Japan to offer Omicron COVID shot to at least twice-vaccinated people

some increase in neutralizing antibodies 

Some increase???

What the hell does that mean???

0.01%...0.02%...50%...80%...or what???

If you want to make this vaccine attractive for the people, you better should be specific or otherwise people will refuse to take this vaccine.

But this sounds really like a kind of experiment to me.

Let's tell the people, some increase, and hopefully they take the vaccine, and then let's wait and see what will happen.

If nothing positive happens, we can tell the people, that we just said, some increase, but you people expected to much.

If at first you don't succeed, try and try and try again. 5th time lucky soon.

What's to say a new variant won't become prominent by the time this "special" iteration of the vaccine becomes available?

The whole thing has become such a laughable farce. How much money are we willing to spend and how much more will we destroy the value of a currencies by printing money so that people can have an added layer of cope?

Sounds like a vaccine cocktail to me. Cheers!

But it depends upon the source you choose to get your information.

If you just choose social media, like youtube, facebook and JT, then of course you have to continue with Google to answer your questions.

Erm ... considering you post almost daily on JT, you might ask yourself why you continue to come here and rail against it not meeting your expectations. It's as pointless as shouting at your cat for not behaving like a dog. It's a cat.

I started out as a strong believer in the vaccines. I interpreted the initial publicity to imply that we were getting a highly effective vaccine that would end any chance of Covid. I had the first vaccination as soon as it was available. I was less enthusiastic about the second. At the time I had the first there was no suggestion that a second would be needed. Why should this be if the first worked? Still, I had the second. Then the third was necessary .... Now top-ups, boosters, cocktails. And for most countries the largest wave of Covid occurred after the majority of the population had two vaccinations. Is it any wonder that skepticism about the vaccinations is building? The initial claims have proved unfounded and even the claim that the vaccinations reduce severity seems increasingly tenuous. We should form our opinions on the basis of evidence, and the evidence clearly shows that the vaccinations have failed to live up to their initial promise.

Who in their right mind would line up again since the last 5 jabs did nothing to prevent infection or transmission, yet aledgedly reduced the symptoms. They must think people are mindless sheep. Or are they?

Some increase, what for a couple of weeks? What a shambles and a blatant money grab.

Pfizer and Moderna lobbyists must be hard at work pushing for the government to promote these things of dubious effectiveness and safety, as fewer and fewer people want them.

Does nobody else think it's weird that this won't be available to people who haven't been vaccinated? Or at least that's how the article reads to me...

I very much doubt that is the case @Wobot. I have had all my vaccinations through a non-Japan route, and when I asked the local Covid hotline (I was hoping to become registered within the Japanese system as well as under that of the country that vaccinated me, in order to get future boosters locally), they said, if you are not yet registered in the Japan system but want a vaccine under the Japan system, just contact us, and we will work out the appropriate action for your case. So if you are thinking about being vaccinated for the first time, just contact the relevant local authority and ask for it. I am sure they will be very accomodating.

What's to say a new variant won't become prominent by the time this "special" iteration of the vaccine becomes available?

@wolfshine - That's an interesting philosophical question. In order to avoid mental health problems, it's important to learn to grapple with uncertainty, because uncertainty is the nature of human existence. Science can help to keep asking questions and extending our knowledge of a particular field, but we are human, and will never have absolute knowledge. Good science acknowledges that, and iterations are a sign of knowledge and capacity developing. So back to your questions, researchers are working hard to develop vaccines which are as effective as possible and mitigate risks and damage as threats develop and inevitably change. As @virusrex always painstakingly explains how the scientific method is applied to dealing with the pandemic, by logical reasoning, and caution when uncertain.

I think wanting existence to be black and white is likely to give anyone serious stress, as this impossible wish is hit by reality.

At their speed everyone will have caught the real thing before they even get to giving out jabs.

