Japan begins giving Omicron booster shots to stem 7th COVID wave

Just like to mention that this vaccine was made for the previous variants up to Omicron Ba1 and are untested on humans.

Yatta! Keep giving out the boosta hopefully all toshiyori get it soon to protect nihon (so it can hurry up and open up!)

Just like to mention that this vaccine was made for the previous variants up to Omicron Ba1 and are untested on humans.

This would be still false, because the data that supports the safety and efficacy includes clinical data, trying to misrepresent one single test as if that was the whole thing submitted to prove this is obviously invalid and a transparent attempt to mislead peope.

It would still be nothing new, for vaccines with extensive data new versions can be used on the public without that clinical data, it is what has been done for the yearly influenza vaccines without any problem.

Isn't too late!? the the seventh wave is OVER.

Good.

Best protection against long covid is not getting infected.

Getting infected is prerequisite for natural immunity.

Isn't too late!? the the seventh wave is OVER.

Prevent/mitigate the 8th?

"I thought it would be best to get the one for the strain currently around. It doesn't mean I'm not going to get infected, but I've come here to get vaccinated so I don't spread it to others," he said.

Masahiko has it wrong!

Where did he get his information?

Being vaccinated won’t prevent infection and will not prevent him from passing on the virus.

Yawn, are some people still on this. Move on.

I just received my 5th CoVid shot and the VA yesterday. Didn't hurt one bit but it shagged me out today, just like the last two times did. But that's an indication that it's working! I didn't get any lollipop, however.

I strongly recommend getting every booster you can get. We still don't know all the ins and outs of it but we're going to beat this pandemic. We need to use our heads and quit listening to these conspiracy theory + new age quack jobs. They are ZEROES with no credentials whatsoever.

@ffs: Nor is the annual Influenza vaccine. The updated Covid19 booster is merely based on the same building blocks as the billions of shots, that are safe and were tested on humans that have already been administered.

4 shots per year, every year.

Your own arguments defeats your point, the only way that this could become true is that covid still represent a risk important enough to merit immunization. This is not what is happening even now, where the boosting recommendations are no longer for indiscriminate vaccination.

I think this should have been in the brochure at the start.

You mean you think people have access to time machines that would let everybody know that variants would appear, at what time and the effect they would have in the immunity gotten from previous infections and vaccinations?

That is not a logical argument.

Being vaccinated won’t prevent infection and will not prevent him from passing on the virus.

But it helps reducing both risks (according to scientific data that proves it), which is a reason valid enough to get it.

Don’t listen to the ‘natural immunity’ brigade.

Haha. @Bronco: yeah mate, like everybody knew what they were dealing with back in early 2020.

What a ridiclous statement. 'Should have been in the brochure'

@Viviane Bo: And what is wrong with that? They are paying for it, after all. This round of boosters are for those who have had previous jabs. Why waste time and effort informing those who haven't?

So the omicron wave is over and now they are going to "vaccinate" with the omicron related (no human trials) bivalent "vaccine"?? waste of time much.... On top of which it is well documented it does nothing to stop transmission, can cause myocarditis especially in young males among a plethora of other side effects...The risk reward ratio is skewed towards the too high risk for those not at risk from Covid which is 99% of the population!

The lunacy continues sadly...

It is too late to stem 7th COVID wave.

Last month , Covid19 deaths in Japan was over 7000 including patients who couldn't get medical treatment at all.

So the omicron wave is over and now they are going to "vaccinate" with the omicron related (no human trials) bivalent "vaccine"?? waste of time much

Do you have a reference where health care or scientific experts say this is a waste of time? or it is just your own personal opinion contrary to what they actually recommend?

 On top of which it is well documented it does nothing to stop transmission, can cause myocarditis especially in young males among a plethora of other side effects

Except that this is false, it does help reducing transmission and infection, and it prevents myocarditis specially in young males compared with letting them get infected with covid, that gives them a much higher risk of more serious complications.

The risk reward ratio is skewed towards the too high risk for those not at risk from Covid which is 99% of the population!

This is still completely false as well, being vaccinated reduces the risk coming from covid for everybody for whom the vaccine is recommended, which means most of the population.

