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Comment by jakozaur | Hacker News Reader

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jakozaur

AZD1222 vaccine by Oxford and AstraZeneca looks the most promising so far:

+ already in late-stage trials

+ they are pre-producing it at large capacity

+ verified safe, no side-effects

~ may be very efficient in preventing diseases, but not enough to prevent spread, just slows it

~ may need second shoot after 4 months

~ long-term immunity is questionable for covid and you can get only two shoots of this type of vaccine in lifetime while maintaining it efficiency

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/world/europe/coronavirus-...

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> + verified safe, no side-effects

I'm not a doctor and there's a good chance I'm missing something, but this seems crazy to me. How could this be known already? I could understand if it just means that short term side-effects are rare to nonexistent, but what about long term issues or rare catastrophic ones?

Can you please explain the last bullet or post a link?

"~ long-term immunity is questionable for covid and you can get only two shoots of this type of vaccine in lifetime while maintaining it efficiency"

This suggests some fundamental misunderstanding in how I think about the immune system (which is unsurprising given I have no formal background there), and I think I'd learn a lot of important things from understanding why or how this works.

If it's hard or deep, I'm glad to do long-form reading if you have a link.

The Oxford vaccine (ChAdOx1) uses another vector virus called the adenovirus to deliver the coronavirus genes which the body can fight against. The issue is that some people might have pre-existing immunity to the adenovirus, making the vaccine ineffective. Since ChAdOx1 uses an adenovirus which infects chimpanzees, it is likely that most people will not have any pre-existing immunity to the vector virus. I guess the parent comment is referring to the fact that the body might develop immunity to the chimpanzee vector virus after two doses, making booster shots ineffective.

Thank you!

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