StrangerlandToday  03:35 pm JST

Your appeal might hold a bit of water if the vaccines were safe and effective. Turns out they're not, negating any duty.

Bruh, I got three shots, walk around every day without a mask, and have not caught the virus. Clearly the vaccines are effective.

Well, bruh, I had none of the shots, walk around without a mask every day and haven't caught the virus either - or at least haven't had any symptoms. Clearly my clean immune system is effective.

*Your imaginary standard is not achieved by any article, *much less any you can find on this site.

That is exactly what I said.

Thank you for agreeing with me.

You being here reading and commenting means you already understand this, but only complain when it is about vaccines because of a personal bias.

That is completely wrong and proves that you only read comments about vaccines.

I comment to many many different articles here, long time before you appear here on the scene, and I had many discussions and problems with the Mods according the quality of their articles.

is it because it is very easy to demonstrate those thousands of articles do not answer all possible questions anybody can have?

It really seems that you absolutely do not understand my post above.

I said:  it also depends upon what kind of answers you want.

That means, ...what I also said above...some people are satisfy with some increase as an answer and have no further questions.

Some other people have just one simple additional question which can be answered very easy by adding just one sentence to the article. (Like you did with your 1 sentence answer to me).

All questions anybody can have, is a kind of interpretation.

Many questions can be also out of topic and can be zero relevant to the article.

But as more of a person's questions are answered by an article, as higher quality this article has in the readers sight.

And according to this article here on JT, the most urgent and Number 1 question, which comes immediately to a person's mind is, what does "some increase" means?

And you proved, that this question can be answered with just 1 sentence.

Therefore I said, because this article is missing this 1 sentence answer, this article is not good investigated or JT left this answer out on purpose.

Whatever it is...

An veritable hive of conspiracy theorists here.

I’d love to book a room in a restaurant, get them all in with the booze flowing and just sit back and listen to the conversation develop. I’d foot the bill.

No Nurse Ratched stuff, just there to observe.

Vaccines reduce risk for months, specially against the worst complications of the infection, they are in great part the reason why countless deaths have been avoided. Experts of the world consider the covid vaccines extremely succesful and well worth getting immunized.

@viruswrecks

keep up the good work.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-26/covid-hospitalisations-australia-record-new-peak/101270302

We we’re told from the start that the vaccines would need updating. No surprises there.

. We should form our opinions on the basis of evidence, and the evidence clearly shows that the vaccinations have failed to live up to their initial promise.

Can you show here the evidence that you say clearly shows what you say?

Where do I line up?

previous 3 vaccines did not work and highly likely high percentage of vaccinated paople are now or having serious issues/hospitalized/or are dying/thanks to covid/or having serious side issues/heart etc/.gov is hiding these data from us/as these are never published here even we get everyday so called "detailed report" as part of covid brain massage/.

How did you know about it if the data are being hidden?

considered effective

the old, “consider, urge, recommend” Japanese official policy thing…

@virusrex

Keep up the good work.

As usual a cut above, so clearly a cut above.

Your appeal might hold a bit of water if the vaccines were safe and effective. Turns out they're not, negating any duty.

The experts in public health, vaccination and infectious diseases say they are safe and effective, and have the data to prove it, against this nameless people on the internet saying the scientific and medical community of the world are all wrong simply do not hold any weight.

previous 3 vaccines did not work and highly likely high percentage of vaccinated paople are now or having serious issues/hospitalized/or are dying/thanks to covid/or having serious side issues/heart etc/.gov is hiding these data from us/as these are never published here even we get everyday so called "detailed report" as part of covid brain massage/.

Vaccines work, and if your argument to prove a conspiracy is that you have no evidence for that conspiracy that only means you have no argument, a conspiracy where people on every institution of health or science of the planet actively hide problems that would affect them, their friends and families is not believable at all.

question-3 vaccines did not stop covid,did not protect vaccinated people and did not bring "freedom" of life and travel to vaccinated people-will this vaccine no 4 finally help?