"I thought it would be best to get the one for the strain currently around. It doesn't mean I'm not going to get infected, but I've come here to get vaccinated so I don't spread it to others,"

Well, getting the vax doesn't prevent the spread.

It is too late to stem 7th COVID wave.

Which is fine, because the boosters are meant to reduce the risks from the expected increase of cases coming in the Autumn and winter.

That is the correct and recommended use for vaccines, to prevent something from happening instead of waiting for it and then using the vaccines too late.

Well, getting the vax doesn't prevent the spread.

But helps reducing it, which is what happens with every other vaccine as well, the problem is pretending that something that is not 100% effective automatically becomes 0% effective, which is false.

So after all this time antivaxxers still believe that the vaccines are more dangerous than the disease lol.

My late father gave me very sage advice regarding just doing whatever everyone else is doing to fit in or of being peer pressured by bullies into taking drugs.

Just walk away anf just say NO.

My late father gave me very sage advice regarding just doing whatever everyone else is doing to fit in or of being peer pressured by bullies into taking drugs.

Just walk away anf just say NO.

Good for you =)

Thank you Ian. His knowledge was sound back then and equally sound now.

My late father gave me very sage advice regarding just doing whatever everyone else is doing to fit in or of being peer pressured by bullies into taking drugs.

Fortunately vaccines have clear scientific data that support their safety and efficacy, so nobody has to do what other people do, just make a rational decision for what is best based on the available evidence. If everybody else is also doing the rational thing that is irrelevant.

@Stragerland. I think that's totally fine and your choice.

Just as long as were not peer pressured or bullied into it.

I take issue with that.

Just as long as were not peer pressured or bullied into it.

I take issue with that.

Fair enough. I would agree with your dad's advice in that case.

Thank you Ian. His knowledge was sound back then and equally sound now.

Of course.

Always best not to do something out of only peer pressure, bullying even more so.

With drugs and vaccines best to consult the doctor you most trust.

 get it, you think the vaccine is safe and effective for everyone, although a study from Thailand (yet to be peer reviewed) shows a very large number (single percentage digits) of cardiac side effects of Pfizer vaccinations for young males.

No, it does not, because it completely misrepresents normal electrocardiographic findings as if they were pathological (between other serious problems that disqualify the conclusions). This is why it is important for articles to be peer reviewed before being used as arguments, skipping that part means you can be using faulty references as if they were already properly discussed to eliminate the problems.

https://jp.reuters.com/article/factcheck-heart-teens-vaccine-idUSL1N2ZT2B5

*But to be fair, everyone can and should decide for themselves how to plan their personal health care treatments. By now, each faction of this 'war' has shown fascist tendencies, wanting to strip the other party of their freedom of choice.*

Nobody is doing that, just making an argument so people do not try to misrepresent their personal decision as valid or based on scientific evidence when this is not the case, anybody can make irrational decisions if they want (and deal with the consequences of that decision) but to mislead others that actually want to make rational decisions is not valid nor should be allowed.

Making an appeal to hearsay and personal experience as if it had the same importance than studies including thousand of participants is what is terribly irrational. Scientific knowledge is the best way to know what is best according to the evidence, so to people to make the best decision according to it they can put the effort and time necessary to be as qualified as the experts, or accept their advice of the experts that have done just that.

@ Virusex

But it helps reducing both risks (according to scientific data that proves it), which is a reason valid enough to get it.

You forget to mention the harm/benefit aspect…

Since you keep bringing up scientific data, here is some peer review scientific data for you published on the National Institute of Health government site. Published AUG 31st 2022.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36055877/

In summary: "The excess risk of serious adverse events found in our study points to the need for formal harm-benefit analyses, particularly those that are stratified according to risk of serious COVID-19 outcomes. These analyses will require public release of participant level datasets."

If you are healthy and low risk for serious impact from COVID getting the shot is something to question indeed.

You forget to mention the harm/benefit aspect…

No, that is the whole point of reducing risk, that the benefit is higher than the harm, if that were not the case there could be no reduction of risk.

Since you keep bringing up scientific data, here is some peer review scientific data for you published on the National Institute of Health government site. Published AUG 31st 2022.

