don’t get infected first, and a booster, in the several months after vaccination, will definitely decrease your chances of getting infected. Unfortunately, the article doesn’t seem to report the number of cases in each group, so it is hard to say whether people who get the 2nd dose had lower infection fatality rates (as a proportion of cases), or whether they just successfully avoided infection. So if your strategy is to put off covid infection indefinitely, you probably should keeping getting boosters every 3-6 months indefinitely.

Second article: it’s the same as the first. Perhaps you wanted to link to an article that suggests lower risk of infection? I have no argument there, recent vaccination will certainly reduce the risk of infection.

Third article: long covid. This study is worrying, no doubt, suggesting that covid patients lost 2% of their brain volume (compared to an average 0.2% yearly loss.) However, this was pre-vaccination, and it says nothing about whether a second booster helps or not, in people that get covid despite vaccination.

Saving that ER bed: that was a good argument a year ago, but with a few exceptions, hospitals can handle caseloads now, so I don’t think it applies any more, at least not in most places.

Although getting covid is still a risk, even after vaccination, it is a small risk, and we currently have a mild strain, with excellent protection against severe illness, if you’ve been vaccinated with at least 2 doses. I prefer to take my chances with an infection now, and get strong, broad immunity against the virus, rather than accept what may be an even bigger risk, which is to avoid infection now, and then find out that the latest mutation leaves me without any vaccine protection. Since vaccination lowers the risk of severe illness by about 90%, if we eventually get a strain that has significant spike protein mutations, rendering vaccine immunity worthless, our risk might go back up 10 times, back to square one as it were. What seems like the prudent approach now (get a 2nd booster and avoid infection) may well turn out to have been a dangerous decision.

dtb

3 Likes
28

FWIW, this of course is just anecdotal. One of my sisters daughters got infected in school in February, she’s 11 years old and got two shots Biontech. A week later my sister and her husband got it, both got three shots. My sister Moderna, her husband Biontech. A few days later the 16 year old daughter got it with two shots Biontech. Her son with thwo shots Biontech didn’t get it at all.
All but my sister had very mild symptoms and were fine 2-3 days after the first symptoms. My sister suffered from pneumonia for a couple of weeks and got treated with steroids.
Personally I got my third shot early in december and plan to get the second booster in autumn.

1 Like
29

For opposing views, consider:

=====

He lost me when he stated “Wuhan”. If you have to use emotional terms in science, I get very suspicious. He could have omitted “Wuhan”, so the question is why did he include “Wuhan”?

Furthermore, I doubt that the vaccines are “designed to poison people”. Perhaps poisoning as a side effect would be more appropriate language.

From (Natural News) Dr. Michael Palmer, an associate professor of biochemistry, pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, warned people against taking the mRNA Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines because they are designed to poison the recipients.

Craig

Craig, you are being generous in your assessment of those 3 articles which represent ‘opposing views’. If that twaddle is the best that Jean can find to represent opposing views, then I think we can be very comfortable with what I would call the ‘consensus scientific view’.

Just take one example, this ‘Dr Michael Palmer’ who believes that the vaccines were designed to poison the recipients. Does this pass the smell test? Does it even make sense that any vaccine would be ‘designed’ to harm people? How is this possibly to Pfizer’s or Moderna’s or Astra Zeneca’s advantage?

It’s rarely worthwhile arguing about these things, because most people with what we think of as crazy beliefs will stick to them no matter what evidence you present to them, but in Jean David’s case, he seems like a reasonable guy so it’s worth making an exception!

dtb

7 Likes
30

I’m not eligible yet, but I will seek my second booster when I am. (I expect eligibility to be expanded to the general public later this month or sometime next month.)

I will seek out the Johnson and Johnson vaccine to complete the tri-fecta. My first two doses were Pfizer, so I deliberately picked Moderna for my first booster. Studies were showing Moderna to have a somewhat higher efficacy than the other two vaccines. Also, I believe that each vaccine has some benefit that the others lack.

While I had written off the J&J vaccine like everyone else, more recent studies have shown that it retains its efficacy longer than the mRNA vaccines do. (It’s said that J&J helps the T cells.) I also wonder if the J&J vaccine would have have more efficacy if it had been a 2-dose regimen instead of a 1-dose regimen.

If I thought that newer and better vaccines were on the cusp of being available, then I would hold off. As far as I can tell, we’re not there yet.

When it comes to assessing the current risk out there, you should ignore the case numbers for your area, because that’s a lagging indicator. Hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and deaths lag even further behind. I look at wastewater viral loads, which shows a much more current picture. Case numbers are understated at certain times, such as when the testing capacity is unable to keep up with demand.

For my local area, the decline in wastewater viral loads stopped in March, and the viral load has since doubled. There’s already a new surge in Europe, and it seems to be spilling into the east coast of the US. So I’m expecting this surge to reach the rest of the country sooner or later.

7 Likes
31

But the vaccines are a spectacularly safer bet than the alternative. Also like breathing.
All the rest is just noise and memes and political posturing.

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot”. attributed to Mark Twain

“Don’t try and teach a pig to sing. It’s a waste of your time, and it annoys the pig.” also from
Mark Twain

best,

mike

2 Likes
32

Well, I just got the 2nd booster a few hours ago. I’ve now had the J&J vaccine followed by two Moderna boosters.

Side story, I recieved the shot at the private college I teach at. The shots were administered by the county (deKalb, GA), open to anyone. As I entered the room a sign said something like “Shots and $100 here”. I assumed I’d be entered in a raffle. Nope. I walked out with a $100 reward card. The guy at the exit had to stop me because I was in a hurry to get to my next appointment: “Hey, don’t you want the $100?” I rolled my eyes and signed the sheet, and then to my surprise he handed me the card. My wife went as well. It’s groceries for a couple weeks :slight_smile:

John

2 Likes