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emperorchampion
Canada9496 Posts
On November 30 2021 08:07 LegalLord wrote: Is the idea to just keep getting vaccinated on an every-three-months cadence? Hoping there's a longer-term plan that's not just "top up antibodies four times a year." Too early to say one way or the other I imagine. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15732 Posts
On November 30 2021 08:07 LegalLord wrote: Is the idea to just keep getting vaccinated on an every-three-months cadence? Hoping there's a longer-term plan that's not just "top up antibodies four times a year." I guess? According to my wife it would be very bad to get juiced up too often, but as long as your immune system has time to cool off each time, it appears fine? Based on my understanding that every 3 months is safe, sorry if I am missing something, but what's the issue? Aside from waiting around for 15 minutes after the shot, it felt pretty easy and not too burdensome. I am basically assuming the 3rd shot will be my last one for this in the pandemic stage. But I am probably wrong. Right now it is starting to look like Omicrom is what we have all been praying for: an extremely infection, mostly benign version of Delta. A headache and fatigue beats the hell out of inability to breathe. People are worrying about Omicrom but I'm really excited based on early data. Super transmissible and benign is the best case scenario, especially if the vaccines still work. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28736 Posts
Seconding the last part of your post, though. I'm reading more and more people being very optimistic about Omicron. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On November 30 2021 08:18 emperorchampion wrote: Too early to say one way or the other I imagine. Thing is, that's not really an answer. Going into this booster campaign (I've definitely gotten the "get your booster" government reminder lately) without a plan for why and to what long-term end seems more than a bit questionable. And campaigns can quickly turn into mandates. On November 30 2021 08:40 Mohdoo wrote: I guess? According to my wife it would be very bad to get juiced up too often, but as long as your immune system has time to cool off each time, it appears fine? I mean yeah, that's the concern. We don't do quarterly boosters for any other vaccine, and this isn't exactly the most dangerous ever disease to warrant such a thing. Seems like a bigger risk than benefit to do this more than a few times, especially if we discover the hard way that mRNA vaccines also end up having an effect equivalent to anti-vector immunity. I say it a lot, but unless my employer mandates it I'll wait for the variant booster. I think there's a reasonable chance I already had the corvid in Feb '20, and I'm not in any high-risk group. No benefit in topping up to avoid mild cases and herd immunity seems to be a pipe dream at this point. On November 30 2021 09:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: With how I responded to my second vaccine dose, the prospect of four of those every year would make me inclined to go 'fuck this'. Oh yeah, I forgot that vaccine day actually sucked. Add that to the list of reasons not to want to do this. | ||
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Lmui
Canada6221 Posts
The 6 month booster requirement is mostly due to the short 3 week interval that was followed for the initial doses. The longer 6+ week interval doses seem to be holding up better. If it becomes a flu shot (take it once a year) starting in late 2022, I'm fine with that. Take a flu+covid (updated for latest variant) shot, and continue with life as normal. Edit:: For me it'll probably be d1 May 2021, d2 july 2021, booster jan 2022, yearly doses starting Oct-Nov 2022. We'll see in around a week and a bit if Omicron is covered by the existing vaccines or not. If they are, that'd be good news but it doesn't seem promising. The fact that it seems milder despite spreading more is good news. If we can actually start treating it a mild cold if you're vaccinated would be nice. | ||
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BlackJack
United States10574 Posts
On November 30 2021 00:56 WombaT wrote: At least in here Trump wasn’t getting slammed for not being a miracle worker, but being beyond bloody terrible in so many aspects of what a decent Presidential response would look like. Even on travel bans, which I tend to agree with he was terrible. Banning travel because it’s judicious vs incorporating it only because it fits your anti-China posturing, they’re a bit different. None of this was guided by actual sensible policy, if Trump had deferred and just executed sensible policy I’d be still against his politics but give him credit here, he just demonstrably didn’t do that. My memory of the overall timeline is not particularly great but there were periods I’m pretty sure where various European countries had travel restrictions to the US and the U.K. didn’t, when the U.K. had considerably worse numbers and should have been the prime candidate for restrictions. Do the ostensible ‘left’ make political hay from it? Yes, absolutely I mean I know it’s a sarcastic meme but orange man bad, well yes? Biden bans travel from African countries after new covid variant discovered = judicious Trump bans travel from China after novel coronavirus discovered = only done because it fits his anti-China posturing There's such a fine line between saving the world and racism/xenophobia | ||
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BlackJack
United States10574 Posts