A report that has been already debunked because of unethical manipulations of the data that completely disqualifies the conclusions is not a reference you want to use, much less to refute the medical consensus

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/peer-review-fail-vaccine-publishes-antivax-propaganda/

When terribly obvious manipulations like counting every patient several times for the vaccines (so one person that get nausea, stomach pain and diarrhea is counted as 3 cases) when covid patients are only counted once, no matter if they had to be hospitalized and spend a month in the ICU with dozens of problems it makes it obvious the intent of the authors to push for invalid conclusions using shoddy methods.

This becomes even more obvious because the trials are made specifically to be stopped after benefit is found (else they would be unethical) which means that every single vaccinated patient had the full risk of any side effect, but since not all of them were at risk of infection at this time then obviously it is not possible to know the full risk of problems for covid they would have.

There is a reason why this report has been heavily criticized since it was a preprint.

If you are healthy and low risk for serious impact from COVID getting the shot is something to question indeed.

According to the experts around the world, using data from literally billions of vaccinated people this is untrue.

Fact check? from Reuters? Not sure about that.

What arguments do you have against those included in the article? they are clear and supported by professionals that put their names behind them.

Are all of them (and the many others that have criticized the study) in a conspiracy now? why don't you address the reasons given to disqualify the conclusions made from the report? are any of them false?

A report that has been already debunked...

Every study that goes against the pharma narrative will get some people criticizing them. This does not qualify as debunking.

When terribly obvious manipulations like counting every patient several times for the vaccines...

Every patient? No, there are some patients that were included more than once, because they were counting adverse effects. But the authors address this in their paper, and showed that it does not affect their conclusion. It's better to read the actual paper, rather relying on the so called "debunkers".

Multiple studies have shown that except for the old and/or people with other health issues, the risk from the injection is greater than the risk from the infection: for each Covid hospitalization prevented by the injection, we get between 4 and 100 (depending on the study) serious vaccine adverse effects.

Many in Japan seem to be clearly ignorant of just how ineffective and destructive these vaccines are. "I'm down with Covid, but I'm so glad I'm jabbed and boosted or it could have been wOrSe" is possibly the most common tweet of 2022. The facts are that in Australia covid deaths are more than 3 times higher in those vaccinated versus those not, and in the latest reporting cycle, just 7 of the 900 plus people admitted to hospital for Covid are unvaccinated. Ask yourself, who is filling up the hospital emergency departments in Australia and other highly vaccinated countries, and what are they in for exactly?

Every study that goes against the pharma narrative will get some people criticizing them. This does not qualify as debunking.

It does when you can't disqualify any of the multiple reasons given to discredit the report, since you don't even make an effort to discuss them that means you are accepting them as valid and therefore the study as debunked.

Every patient? No, there are some patients that were included more than once, because they were counting adverse effects. But the authors address this in their paper, and showed that it does not affect their conclusion.

No, they do not, because they refused to compare number of patients against number of patients, which is the obvious way to do a valid comparison, they tried to justify their invalid way of comparing, but they did not achieve this because after all the obvious way to do it better was ignored since it proved the opposite of what they wanted to say.

Multiple studies have shown that except for the old and/or people with other health issues, the risk from the injection is greater than the risk from the infection: for each Covid hospitalization prevented by the injection, we get between 4 and 100 (depending on the study) serious vaccine adverse effects.

No, that is still completely false. There have been terribly transparent attempts to misrepresent every single thing reported in the databases as if it was a consequence of the vaccines, which is easily proved false when those problems happen in the same rates on unvaccinated people, that is not a valid way to make a conclusion either, it is just scientific malpractice and recognized as such.

and experiment funded by taxpayers money continues...guto laku

When something is used therapeutically it is not an experiment, much less when supported with results from billions of vaccinations already done around the world

Many in Japan seem to be clearly ignorant of just how ineffective and destructive these vaccines are. "

Why would people need to know something that is not true?

The facts are that in Australia covid deaths are more than 3 times higher in those vaccinated versus those not

When those deaths should be more than 20 times higher according to the demographic differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients then only 3 times higher actually means the vaccinated people are being protected very efficiently. Obviously antivaxxer propaganda will try to hide this and pretend vaccinated people and unvaccinated people are the same, when this is obviously not the case.