Vaccines do protect people, the rest is just a strawman from antivaxxer groups that actively try to hide the effect variants have on all kinds of immunity, something that was warned could happen even before vaccines were even developed.

any guarantee that this new product causing no serious side effects?

Yes, the clinical trials, that is one of their two purposes.

I guess very serious questions to ask before someone have to decide if will take part in this new vaccine experiment

If you consider vaccination an experiment that means you will participate in it, vaccinated people would be the low risk group, unvaccinated people the high risk controls that will tell us exactly how many problems are being prevented by the vaccines.

It seems the best way to minimize Covid right now is social distance.

This may surprise you but articled do not include all and every single detail of a story

But that is what readers do expect from an article.

If I read an article, and after that I have to start to google all necessary information, which gives the article sense, is completely Nonsense.

Such articles only leave the readers confused and brings more questions than answers.

An article has to give all the necessary information to the readers and also answers to possible questions, otherwise the article is nothing else than BS.

And it brings up the question if the writer of this article really did investigate before he published his or her story.

If at first you don't succeed, try and try and try again. 5th time lucky soon.

Be thankful that researchers and scientists throughout history didn't take your attitude and kept working to make improvements on what they created in the first place!

If you were the one in charge, we'd still be living in the dark ages!

But additional, it also depends upon what kind of answers you want.

Some people read here in this article, some increase, and they are satisfied with that. No further questions.

But people, who read carefully an article and try to get concrete information, of course these people will not be satisfied with the information, some increase, and they want more answers.

If an article do not give me concrete information and answers, and I have to search Google instead, then I better skip the article, because reading this article is a waste of time.

But anyway, this is not the topic here...the topic here is about a new vaccine that is coming out from October and I wanted to know what ,some increase, means.

But, yeah...it seems because of the low information quality that the article brings, I have to search Google by myself.

Yet, the Ministry of Health seems to think that there is zero public health benefit in offering these to the over 30 million unvaccinated Japanese people.

Completely invalid misrepresentation. The shots are proved to be beneficial as boosters, so they can be offered as boosters. Primary inoculation would protect people adequately even against omicron so no boosting would be necessary until later, at which point these shots would be indicated (if it can reduce the risk from the infection of the variant prevalent at that time).

If evidence comes that using the dual shots offers the same protection as the original vaccines then (and only then) they can be offered as primary vaccines.

“Does nobody else think it's weird that this won't be available to people who haven't been vaccinated? Or at least that's how the article reads to me...“

Not weird at all. For me, as an unvaxxed, no thanks. Guess it’s easier to push this cocktail on those who have had some of the ingredients before, or are willing to take on the new formula. Hope it works as intended.

So many conspiracy theorists on here.

As there are many rather different lineages have to be considered, I would also agree to the FDA recommendations to additionally include BA.5 subtype components into the new vaccine serums. A timely response might be considered an attractive option, but it’s surely better in this case to include substantial quality and efficiency improvements. And btw it’s quite funny that the anti-vaccers now feel ignored or disadvantaged. Feel free to start anytime with the two first basic jabs.

Ah yes…somewhat increases resistance to the Ba5 variant…that’s not a vaccine then!

starpunkToday  12:03 pm JST

Damn it, do it! It is the duty of all people all over planet Earth to protect themselves and others from CoVid-19 which is the Number One problem facing us today. 

Do it for yourself you don't get violently sick and/or pass it to others. Do it for your loved ones and friends. Do it for the weak, disabled, sick and elderly so they can live too. Do it for humanity. Do it for God. 

I have received 4 vaccine shots to fight this, and if I need to get a 5th one and my local VA has them I will do it. 

It's your DUTY, Rudy. For you and me and all of us. Simple as that.

Your appeal might hold a bit of water if the vaccines were safe and effective. Turns out they're not, negating any duty.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-26/covid-hospitalisations-australia-record-new-peak/101270302

Welcome to 2022, where variants that are much more easily transmitted pump the number of cases up, now if you compare the rates of hospitalizations and deaths per number of infection before and after the vaccination efforts you will see a very clear difference, that is the effect vaccines have.