On November 30 2021 03:38 ChristianS wrote: + Show Spoiler + I think your argument would be stronger were this statement not so overbroad. This might be a nitpick, but I actually think it’s fairly important. I mean, many experts, not just lefty politicians, were pretty critical of Russia’s decision to skip phase 3 and just approve their vaccine so they could claim they got there first. Is that “vaccine hesitancy”? Guys like Derek Lowe were writing last year about ongoing clinical trials, including possible poor efficacy and side effects vaccines can cause that they were worried about (and, later, writing joyously that the results far exceeded their expectations). These are, quite literally, expressions of hesitation about the vaccines, but I doubt you think those people should have been shouted down. I don’t recall Biden’s or Harris’s specific tweets about the vaccine, but I do recall most critics at the time being pretty clear that their concern was about a premature approval getting pushed through by political appointees trying to score some last-minute points before the election. + Show Spoiler + And it wasn’t without precedent, iirc the convalescent plasma EUA looked like that was probably what happened. This is the problem with “both sides” arguments: they attempt to draw analogy between very disparate groups to point out some common fault, but there are always going to be a lot of substantive differences between the groups which your analogy forces you to elide. If you enumerate a clear principle you think both groups are violating we could at least discuss whether those substantive differences help either side’s case, but if the principle is stated so broadly as to imply something like “no one should oppose any travel ban whatsoever or question any vaccine during a pandemic,” the analogy has elided too much detail to be useful. I don’t want to give Democrats too much credit; I think their rhetoric has mostly been a “if the facts are on your side, hammer the facts” calculation. I also don’t especially want this thread to be a covid-flavored USPMT. But I don’t think juxtaposing Democrats with the “CCP Virus” crowd and saying “look, the same!” is especially helpful. Yes, I agree with your recollection. The problem is that this is the same reasoning that most anti-COVID-vaxxers use. Every anti-covid-vaxxer person I talk to starts out with "I'm not anti-vaxx..." before they list off every vaccine they've ever had in their life. It's important that the public trusts that the CDC/FDA are going to make good decisions independent of politics. You can't spend a year telling people that Trump's political appointees can easily corrupt these institutions and push through an untested vaccine and then call foul when people are worried that these institutions have pushed through an untested vaccine. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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ChristianS
United States3281 Posts
On November 30 2021 10:45 BlackJack wrote: Yes, I agree with your recollection. The problem is that this is the same reasoning that most anti-COVID-vaxxers use. Every anti-covid-vaxxer person I talk to starts out with "I'm not anti-vaxx..." before they list off every vaccine they've ever had in their life. It's important that the public trusts that the CDC/FDA are going to make good decisions independent of politics. You can't spend a year telling people that Trump's political appointees can easily corrupt these institutions and push through an untested vaccine and then call foul when people are worried that these institutions have pushed through an untested vaccine. I dunno, I wasn’t making any statements to the public or anything, but I thought at the time I wouldn’t take it until they finished phase 3. Nothing to do with Trump, but I think it would take pretty remarkable circumstances for me to favor releasing a drug before phase 3 trials, and the vaccines were no exception. I share your skepticism whenever someone says “I’m not anti-vaxx but…” - but I really don’t think “I think we should do the normal safety testing and not cut corners” qualifies as anti-vax. We do that testing for other drugs for a reason! And manufacturing constraints were our limiting step for mass vaccination anyway, so why approve prematurely? I don’t think you can spend too much time looking at the modern FDA and say what we need is more blind trust in their decisions. Political interference (or just plain old corruption) are real things and we should be on the lookout for them, especially when they make such busted calls like the recent Alzheimers drug approval. Sometimes people say we should have those conversations being closed doors because they’re worried that having honest conversations like that will give the quacks and conspiracy theorists ammo, but I tend to doubt the effectiveness of convincing them there’s no conspiracy to lie to them about drug efficacy by, well, conspiring to lie to them about drug efficacy. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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BlackJack
United States10574 Posts