Japan on Tuesday began its rollout of vaccines against the Omicron coronavirus variant as part of efforts to stem the ongoing seventh wave of COVID-19 infections in the country.

As is said in the surfing world, you missed that wave.

No, they do not, because they refused to compare number of patients against number of patients, which is the obvious way to do a valid comparison, they tried to justify their invalid way of comparing, but they did not achieve this because after all the obvious way to do it better was ignored since it proved the opposite of what they wanted to say.

Yes, the authors addressed that.

Nobody is doing that, just making an argument so people do not try to misrepresent their personal decision as valid or based on scientific evidence when this is not the case, anybody can make irrational decisions if they want (and deal with the consequences of that decision) but to mislead others that actually want to make rational decisions is not valid nor should be allowed.

To the contrary, and further your argument is circular.

When those deaths should be more than 20 times higher according to the demographic differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients then only 3 times higher actually means the vaccinated people are being protected very efficiently.

This is a totally false claim which goes against the easily available government data.

As is said in the surfing world, you missed that wave.

You do understand that vaccines are meant to protect people from future exposure, right? they are not meant to solve the problems caused by current waves (even if they can have value doing it) but to prevent the problems that are predicted to happen with the change of season that will likely produce a new wave in the near future.

To the contrary, and further your argument is circular.

Can you make an argument how this is circular? saying that anybody can make any decision they want, but not misrepresent irrational ones as if they were rational is not circular in any way.

This is a totally false claim which goes against the easily available government data

Ah, you mean the data you keep trying to use as an argument but never bring because only you can see? where is that epidemiologically analyzed data that shows vaccinated and unvaccinated people are the same in respect to risk from covid?

One point I forgot to include in my previous point is that the studies showing that the risk from the injection was greater that from the infection are generally based on data obtained before omicron.

But today we are dealing with a much milder virus and the vast majority of people have been infected and therefore have a level of natural immunity, the risk benefit ratio is much greater.

One point I forgot to include in my previous point is that the studies showing that the risk from the injection was greater that from the infection are generally based on data obtained before omicron.

If the data is invalidly manipulated this means the conclusions are also invalid, it does not matter from where it is taken, this is the reason why the medical consensus is that vaccines are still a much better option than getting the infection.

Retracted, invalid studies with demonstrated methodological problems that the authors make no effort to correct (because they have a result to push even if it means doing scientifically unethical things) are not proof the medical and scientific consensus of the world is wrong.

If the data is invalidly manipulated this means the conclusions are also invalid,

As I wrote, the authors discuss in the paper the points you mentioned about their data analysis. The paper underwent peer review and it was accepted. So your comments about it being an invalid study is just your opinion, which you are unable to support.

You do understand that vaccines are meant to protect people from future exposure, right? they are not meant to solve the problems caused by current waves

Not according to the article, if you understood it:

efforts to stem the ongoing seventh wave of COVID-19 

Can you make an argument how this is circular? saying that anybody can make any decision they want, but not misrepresent irrational ones as if they were rational is not circular in any way.

Why, because you say so? There's the argument.

Ah, you mean the data you keep trying to use as an argument but never bring because only you can see? 

The data that can't be seen, because you did not provide it.

As I wrote, the authors discuss in the paper the points you mentioned about their data analysis.

But not in a way that could justify making invalid comparisons when the much more direct one would be the best one to make, they try to argue without actually addressing this point with arguments that were also discredited when their arbitrary choices of what was to be considered a side effect and what not also enters into condideration. This means they could not justify their decision and instead gave more importance to something that was also heavily criticized for manipulation.

So your comments about it being an invalid study is just your opinion, which you are unable to support.

No, it is not, the cricicism of the study made by professionals is already linked here, that reference is still here, include many other disqualifying problems and it is not just my personal opinion.

Not according to the article, if you understood it:

Again, vaccines can be used to decrease the risks of an ongoing problem (which means it do help with the current wave) but the main purpose is to get people to have immunity with plenty of time to prevent problems of the next wave. that is going to be the most important benefit from these boosters, but obviously not the only one and some people will benefit during this wave as well, just not as many.

Why, because you say so? There's the argument.

