rickair7777

Moderna developing omicron-specific booster, targeted availability fall 2022...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...as-covid-cases

Nantonaku

What happened to the vaccines they were developing for Delta? Does it really make sense to always be 6 months behind the game? These companies have to know their product is going to be useless before it comes to market right? Besides, who is going to get vaccinated for this version of the virus when it very well could have less side effects than the vaccine?

Mesabah

The Delta vaccine updates were submitted to the FDA in early 2021, but the FDA just shelved them. There really is no benefit from the update, since the neutralizing antibodies produced from the update are the same as made from the current vaccine.

rickair7777

If omicron becomes the dominant strain (looks to be headed that way, fast) then it could be around for the long haul. In that case, a vaccine would make sense, especially if natural immunity wanes fairly quickly.

My total SWAG... Omicron will tend to marginalize other variants since there is certainly significant cross-reactivity from natural immunity. Future significant mutations are likely to evolve from the omicron tree, so an omicron-specific vaccine could have long-term utility. Even if it needs to be tweaked occasionally like the flu shot.


Probably the same people who get the flu shot. There are still demographics who are clearly at risk from omicron (similar to the flu). Also people who don't like the inconvenience of getting sick, although I suspect for me anyway omicron would be little more than a sniffle so not even as bad as the flu.

Also we have no idea what hypothetical omicron vaccine adverse/side effects would be at this point... there is enough demand to drive a LOT of R&D for covid vaccines so improvements will be made. Current covid vaccines (US approved) have similar side effects and risks as other common vaccines such as flu. So no worse than what we have now, and possibly better with more R&D... they can identify the root cause of adverse events and tweak things to minimize those (already in progress).

Rescue101

News article. Message is, repeated vaccine boosters can weaken your immune system. Like many have said these boosters are probably the likely cause of a lot of the athletes heart "coincidences" as well. If you took the shots already I would be highly skeptical of taking another, your future career may depend on it.


https://news.bloomberglaw.com/corona...e-system-risks

rickair7777

I skipped the booster, because I got covid instead at the six month point. We know that annual boosters work fine with the flu shot, I think that is worst-case in the long-run.

Excargodog

Mesabah

Here's some data from California.

SGTF is Omicron, non SGTF is Delta
Previous infection provides superior protection against Covid regardless of spike antibody levels. As I suspected since day 1, the vaccine is targeting the wrong protein.

rickair7777

Pfizer starting trials for an omicron-specific version of their current vaccine. Still not known whether health authorities will consider it necessary, or will just stick with boosters of the existing vaccines since they still largely prevent severe outcomes...


https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizer-...d=hp_lead_pos2

dustrpilot

You guys seem to be the vaccine expert here so I’ll ask, isn’t it a little late for an omicron vaccine now?


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