On November 30 2021 12:30 ChristianS wrote: I dunno, I wasn’t making any statements to the public or anything, but I thought at the time I wouldn’t take it until they finished phase 3. Nothing to do with Trump, but I think it would take pretty remarkable circumstances for me to favor releasing a drug before phase 3 trials, and the vaccines were no exception. I share your skepticism whenever someone says “I’m not anti-vaxx but…” - but I really don’t think “I think we should do the normal safety testing and not cut corners” qualifies as anti-vax. We do that testing for other drugs for a reason! And manufacturing constraints were our limiting step for mass vaccination anyway, so why approve prematurely? I don’t think you can spend too much time looking at the modern FDA and say what we need is more blind trust in their decisions. Political interference (or just plain old corruption) are real things and we should be on the lookout for them, especially when they make such busted calls like the recent Alzheimers drug approval. Sometimes people say we should have those conversations being closed doors because they’re worried that having honest conversations like that will give the quacks and conspiracy theorists ammo, but I tend to doubt the effectiveness of convincing them there’s no conspiracy to lie to them about drug efficacy by, well, conspiring to lie to them about drug efficacy. I feel like we're getting a little off-topic. I'm not advocating for releasing vaccines before they've completed phase 3 trials. You asked me for a clear principle both groups are violating. Biden and Harris were heavily implying that people couldn't or shouldn't trust a vaccine that gets released under Trump because of his political influence over the FDA/CDC. For example this Biden quote: "Look at what’s happened. Enormous pressure put on the CDC not to put out the detailed guidelines. The enormous pressure being put on the FDA to say they’re going, that the following protocol will in fact reduce, it will have a giant impact on COVID. All these things turn out not to be true, and when a president continues to mislead and lie, when we finally do, God willing, get a vaccine, who’s going to take the shot? Who’s going to take the shot? You going to be the first one to say, ‘Put me — sign me up, they now say it’s OK’? I’m not being facetious." After Biden became President he announced in August that Americans would be able to get booster doses even before the FDA/CDC had made any decisions to approve them. 2 leading vaccine regulators for the FDA resigned their positions out of protest from the Biden administration's top-down approach to boosters usurping the FDA/CDC. The CDC director overruled the CDC advisory panel to broaden the eligibility for boosters. I think the hypocrisy is pretty self-evident here. When Biden/Harris/Dems voice vaccine skepticism due to political influence over the FDA/CDC their concerns are legitimate. As soon as orange guy gone and old guy there those same concerns are just "antivaxx bullshit." | ||
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RKC
2848 Posts
On November 30 2021 10:45 BlackJack wrote: Yes, I agree with your recollection. The problem is that this is the same reasoning that most anti-COVID-vaxxers use. Every anti-covid-vaxxer person I talk to starts out with "I'm not anti-vaxx..." before they list off every vaccine they've ever had in their life. It's important that the public trusts that the CDC/FDA are going to make good decisions independent of politics. You can't spend a year telling people that Trump's political appointees can easily corrupt these institutions and push through an untested vaccine and then call foul when people are worried that these institutions have pushed through an untested vaccine. Good point. Speaking beyond US politics (which I don't know enough of), the trend in the last year or so in many parts of the world is politicians somewhat flip-flopping on COVID policies (pro or anti lockdown, travel ban, vaccination roll-out, etc). The irony is that the libertarians (which includes but not the same as vaccine-skeptics) are the ones which are most consistent in their principles and messaging - freedom of movement, bodily autonomy, etc. - regardless of which political party is in power. Governments should be careful not to blindside or take the public for fools. Already there's growing pushback or hesitance against boosters (even among people who were the first in line to take the jab). Six months, three months, one year - just make up your mind. Insufficient scientific data? Sorry, that excuse is really wearing thin. Uncertainty due to new variants? Bloody hell, didn't you all see this coming a mile away after Delta? Not voicing out my own thoughts, but just echoing the voices of people close to me and at work. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3281 Posts
But the phase 3 question is pretty central here because that’s what people were pushing back against. Phase 3 data didn’t report until, iirc, a few weeks after the election; the fear was that (as happened pretty frequently in that administration) political appointees would be explicitly tasked with overruling the nonpartisan agency workers and forcing a decision the administration thought would help them electorally. Again, there was even precedent here: the data on convalescent plasma was not all that strong, but we still got an EUA, including a lot of “miracle cure”-type talk, because the administration wanted something they could sell as a win. Again, I’m not especially eager to praise Democrats here so much as refine the principle. If your principle is “people shouldn’t question FDA decisions about vaccines, even if there’s credible reason to believe they’re going to skip safety testing and approve it due to political influence,” I disagree with the principle! I think people should freely express those criticisms, and if you think they aren’t well-founded you should explain why rather than cry foul they were expressed at all. I’d probably say something like “people should either take the time to understand how experts reach their conclusions before criticizing, or else trust their results” is more or less my principle on intersections of politics and science; personally I try to do the former when I have the time and aptitude to manage it. We can compare/contrast the Biden WH pushing boosters ahead of their agencies to a hypothetical premature vaccine approval, if you want; I think it’s an interesting case study of the intersection between politics and science. But I do think without clearly enumerating the principle being violated, this sort of “look, hypocrisy on both sides” argument is cathartic but not very illuminating. | ||