At the time I had the first there was no suggestion that a second would be needed. Why should this be if the first worked?

There was every suggestion further doses could be needed the moment no other vaccine against any coronavirus had been developed before, willful ignorance of what the experts said is not a valid excuse, the first vaccine worked and protected the people, variants came and accelerated the rate the protection was reduced, so the same thing that happened with the primary vaccines was sought with the boosters, and it was achieved.

And for most countries the largest wave of Covid occurred after the majority of the population had two vaccinations.

Because of the much higher transmission of omicron and because countries switched from preventing infections to preventing complications (again in great part thanks to the vaccines). Many of the measures that prevented infections were unsustainable and were meant only as a way to gain time until vaccination was completed as much as possible, those measures are also much less efficient against the Omicron strain. Both factors help to explain why infections increased so importantly, while hospitalizations and deaths did not.

The initial claims have proved unfounded and even the claim that the vaccinations reduce severity seems increasingly tenuous

All published research say this is still true even now, to think the evidence is tenuous it is necessary to actively refuse to accept that evidence.

Your appeal might hold a bit of water if the vaccines were safe and effective. Turns out they're not, negating any duty.

Bruh, I got three shots, walk around every day without a mask, and have not caught the virus. Clearly the vaccines are effective.

But that is what readers do expect from an article.

For anybody with a minimum of common sense this is obviously not true, there are literally dozens and dozens of pages of information that could be of interest to someone but that are not included in this article, from the story of the variants to the antigenic epitopes that are different. Nobody expect all and every single detail to be included in 8 short parragraphs.

If I read an article, and after that I have to start to google all necessary information, which gives the article sense, is completely Nonsense.

That is what everybody does if they want more information that is not included, there is nothing strange about it.

An article has to give all the necessary information to the readers and also answers to possible questions, otherwise the article is nothing else than BS.

Completely false, articles give a short introduction with the information that is most commonly interesting to the public, not the hundreds of pages that would answer every possible question anybody could have, that is very obviously not a realistic standard.

And it brings up the question if the writer of this article really did investigate before he published his or her story.

Because the article is not hundreds of pages long? again completely invalid.

How many articles have you read that conform to this standard of yourse? put a couple of links I am sure I can come with many questions that are not answered in those articles and I would have to google to completement the information. No article includes all information ever available about a topic.

I think we should be at least compensated.

Hahaha why?

Damn it, do it! It is the duty of all people all over planet Earth to protect themselves and others from CoVid-19 which is the Number One problem facing us today.

Do it for yourself you don't get violently sick and/or pass it to others. Do it for your loved ones and friends. Do it for the weak, disabled, sick and elderly so they can live too. Do it for humanity. Do it for God.

I have received 4 vaccine shots to fight this, and if I need to get a 5th one and my local VA has them I will do it.

It's your DUTY, Rudy. For you and me and all of us. Simple as that.

For anybody with a minimum of common sense this is obviously not true

For anybody who is interested in real journalism, it is absolutely true.

People who are just interested and just get their information from social medias like, youtube, facebook and Japan Today, yes...for them probably not true.

And of course these people have to search for the necessary information in Google.

But a real good article with a real journalism in the background, should give you information and answers, and not leave you behind with more questions.

Because the article is not hundreds of pages long? again completely invalid.

What are yo talking about?

You contradict again yourself, because you answered my question already with just 1 sentence:

According to the information released by the manufacturers the increase is from 10 to 20 times over the basal levels before boosting, so that would mean a 1000% to 2000% percent.

How many articles have you read that conform to this standard of yourse

Thousands!

But it depends upon the source you choose to get your information.

If you just choose social media, like youtube, facebook and JT, then of course you have to continue with Google to answer your questions.

