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Variant-adapted COVID vaccine wins first approval in Britain

22 Comments
By Natalie Grover

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"Moderna in June said trial data showed that when given as a fourth dose, the variant-adapted shot raised virus-neutralizing antibodies by eight-fold against Omicron."

Says it all really..... and then eight fold from what? Nothing?

-3 ( +9 / -12 )

Hurray! A vaccine that no-one can refuse!!

Why? There is nothing about this vax that makes it any safer than the previous one?

-2 ( +11 / -13 )

Says it all really..... and then eight fold from what? Nothing?

No, not nothing but baseline levels of neutralizing antibody titers produced by a booster of the original vaccine which is the one the new one is being compared.

Why? There is nothing about this vax that makes it any safer than the previous one?

Because there is no problems with safety with the previous vaccine, the only rational motive for refusal is the lower efficacy against omicron variants that is improved significantly with the bivalent boosters.

Obviously irrational people can refuse everything based on invalid or false "reasons" no matter how much evidence of efficacy and safety is there.

0 ( +13 / -13 )

They have filed here for approval, safe assumption will be granted - Hopefully I will get this along with my flu shot. If not earlier.

1 ( +10 / -9 )

Thanks @Sanjinosebleed - Well aware they do not stop transmission. Well aware also that it will very likely keep me out of hospital! I'll take the (proven to be safe) risk.

1 ( +10 / -9 )

Britain, the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine in late 2020, has now also given the first green light to a variant-adapted shot that targets both the original and Omicron version of the virus.

I don't recall--wasn't that coronavirus vaccine approved by Britain in 2020 Astrazeneca? Anyone in the States get that shot?

-15 ( +0 / -15 )

Incorrect @painkiller. First vaccine approved and used in the UK was Pfizer.

10 ( +12 / -2 )

Dear Virusrex,

What is the long term strategy?

We can see now Japan is its highest mortality ever. Can you explain rationally?

Rolling an updated version of the vaccjne till the next variant will outdate?

Is it the right strategy?

-7 ( +4 / -11 )

We can see now Japan is its highest mortality ever. Can you explain rationally?

Anybody paying attention can clearly understand the current variants have a much higher transmissibility, causing a huge increase of the number of cases, so even if the rate of fatal cases is much lower after vaccination it still means a higher total number of cases. The problem is thinking this situation (huge reduction of the Case-fatality ratio) would have been the same without the vaccines.

Rolling an updated version of the vaccjne till the next variant will outdate?

As long as this mean more people are better protected and the rate of death per infection keeps dropping this is perfectly valid. Nobody can bring data from the future to make a vaccine effective against a variant that has not even appeared yet, so this is the best possible approach.

Is it the right strategy?

Is the best available, Delta and specially Omicron make lockdowns and similar measures much less effective, and the population being at least somewhat immune make the costs (as in risk) much less, so the approach is still the best that is realistically available. This is also the best long term strategy, because it becomes more and more difficult to prevent infections, but it also becomes easier and easier to reduce the risk that comes from that infection, the long term goal is to reduce it to the same level as other respiratory infections, which means the situation goes back to "normal"

I don't recall--wasn't that coronavirus vaccine approved by Britain in 2020 Astrazeneca? 

No, it was the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine.

3 ( +11 / -8 )

The MHRA's Moderna decision was based on clinical trial data that showed the booster triggered "a strong immune response" against both Omicron (BA.1) and the original virus, it said.

"Trial data"--like kess than 500 people involved?

And this kind of takes away momentum for those shouting about getting a 4th shot now.

RafToday  01:00 pm JST

We can see now Japan is its highest mortality ever. Can you explain rationally?

No one here can explain it rationally. Even if you were to find actual medical professionals beyond this forum, there is no rational explanation---or even an explanation.

Just theories.

-7 ( +4 / -11 )

Takes away zero momentum for me, nor my colleagues it would seem after a discussion over lunch,

0 ( +5 / -5 )

No one here can explain it rationally. Even if you were to find actual medical professionals beyond this forum, there is no rational explanation---or even an explanation.

Just theories.

Theories ARE explanations,

Definition of theory

1: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena

It is terribly easy to find explanations about the number of cases explicitly calling the role of the omicron variants.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14682787

The highly contagious BA.5 Omicron subvariant and the July 10 Upper House election are partly responsible for a recent unprecedented spike in COVID-19 cases in Japan, according to an expert.

3 ( +10 / -7 )

However, the correlation between neutralizing antibody levels and vaccine effectiveness against disease - in particular severe disease - remains unclear.

Hmmm....that's a bit of a pickle then.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

Hmmm....that's a bit of a pickle then.

Antibody neutralization titers have been closely correlated with protection against covid

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01377-8

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01540-1

This means that is well known that higher neutralizing antibody levels equals more protection (and lower titers means less protection).

What remains unclear is how much protection you get against each variant from one single value of neutralization, each variant has different rates of producing disease or complication and the neutralization value also changes against each of them. The results clearly shows this vaccine protects more than the previous ones against omicron variants, what nobody knows exactly is how much more.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

What is your point?

There are plenty of explanations, just not ones that you judge to be "rational".

We can see now Japan is its highest mortality ever. Can you explain rationally?

No one here can explain it rationally. Even if you were to find actual medical professionals beyond this forum, there is no rational explanation---or even an explanation.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

What about long term effects of the vaccine and the side effects that becomes more and more prevalent?

Can we guarantee no one taking this updated version of the jab will suffer any long term effect such as myocarditis?

Loooking at current number of heart related disease, is it still worthed?

Should we invest in making the population healthier?maybe more medical personnel?

Few pointers here to stimulate the debate

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

Simple answer @Raf. No to all your questions - for different reasons, from the second question onwards. No, but Risk/Reward is better , Yes and Yes, we should but the economics don't add up even for the G7 countries that are spending money elsewhere.

As for your first question - its a nonsensical question as naturally side effects will become more prevalent as more people are vaccinated. We have never attempted something on this scale so quickly before.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

What about long term effects of the vaccine and the side effects that becomes more and more prevalent?

What about them? there are no important side effects "becoming more and more prevalent" That is actually happening with covid, not the vaccines, and every week or so a new problem or risk is discovered for the infection that make vaccination even more important.

Can we guarantee no one taking this updated version of the jab will suffer any long term effect such as myocarditis?

There is no need, since the vaccine helps preventing covid, and covid causes the long term effects you mention with much more frequency (by orders of magnitude) that means vaccinating actually reduces the risks of these problems when compared with not vaccinating.

Should we invest in making the population healthier?maybe more medical personnel?

Of course, that does not eliminate the need to reduce the risk of people by vaccinating because this reduction is present even on healthy young people.

Few pointers here to stimulate the debate

It is a terribly short debate because all those points still puts the vaccine as the best option. This is why the scientific and medical consensus is that vaccinating is the best option. The people that do these discussion professionally have reached this conclusion all over the world.

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

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