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BlackJack
United States10574 Posts
On November 30 2021 15:03 ChristianS wrote: Yeah, that quote sucks. I’d probably argue it’s not actually anti-vax (technically the claim is “Trump’s political influence will make people hesitant, and that’s bad”) but that is nitpicking. One of Biden’s more obnoxious qualities is an inability to articulate a nuanced point. But like I said (and I think you agreed?), Trump’s critics in that episode were generally pretty clear that their objection was not with vaccines in general, or even these vaccines in particular; it was with the possibility of political influence being used to shove out an approval before the safety data was in. I think that’s even the point Biden is flailing toward there, in a ham-fisted sort of way. But the phase 3 question is pretty central here because that’s what people were pushing back against. Phase 3 data didn’t report until, iirc, a few weeks after the election; the fear was that (as happened pretty frequently in that administration) political appointees would be explicitly tasked with overruling the nonpartisan agency workers and forcing a decision the administration thought would help them electorally. Again, there was even precedent here: the data on convalescent plasma was not all that strong, but we still got an EUA, including a lot of “miracle cure”-type talk, because the administration wanted something they could sell as a win. Again, I’m not especially eager to praise Democrats here so much as refine the principle. If your principle is “people shouldn’t question FDA decisions about vaccines, even if there’s credible reason to believe they’re going to skip safety testing and approve it due to political influence,” I disagree with the principle! I think people should freely express those criticisms, and if you think they aren’t well-founded you should explain why rather than cry foul they were expressed at all. I’d probably say something like “people should either take the time to understand how experts reach their conclusions before criticizing, or else trust their results” is more or less my principle on intersections of politics and science; personally I try to do the former when I have the time and aptitude to manage it. We can compare/contrast the Biden WH pushing boosters ahead of their agencies to a hypothetical premature vaccine approval, if you want; I think it’s an interesting case study of the intersection between politics and science. But I do think without clearly enumerating the principle being violated, this sort of “look, hypocrisy on both sides” argument is cathartic but not very illuminating. That's not an unreasonable interpretation of Biden's quote. Yes, we did agree that the objections of Trump's critics were not to vaccines themselves but to political influence in the approval process. My counter was that modern day people that won't take the COVID vaccine don't self-identify as anti-vaxxers and would also say that their objection to the COVID shot is not because it's a vaccine but because they also believe there was political influence in getting it out there. In the alternate reality where the election was in Nov 2021 and not 2020 and Trump announces boosters for everyone in August even before they are approved by the FDA/CDC are we going to pretend that Biden/Harris/Dems wouldn't be criticizing him for it and saying that he is undermining the medical experts? The resignation of the 2 FDA vaccine regulators would have received 10x the media attention. Maybe in that alternate reality Joe Biden says "Good idea, Mr. President. If I was in your shoes I would have made the same decision." But I doubt it. | ||
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BlackJack
United States10574 Posts
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emperorchampion
Canada9496 Posts
On November 30 2021 09:14 LegalLord wrote: Thing is, that's not really an answer. Going into this booster campaign (I've definitely gotten the "get your booster" government reminder lately) without a plan for why and to what long-term end seems more than a bit questionable. And campaigns can quickly turn into mandates. The why of the booster campaign is clear to me: (1) it raises effectiveness vs delta from around 60% to 90% (from after around 5 months from second dose); (2) winter is coming + omicron (why the campaign was fast tracked from 6 to 3 months). I think that anyone who gives you a long term plan at the moment is deeply disingenuous because results I've seen from the first booster studies were published around two weeks ago. I suppose it may just be me, but I'd rather wait for some hard data than construct a reality based on what-ifs. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45236 Posts
