'T' is for T cell. CDC unlikely to push for more Covid booster shots anytime soon. (Page 1/4)
rinselberg FEB 21, 12:29 PM

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As people across the world grapple with the prospect of living with the coronavirus for the foreseeable future, one question looms large: How soon before they need yet another shot?

Not for many months, and perhaps not for years, according to a flurry of new studies.

Three doses of a Covid vaccine — or even just two — are enough to protect most people from serious illness and death for a long time, the studies suggest.

“We’re starting to see now diminishing returns on the number of additional doses,” said John Wherry, director of the Institute for immunology at the University of Pennsylvania. Although people over 65 or at high risk of illness may benefit from a fourth vaccine dose, it may be unnecessary for most people, he added.

Federal health officials including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden administration’s top Covid adviser, have also said that they are unlikely to recommend a fourth dose before the fall.

The Omicron variant can dodge antibodies — immune molecules that prevent the virus from infecting cells — produced after two doses of a Covid vaccine. But a third shot of the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech or by Moderna prompts the body to make a much wider variety of antibodies, which would be difficult for any variant of the virus to evade, according to the most recent study, posted online on Tuesday.

The diverse repertoire of antibodies produced should be able to protect people from new variants, even those that differ significantly from the original version of the virus, the study suggests.

“If people are exposed to another variant like Omicron, they now got some extra ammunition to fight it,” said Dr. Julie McElrath, an infectious disease physician and immunologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

What’s more, other parts of the immune system can remember and destroy the virus over many months if not years, according to at least four studies published in top-tier journals over the past month.

Specialized immune cells called T cells produced after immunization by four brands of Covid vaccine — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax — are about 80 percent as powerful against Omicron as other variants, the research found. Given how different Omicron’s mutations are from previous variants, it’s very likely that T cells would mount a similarly robust attack on any future variant as well, researchers said.

This matches what scientists have found for the SARS coronavirus, which killed nearly 800 people in a 2003 epidemic in Asia. In people exposed to that virus, T cells have lasted more than 17 years. Evidence so far indicates that the immune cells for the new coronavirus — sometimes called memory cells — may also decline very slowly, experts said.

“Memory responses can last for ages,” said Wendy Burgers [no relation to Wendy's Burgers], an immunologist at the University of Cape Town who led one of the studies, published in the journal Nature. “Potentially, the T-cell response is extremely long lived.”



That's a generous slice, taken from the top (first part) of this new article in the so-called "paper of record" or "Gray Lady."

"Got a Covid Booster? You Probably Won’t Need Another for a Long Time"

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A flurry of new studies suggest that several parts of the immune system can mount a sustained, potent response to any coronavirus variant.


Apoorva Mandavilli for the New York Times; February 21, 2022.
https://www.nytimes.com/202...ibodies-t-cells.html

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 02-22-2022).]

82-T/A [At Work] FEB 21, 01:18 PM
I just can't really see the benefit anymore at this point. I definitely think this is something that people who are older or have (as they say) co-morbidities should take; however, for someone like me, or people who are in their 30s and 40s and relatively healthy... I just don't see the fuss.

In hindsight, I think I would have preferred the J&J since it was based off the actual virus. But it's all neither here nor there...

What we need to be thinking about, is why this research was being done at Wuhan in the first place... why the U.S. sponsored it, and what we need to do to prevent it from happening again.
Jake_Dragon FEB 21, 01:45 PM
I have had 2 shots and I have no plans on taking anymore. There are too many unknowns and the risk does not out weigh the "rewards"
As a side note, if they wanted to get everyone to get the shot they should have partnered with the "grow your Dick pill guys"
Get the shot and as a side effect your penis will get bigger. I believe that as much as I believe the "Covid shot/booster" are working.

Covid Dick is the next big thing
sourmash FEB 21, 02:29 PM
Not sure how someone can say they don't see a benefit anymore? I never saw any benefit. There were all negatives.