Great decision on this .!. All these anti everything cultists won’t do anything to help mitigate the spread of Covid, won’t do anything to help reduce their chance of getting a severe case….. spread patently false information near daily …. I’ve been saying for over a year that the jgov knows precisely who is and who is not vaccinated…. I wouldn’t reward the anti vax crowd either .!.

And what with the people like me who didn't have the first shot yet? Or with people who took only the first shot but didn't take a second one?

Get the first two shots first obviously

And what with the people like me who didn't have the first shot yet? Or with people who took only the first shot but didn't take a second one?

They won't be able to get Omicron COVID shot?

I think we should be at least compensated.

That would be very easy, get vaccinated first, and if the booster is necessary for you by the time the protection of the vaccine drops then you can get it. Being vaccinated recently gives adequate protection to everybody. This new shot has been tested as a booster, so it can assure protection as a booster, not as a primary inoculation.

This is a corporate press release.

Which communicates the evidence submited to regulation bodies that decide if a booster is or not approved, it is not just something said, but something that can be proved scientifically to the point governments can approve the use of the shots.

Will "some" increase in antibodies stop infection?

Antibody levels are a well characterized surrogate of protection, and the same as every other vaccine the main purpose of the covid vaccines and boosters is to prevent complications and death, preventing infection is an extra benefit that would not make the vaccines inadequate by not achieving it completely, the same as happens with all previous vaccines.

How long until "waning" precipitates another booser?

So you want researchers to bring information of the future? what variants are going to appear in the next few months? how different are they going to be from the currently prevalent ones? without that information obviously whatever is said right now would be invalid.

That is exactly what I said.

You said you have read thousands of articles that don't leave any question unanswered, but you could not bring even one. The problem is to have an expectation no article ever accomplished. If I have an unanswered question of any article you considered adequate, would that make it deficient? that is what you are arguing.

You have not demonstrated other people questions were or not answered, just what you personally, subjectively wanted. Personalizing the articles to what you consider important is less rational even than asking for them to include anything anybody could consider important.

Some increase, what for a couple of weeks? What a shambles and a blatant money grab.

Vaccines reduce risk for months, specially against the worst complications of the infection, they are in great part the reason why countless deaths have been avoided, with what do you supposed a booster is to be replaced? with the full risks of the infection?

If at first you don't succeed, try and try and try again. 5th time lucky soon.

Experts of the world consider the covid vaccines extremely succesful and well worth getting immunized, just because they don't conform to a personal, biased, arbitrary standard of perfecte efficacy against all and everything you can think of this does not make them unsuccessful.

Pfizer and Moderna lobbyists must be hard at work pushing for the government to promote these things of dubious effectiveness and safety, as fewer and fewer people want them.

If the shots have scientific evidence of efficacy at lowering the risk from the infection they are not dubious except for conspiracy theorist that invoke impossible world wide plots that include all and every institution of health and science.

people who have completed at least two COVID inoculations

Japan is dropping the ball on Covid (again). 80% of Australians have had three shots and 60% have had four shots. The third shot was available from from September last year. Perhaps Japan's relaxed approach to more than two vaccinations is why Japan is seeing unprecented infection numbers.

If countries want to avoid death, they will need to vaccinate every 6 months, and achieve high levels of vaccination in a short time, like they did with the first batch of vaccines.

It will take about 5-8 more years before this is long in the rear view mirror.

Some increase???

What the hell does that mean???

This may surprise you but articled do not include all and every single detail of a story, if you are interested on something you can easily google it and solve your doubts instead of thinking every single detail must be written on every article. Refusing to be vaccinated is fine (as long as you don't become an extra risk for others) but using as a pretext lack of information from one single article is not.

https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-omicron-adapted-covid-19

0.01%...0.02%...50%...80%...or what???

According to the information released by the manufacturers the increase is from 10 to 20 times over the basal levels before boosting, so that would mean a 1000% to 2000% percent.