On November 30 2021 14:56 RKC wrote: Good point. Speaking beyond US politics (which I don't know enough of), the trend in the last year or so in many parts of the world is politicians somewhat flip-flopping on COVID policies (pro or anti lockdown, travel ban, vaccination roll-out, etc). The irony is that the libertarians (which includes but not the same as vaccine-skeptics) are the ones which are most consistent in their principles and messaging - freedom of movement, bodily autonomy, etc. - regardless of which political party is in power. Governments should be careful not to blindside or take the public for fools. Already there's growing pushback or hesitance against boosters (even among people who were the first in line to take the jab). Six months, three months, one year - just make up your mind. Insufficient scientific data? Sorry, that excuse is really wearing thin. Uncertainty due to new variants? Bloody hell, didn't you all see this coming a mile away after Delta? Not voicing out my own thoughts, but just echoing the voices of people close to me and at work. Unfortunately, that's the problem. The average person isn't scientifically literate, and so they don't understand that the scientific and medical communities regularly qualify and modify their statements as more data is collected. It's literally part of the scientific method, but too many people expect omniscience and are shocked when the currently-best understanding ends up being imperfect or flawed. Problem solving and learning from mistakes are necessary to the process, yet plenty of people think that providing updates and having uncertainty are bullshit excuses. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On November 30 2021 10:24 BlackJack wrote: Biden bans travel from African countries after new covid variant discovered = judicious Trump bans travel from China after novel coronavirus discovered = only done because it fits his anti-China posturing There's such a fine line between saving the world and racism/xenophobia When weighted amongst everything else, yes I don’t think it’s an unfair characterisation. When much of your tenure in the pandemic is spent butting heads with the CDC, undermining and fighting with governors etc etc, but you’re on the ball with one thing, one has to wonder why you’re on the ball with that specific thing. I was not saying Biden was judicious, I was saying a hypothetical judicious Trump implementing a Chinese travel ban is different from well, actual Trump doing the same. A more sensible response could/should have been ‘we question the motivation here but it seems a sensible idea’ as opposed to ‘let’s not do the sensible thing because it’s xenophobic’, I wouldn’t have any arguments here. As I said (and stressed was from memory, so this I could be wrong on) there were discrepancies in travel restrictions between various EU nations and the U.K. from the US, which only made sense given the UK’s terrible numbers through the lens of countries the Trump administration likes and doesn’t. I don’t even particularly agree with how travel bans, by and large have been handled, across the world at all. And the lack of vigorous testing and quarantining measures. I don’t even think I need to pull data, I’m pretty sure there’s less travel to and from the south of Africa than there is and has been from Europe, the Anglosphere and more affluent corners of the globe. Restricting that, or allowing that with the proviso of people actually quarantining has been (largely) neglected throughout big periods of the pandemic, restricting travel from Southern Africa now seems akin to closing the stable door after the horde has bolted. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On November 30 2021 21:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Unfortunately, that's the problem. The average person isn't scientifically literate, and so they don't understand that the scientific and medical communities regularly qualify and modify their statements as more data is collected. It's literally part of the scientific method, but too many people expect omniscience and are shocked when the currently-best understanding ends up being imperfect or flawed. Problem solving and learning from mistakes are necessary to the process, yet plenty of people think that providing updates and having uncertainty are bullshit excuses. But I want answers now dagnabbit! I would assume too, depending on the country and vaccine availability that booster recommendations will be tailored to that as well. No sense pushing a 3 month booster if you haven’t managed to get the first two jabs rolled out. Perceptions are also wildly inaccurate, memory isn’t a human’s strong point. I’m sure someone, somewhere said something like ‘once we get the vaccine rolled out, pandemic’s over folks’ I don’t think it was widely claimed, certainly not in such overt terms. But the perception is ‘we were told this, now it’s boosters what are the government/scientists doing?’ when, by and large you weren’t told that in the first place. | ||
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RKC
2848 Posts
But the manner in which governments have been pushing laws on lockdowns, travel bans, and vaccination at an unprecedented scale and speed (at least in recent history) signify that the extreme measures were the best and fastest way out of the pandemic. The governments didn't say "Okay, please get jabbed and stay home, so everyone can be good for the next 3 months or till the next variant hits, whichever earlier." It's up to governments to be crystal clear on resorting to extreme measures that drastically change the status quo - why, when, how long, etc. It's not up to the public to read the small print or to understand the implications on what's left unsaid by the government. | ||
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