I suppose if you're and investor or one of the political groups expanding Draconian power, you got a bennie.
maryjane FEB 21, 02:52 PM

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Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]:

I just can't really see the benefit anymore at this point. I definitely think this is something that people who are older or have (as they say) co-morbidities should take; however, for someone like me, or people who are in their 30s and 40s and relatively healthy... I just don't see the fuss.




I don't know about the Omicron surge but for the Delta variant, the demographic (and younger,) you are suggesting stay unvaccinated showed a significant increase in hospitalization rates.


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Aug 2, 2021 Weekly COVID-19–associated hospitalization rates among children and adolescents rose nearly five-fold during late June–mid-August 2021, coinciding with increased circulation of the highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. The proportions of hospitalized children and adolescents with severe disease were similar before and during the period of Delta predominance. Hospitalization rates were 10 times higher among unvaccinated than among fully vaccinated adolescents.







quote
Sept 2021 What is added by this report?

Weekly COVID-19–associated hospitalization rates among children and adolescents rose nearly five-fold during late June–mid-August 2021, coinciding with increased circulation of the highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. The proportions of hospitalized children and adolescents with severe disease were similar before and during the period of Delta predominance. Hospitalization rates were 10 times higher among unvaccinated than among fully vaccinated adolescents.
sourmash FEB 21, 03:10 PM
No. There were several news releases posted her showing that in European countries with every high rates of people injected with these rushed to market experimental gene therapies, that the injected filled the hospital at a higher rate as in the ICU and even died at higher rates.

Nobody ever explained Gibralter with it's 98% injection rate failing at stopping dramatic increases.in all categories mentioned.
82-T/A [At Work] FEB 21, 04:31 PM

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Originally posted by sourmash:

Not sure how someone can say they don't see a benefit anymore? I never saw any benefit. There were all negatives.




When I said, "I just cannot see the benefit anymore..." I meant as in, I supported it initially because I believed a lot of the things that we almost all collectively believed to be true... or perhaps at least were being regurgitated by the media. E.g., it would stop the virus, it would mean we could no longer spread it, etc. I initially got it because I could get it on base, and as an individual in a critical position, I was encouraged to do so. But it was all voluntary at this point. In hind-sight... knowing everything I know at this point, and the manner to which the Democrats basically went insane and drunk with power, I would have resisted it. But I got it pretty early. February and March of 2021.



quote
Originally posted by maryjane:

I don't know about the Omicron surge but for the Delta variant, the demographic (and younger,) you are suggesting stay unvaccinated showed a significant increase in hospitalization rates.




Come on MJ, I didn't say that. I hold a lot of views on things, but it doesn't mean I think everyone else should.


Not trying to be difficult, but I'm really not understanding what that chart is telling me that you posted. If I'm reading it correctly, it's basically saying that younger people are more likely to be hospitalized than older people (even though it says otherwise in the caveat)... which I know is completely false... so maybe I'm misreading this.

I'm just saying... I believed I was getting a top of the line Cadillac, and instead I got maybe a skateboard. I had COVID before vaccination, and after vaccination. Original variant, and Delta variant. It was basically the same either way. With Delta, I had a little less coughing, but the other systems were worse.

As I'm saying, if I had the option, I'd probably have gotten the J&J instead. It's a normal virus-based vaccine. At this point, it's just not worth it for me.


I'm not suggesting anyone stay unvaccinated. I think people can make their own decisions, and the Government most certainly has no business telling anyone to do so.
blackrams FEB 21, 04:35 PM

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Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]:

I'm not suggesting anyone stay unvaccinated. I think people can make their own decisions, and the Government most certainly has no business telling anyone to do so.



I "think" most folks would agree with this.

Rams
82-T/A [At Work] FEB 21, 05:00 PM

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Originally posted by blackrams:

I "think" most folks would agree with this.

Rams




There are a lot of people who still believe that getting vaccinated prevents the spread. That is... if you are vaccinated, you can no longer get it (or that it's really rare to get it), and therefore would not spread it to others.