You are the one baselessly claiming something is circular without even arguing how this is the case.

The data that can't be seen, because you did not provide it.

You said the claim was false according to data, and you provided no such thing, I guess this is one way to retract what you said, just not a very direct one.

And when they look at vaccine serious adverse events, these are defined as "an adverse event that results in any of the following conditions: death; life-threatening at the time of the event; inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization; persistent or significant disability/incapacity; a congenital anomaly/birth defect; medically important event, based on medical judgment."

It isn't just someone reporting a sore arm or diarrhea.

And when they look at vaccine serious adverse events, these are defined as "an adverse event that results in any of the following conditions: death; life-threatening at the time of the event; inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization; persistent or significant disability/incapacity; a congenital anomaly/birth defect; medically important event, based on medical judgment."

This is clearly addressed in the criticism of the paper, they choose to ignore problems arbitrarily when they were present frequently after infection, and only include problems that were linked to each other for the vaccines (all considered "significant disability") all with the very obvious effect to bias the results.

Or as written clearly on the cirticism made of the report

Perhaps the most important issue is that “events related to COVID-19” were excluded, which on the surface makes sense, but, given that COVID-19 cases were much more common in the placebo controlled group, automatically biases the results for the remaining SAEs to the vaccine-group.

To put it briefly, they compared number of SAEs, not the number of patients who suffered an SAE. This sort of analysis is guaranteed to double count SAES—at least!—because some of the SAEs or groups of SAES will be linked.

So, again the authors were unable (or unwilling) to actually justify their decisions, which end up being subjective and clearly show subjectivity and a desire to bias the results invalidly.

None of the other criticisms, like inflation bias, determination of risk from covid in a span of time where covid infections were low, the completely opposite results obtained from the reports on literally billions of doses delivered around the world, etc.

The central government plans to provide the shots, which are free of charge, to all who want them by the end of the year, ahead of the highly infectious year-end and New Year period.

Interesting how the government is predicting this year's end will be highly infectious, when it was completely caught off guard this summer for the current wave, in which Japan's infections grew to be the highest in the world.

This means they could not justify their decision and instead gave more importance to something that was also heavily criticized for manipulation.

There is no substantiation for this claim.

Again, vaccines can be used to decrease the risks of an ongoing problem (which means it do help with the current wave) but the main purpose is to get people to have immunity with plenty of time to prevent problems of the next wave.

Again, wrong. Especially if the next wave is led by different variant than what the new booster is tailored for.

You are the one baselessly claiming something is circular without even arguing how this is the case.

There it is again.

You said the claim was false according to data, and you provided no such thing, I guess this is one way to retract what you said, just not a very direct one.

Still no data provided; we will take that as an admission that you have none.

Interesting how the government is predicting this year's end will be highly infectious, when it was completely caught off guard this summer for the current wave, in which Japan's infections grew to be the highest in the world.

How is it reducing the rates of death by infection cases means it was caught off guard? the omicron increased cases everywhere including Japan, but if the measures were enough to decrease the risk from those infections very importantly that is the result that is being looked for, specially for Omicron, where measures focused on reducing cases are much less efficient, so the cost/benefit must shift to reducing complications which is what is being recommended by the experts of the world.

There is no substantiation for this claim.

You mean in the short text you choose to quote? well no, that substantiation is in the rest of the text you choose to leave out to pretend it is no there.

Again, wrong. Especially if the next wave is led by different variant than what the new booster is tailored for.

One, this is not a sure thing to happen, and two, having a better immunity response to the variant with the highest spreading capabilities means it is much more likely to be also higher for any theoretical new variant that may come after omicron than the original shots, so that would not be wrong and your reason do not make it so.

There it is again.

And you still make zero arguments about how this is circular reasoning, which means you accept you were wrong on this.

Still no data provided; we will take that as an admission that you have none.

Since the one that said the data disproved what you quoted was you, that means it is you who admits you have not the data to make that accusation, and you are retracting it.

and you honestly, with a straight face claim these things happened in the millions across Japan without anyone noticing or alerting anyone?

No.

I don't know where you're getting those numbers from. Do you believe that the vaccines prevented millions (or several hundreds of thousands) of hospitalizations in Japan in the young and healthy?