Pfizer CEO sees annual Covid vaccine rather than frequent boosters
reuters.com
reuters.com
I'm not getting a booster. I think at this point the effect will be worse than Covid itself. I'm not going to make myself that sick on a yearly basis, indefinitely ongoing. At a certain point the damage it does to me is worse than the damage it prevents.
Just to emphasize: I'm pro-vax. But the furor over the boosters seems frantic and irrational.
Bigger picture, while it’s totally your choice, I’d dispute your logic RE: not accepting a booster. COVID is mostly somewhere between minimal and a week or two of unpleasant symptoms in most cases, but more rarely can obviously cause major symptoms including death, and also ‘long COVID’. This is what you’re hedging against with a vaccine. As unpleasant as 24-72hrs of feeling crappy is, I’d take it over months of ‘long COVID’, and obviously over anything worse.
Boosters are currently around 6 months, a yearly shot is fewer vaccines
Did you read the article? He's talking about the offerings Pfizer is expecting to have.
Pfizer is expecting to have a yearly vaccine rather than a frequent booster for sale.
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The people making the thing are sharing their expectations on what they have to offer, there's nothing clever or relevant about your analogy.
We've reached the point where any empty display of cynicism is seen as weighty as long as it goes against the "COVID establishment"...
Florida's big Delta-surge was just in August. And yet, Omicron surged through January in the state. In just 5 months, people's natural immunity has collectively declined to the point for a new surge.
There's a theory that repeatedly catching COVID19 will eventually make our immune systems stronger each time and time again. But until then, repeated boosters seem like the answer (especially if the booster is as good as, or even better, at building immunity).
I think this sort of group think mentality is increasingly detrimental.
I keep hearing that “we need to boost” without people really weighing up the nuances and tradeoffs for such a policy.
The reality is Israel has shown that second boosters don’t really improve immunity all that much [1]
That vaccine induced myocarditis rates are now higher than covid induced rates [2]
That healthy people statistically are less likely to have serious disease, especially so if they have had primary vaccination and that modelling suggests that the omicron wave in the west will be on the downtrend, following the UK, shortly. Inferring that most people will have been exposed to the virus and built their own immunity [3].
So given this information, and considering I had an adverse reaction from my vaccination, why would I listen to this idea that “boosters are the answer” when there is mounting evidence everywhere that this maybe isn't a good idea for everyone?
We need to shake this idea that they are the only sensible answer because they have had real costs for some people.
[1] - https://www.israel21c.org/israel-finds-4th-vaccine-dose-not-...
[2] - https://youtu.be/xzVoS-1TIWI
[3] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-new-covid-cases
Are you factoring in the fact that myocarditis drops with more boosters?
The 2nd shot has the highest myocarditis rate. The 3rd shot has less, and I'd expect the 4th to have even less. As long as side-effects drop more than the boosters help (especially if boosters are reformulated for the dominant COVID19 strain), then the total cost of boosting is what? $20 or so?
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...
EDIT: Wrong pdf. I meant this one: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...
> The reality is Israel has shown that second boosters don’t really improve immunity all that much [1]
Have you factored in the fact that all mRNA producers are making Omicron-specific boosters? Of course not, those boosters aren't available yet.
> So given this information, and considering I had an adverse reaction from my vaccination, why would I listen to this idea that “boosters are the answer” when there is mounting evidence everywhere that this maybe isn't a good idea for everyone?
Its a very simple question.
COVID19 damage prevented vs vaccine damage caused. If the vaccine causes more damage, we don't boost. If COVID19 causes more damage, we boost.
At every step of the booster-question, we revise and double check. The 3rd shot was overwhelmingly a benefit vs Delta and Omicron. 4th shot is under initial studies.
Any other methodology is politics. We have more than enough capability to study things like the 4th shot before recommending it to everybody. But my expectations, given the science and the future manufacturing of these things is that a 4th shot will be necessary, and will probably be of benefit.
Myocarditis rates have quantifiably increased over time as more data comes in. Why would you make assumptions that a booster of the same substance would be any different?
> then the total cost of boosting is what? $20 or so?
I find this a very strange and borderline inappropriate thing to ask. I can assure you if you have heart problems you, like me, will have to spend thousands on MRIs, CT scans and specialists.
> Have you factored in the fact that all mRNA producers are making Omicron-specific boosters? Of course not, those boosters aren't available yet.
What do you mean “of course not”? Yes, thats exactly what im saying, we are boosting with old vaccines, because thats the only thing we are told to do.
> Any other methodology is politics.
That statement basically reinforces my initial point again, why would Pfizers new antiviral drug with over 90% efficacy be considered as “politics” in your mind?
Why would the very obvious natural immunity the UK is starting to attain be classified as “politics”?
The only political, myopic stance here is yours: “repeated boosters seem like the answer”.
Because Myocarditis rates have dropped on the 3rd shot.
Don't blame my assumptions. Just look at the data. I posted the link earlier.
If you are unwilling to accept the simple reality on an issue this simple, we are done here. You must act on the real data that exists, not in the political data that exists in your imagination.