Having this believe, I can totally *UNDERSTAND* why people are so militant about it. You need only spend a few minutes on Twitter to see people really being nasty to those who are unvaccinated. Because in effect, they believe that you are saving lives (not just yours) by getting vaccinated... or more correctly, that you are putting other people's lives at risk by not getting vaccinated.

Just as you and I might think people who are driving drunk are putting other people's lives at risk, there are those who feel the same way about people who are unvaccinated. So... I can totally understand why they act the way they do, with the disdain that they have.
maryjane FEB 21, 05:58 PM

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Come on MJ, I didn't say that. I hold a lot of views on things, but it doesn't mean I think everyone else should.




quote
however, for someone like me,or people who are in their 30s and 40s and relatively healthy... I just don't see the fuss.





quote
Not trying to be difficult, but I'm really not understanding what that chart is telling me that you posted. If I'm reading it correctly, it's basically saying that younger people are more likely to be hospitalized than older people (even though it says otherwise in the caveat)... which I know is completely false... so maybe I'm misreading this.



The graphs show comparisons to 2 different things. Timeline and variants.
In the beginning......
If you remember back, there was a lot of discussion in the early days (Spring of 2020) regarding what was considered a mystery of why Covid didn't affect the young and infants, and covid was predominantly showing up in the elderly and those above 50 with pre-existing issues. This set of caseload/hospitalization circumstances continued up thru June of 2021 after which, the Delta variant became dominant in the USA. But, Many people (maybe most) are still thinking under that 2020 mindset.
Delta began affecting more people in the 30s-40s age group, and down into the 20s demographic. These are the age groups that were less susceptible to the original variant and also the age group least likely to get vaccinated, because like you, didn't think they were likely to get it. (Infants and children were not yet eligible to be vaccinated.)

Fast forward to Dec 2021, and Omicron became the domiant strain and began infecting even more younger people. (By this time most of the elderly had already been vaccinated) The elderly were hospitalized as a smaller % than in 2021's original variant outbreak. More infants and children are affected and hospitalized under Omicron than ever before with the other 2 major variants.. When both Delta and Omicron emerged here, there was a significant uptick of people that got vaccinated that were hesitant in the early part of 2021. Since children under 5 and infants are the last to get approved for vaccination, they are, compared to previous timelines, being more adversely affected than the older people. If you read the text that went along with the graphs, it mentioned the winter surge. I included the dates of the texts for a reason. Late summer 2021. The winter they are referring to is the winter of 2020-2021 (Winter of 2021-2022 hadn't arrived)

My guess is that this virus will continue to mutate into new variants due to it having such a deep zoonotic reservoir. (Family pets, all cervids-deer, elk, moose , large cats, bats) It's no accident that both Delta and Omicron first emerged in nations with a large wild animal habitat and a poor vaccination rate. India and S. Africa.
That data goes hand in hand with the annotated graph I previously posted.



We as a nation need to move on from the beliefs we adopted in 2020 and even early mid 2021. Delta was different than the original, and Omicron is different than Delta and the next one (Probably Omicron BA.2) will present different characteristics than Omicron.

Many people still want to de-cry that the current covid vaccinations don't work like the vaccinations from past diseases like Smallpox and Polio. There is a reason for that.
Polio has been around since the late1700s and was well researched over the decades. Small pox has been around since 300BC.
And more importantly, Neither Poliomyelitis or Smallpox have a known or suspected animal/insect reserve.
Covid 19 strain of coronavirus (Sars-Cov-2) is novel..new.

The current vaccines are far from perfect, but they are what we have.


(There is a disease in cattle and other ruminants often called polio but it is Polioencephalomalacia which is not a virus and is solely caused by nutrient deficiencies such as thiamin or over consumption of glucose and sulphur. It affects the cerebral cortex. It has zero relation to human polio)

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 02-21-2022).]