Inject booster shots into people, then test for Myocarditis. Done. The rates dropped. Therefore, boosters are safer than the 2nd dose (which has the highest Myocarditis rate).
It also turns out that the 2nd shot was necessary to build immunity. The immunity gained from dose 2 grossly outweighs risks.
Since the risk of Myocarditis drops on 3rd dose, it's an even easier decision. Less risk means better idea.
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Data is pending on the 4th dose risks. I expect 4th dose risk to be less than 2nd dose risk, maybe even less than 3rd dose risk.
No, this is the only thing we have at the moment that is working well enough against delta and omicron. We have to wait another 2 months at least to get omicron specific vaccines.
Current vaccines are incredibly good at reducing hospitalizations after booster. If everybody already had their booster, there would be nothing to have meaningful discussion about - there would be no meaningful stress on hospitals.
> Pfizers new antiviral drug with over 90% efficacy
Is there large enough supply of it? Is there enough diagnostic capacity to confirm the every potential case within 5 days range from symptoms onset? It is an answer but not definitely a simple answer. Also there are side effects of the drug and it is systemic, please do not forget that.
I completely welcome oral anti-virals and I hope these become a game changer.
> natural immunity
Natural immunity does not appear from thin air. How all the people who mention it seam to forget that you must have the infection with all its risks to acquire it? For me everyone that brings up "natural immunity" is automatically marked as "potentially as anti-vax weirdo who has very limited understanding of the situation and is highly biased and potentially completely crazy". Why? Because there is very high correlation between saying "natural immunity" and complete nonsense that follows and I must pay attention that conversation is continuing in good faith.
> The only political, myopic stance here is yours: “repeated boosters seem like the answer”.
There we go. GP especially mentioned that there is simple criteria - COVID19 damage prevented vs vaccine damage caused. If the vaccine causes more damage, we don't boost. If COVID19 causes more damage, we boost.
Latest study from Israel hints that current vaccine from Pfizer has reached its upper limit but that study was small and did not include the most vulnerable age groups and there is possible long term effect that is not counted in here because early UK study displayed that immunity against omicron from Pfizer vaccine wanes relatively quickly while the same from Moderna vaccine is more stable. So we actually do not know yet all the answers.
And it does not take into account omicron specific boosters that most likely will arrive a little late but perhaps not - omicron appears to be fairly resilient and there is at the moment very high probability of another variant emerging from it after it has entered India.
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Now to the part of the comment that has more substance.
I am looking currently at data from one country (that I could not mention, sorry, I value my pseudo privacy here) that is comparing previous delta wave and current omicron wave.
It is stratified by vaccination status and previous infection. Completely naive are the baseline here. Fully vaccinated (by 2 doses) had about 2.25 times smaller infection rate during previous delta wave followed by convalescents who had about 4 times smaller infection rate than that.
Finally on about the same level were both boosted(one does after vaccination or infection) - about 3 times less than convalescents.
Yes, we knew this already way before that previous infection gives good immunity and boosting it improves it even more and it was not very amusing to follow this silly argument in US that felt completely political in nature.
In current wave double vaccinated are complete toast when we talk about infection rates. There is about 10% difference in infection rates (protection against hospitalization is still very, very good, mind you!). Immunity from previous infection is still better but the difference is much smaller - 15-20%.
There is now clear difference between boosted fully vaccinated and boosted convalescents - 50% in favor of fully vaccinated. Difference between convalescents and boosted convalescents is another 50%. In total there is about 3 times difference between naive and boosted fully vaccinated.
In addition the difference is growing because infection rates are rising at different speed, so I expect that difference at the top of the wave would be much more pronounced.
Having about 3 times smaller infection rates is not perfect situation but if we also take info account huge difference in hospitalization rates, there would be no epidemic to talk about if everyone was by now fully vaccinated and boosted (or previously infected and boosted by one dose).
Now would 4th dose make any meaningful difference at the moment? No idea, really. If everyone would get boosted by now, it would be great deal already. If the 4th does not reduce infection rates by much then it would probably not make much difference but it is too early to be too confident about this.
I personally do not think that there would be another booster with the same vaccine in this country.
Pfizer CEO also for sure is well aware that his companies vaccine did not make any meaningful difference after 4th shot against omicron and better strategy would be to make a strain specific vaccine.
I am not sure if this could be feasible. Omicron pushed through the world like wildfire. There was no meaningful time to produce or even develop a vaccine before it was already everywhere and circulating deep in community.
Omicron was very different from the cluster of previous variants. When something pops up from another direction like this then there would be probably no meaningful time to react to it.
Perhaps a little too pessimistic view. Maybe set of multiple antigenes from the cluster outer ring does the job or a vaccine against inner machinery of the virus - this should be more stable in time.
* https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nomen_est_omen
* https://www.nglish.com/spanish/en/burla
:)
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/11/study-ad...
If that's to our benefit, then we'll know after its tested. If not, we'll have the capability to refuse the vaccine at that point.