As stated many times...I'm fully vaccinated with Moderna and I don't believe in Vaccine Mandates. The latter...there are incentive ways (it begins with better education about vaccines to then progress to rewards) to encourage people to get vaccinated without forcing it upon them. Yet, right now...I don't trust a Covid booster shot. I just don't think it is needed except for those that are immunocompromise. In contrast, there are people that have already had a Covid booster shot via a private Doctor when they are not immunocompromise. This could give rise to a Variant of Concern. Simply, I'm good with the effectiveness of Moderna to prevent Hospitalization, ICU admission or Death if I were to have a breakthrough infection. I will treat Covid boosters the same way I do the FLU vaccine...I will take it when Covid vaccines has wane low enough to make me concern. Thus, I may get a Covid booster shot the fall of next year...a timeline in which I may become concern about Moderna waning enough in its effectiveness. Note: I'm not talking the efficacy to prevent infection. I'm talking about the effectiveness to prevent severe Covid illness. Last of all, I'm not worried about ADE and here's why... ADE is when a disease is made worse or more severe in a person who was already exposed to the virus through a previous infection or vaccination compared to people who were never exposed or vaccinated. Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) has not been identified as a concern related to SARS-CoV-2 infection or following COVID-19 vaccination. Here are reasons indicating why ADE will not be a concern: First, most people have been infected with other coronaviruses in their lifetime, and ADE has not been identified as a result of these infections. Second, in human studies, people previously infected with coronavirus were infected with different types of coronavirus, and they did not experience enhanced disease. Third, experimental animals vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 did not develop enhanced disease when challenged, or infected, with the virus. Finally, when people with COVID-19 received plasma containing SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, they did not experience enhanced disease. For these reasons, ADE is not expected to be a concern for SARS-CoV-2 infections or vaccination. https://immunizebc.ca/ask-us/questi...dy-dependent-enhancement-ade-covid-19-disease wrbtrader
FDA votes 16-2 against Pfizer booster shot. Listening to Fox. They (FDA) may revise their position in regards to elderly and at risk. https://www.foxnews.com/health/fda-panel-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-booster
18-0 in favor of boosters for persons 65+ years old and persons at high risk, which is about half Americans.
According to the news "the panel indicated they were likely to take a second vote Friday afternoon on recommending the booster shots for older Americans and other high-risk groups." I can see the value in allowing this -- but still the FDA/CDC has conflicting data of various quality from multitple sources at this point. I think they may say they need more data before approving for both older Americans and all high-risk comorbidity groups. They may simple go ahead and allow boosters for over age 75. This get back to the reality is that they really should test people for their personal level of Covid antibodies before providing a booster. If they don't have sufficient antibody levels to stop reinfection then allow them to get a booster.
FDA Advisory Board stated there just wasn't enough data (evidence) that a Covid booster shot was needed for people that were 16 years and older. Yet, I don't know what they meant about voting "amending question" for another vote at a later date. https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/17/health/us-coronavirus-friday/index.html Overall, hospitals are not at capacity levels (I think about 30% overall although many hospitals in the southern states are near capacity levels) plus the effectiveness has not wane enough in the Covid Pfizer vaccines. FDA vote today was about Pfizer Covid vaccines. I'm glad because I had a problem with the Politics getting ahead of Science because the CDC doesn't even address the booster issue until next week or maybe next month along with the fact the CDC has conflicting data to what the FDC has. Simply, people under 60 do not need a booster. Also, Canada has already decided last month I think that there was not enough data (evidence) for the need of a Covid booster shot. wrbtrader
An F.D.A. panel recommended a Pfizer Covid booster for those 65 or older or at high risk, after earlier voting not to recommend it for younger people Although the F.D.A. is not obliged to follow its advisory committee’s recommendations, it typically does. The agency will likely make a decision by early next week. Friday, September 17, 2021 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/us/politics/fda-booster-shots-meeting-covid.html So 65 & older and the those at high-risk with comorbidities in the U.S. will likely get a booster.
Poll: 73% of vaccinated Americans would take COVID vaccine boosters https://news.yahoo.com/poll-73-perc...ld-take-covid-vaccine-boosters-110022695.html
The primary difference appears to be that the Moderna dose is three times the size of the Pfizer dose. Big gap between Pfizer, Moderna vaccines seen for preventing COVID hospitalizations https://www.latimes.com/science/sto...vaccines-at-preventing-covid-hospitalizations Amid persistent concerns that the protection offered by COVID-19 vaccines may be waning, a report released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that America’s workhorse shot is significantly less effective at preventing severe cases of disease over the long term than many experts had realized. Data collected from 18 states between March and August suggest the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine reduces the risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19 by 91% in the first four months after receiving the second dose. Beyond 120 days, however, that vaccine efficacy drops to 77%. Meanwhile, Moderna’s vaccine was 93% effective at reducing the short-term risk of COVID-19 hospitalization and remained 92% effective after 120 days. Overall, 54% of fully vaccinated Americans have been immunized with the Pfizer shot. The surprising findings came as a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended against offering booster doses of the Pfizer vaccine to all Americans ages 16 and older. In a striking rebuke, 16 of 18 experts told the agency it had not mustered enough data to make a third shot the norm. In lengthy briefings to the panel, representatives from Pfizer pointed to clinical trial results involving 306 mostly healthy participants to argue that a booster “restores” the 95% vaccine effectiveness rate seen earlier in the pandemic. Company officials also touted evidence from Israel, which rolled out boosters after seeing a rise in hospitalizations among people who were fully vaccinated. Those hospitalizations dropped dramatically after third doses were given, Israeli scientists have said. But panel members made clear that despite Pfizer’s aggressive stance, it had not gathered enough evidence that a third shot was safe for young people and for those at lesser risk of becoming severely ill with COVID-19. “We need age-specific data” on the safety and protective benefits of a further booster, said Dr. Ofer Levy, a panel member who directs the Precision Vaccines program at Boston Children’s Hospital. FDA clearance for booster shots for everyone 16 and older would be seen as something “close to a mandate,” said Dr. Eric Rubin, a panel member and infectious-disease expert at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Rubin worried that such a move could redefine what it takes to be considered fully vaccinated against COVID-19. “None of us are there yet,” he said. But others apparently are. Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s top advisor on vaccines, has come out strongly in favor of booster shots, saying before Friday’s vote that a failure to endorse the shots “would be a mistake.” And in mid-August, Biden himself said his administration would begin making booster shots available the week of Sept. 20 to those vaccinated for at least eight months. Biden cautioned at the time that his plan was contingent on FDA approval. But his announcement stoked concerns of political meddling in a matter that required the unhindered evaluation of scientists. “This should demonstrate to the public that the members of this committee are independent of the FDA,”Dr. Archana Chatterjee, dean of the Chicago Medical School, said after the vote. “In fact, we do bring our voices to the table when we are asked to serve on this committee.” The panel unanimously agreed that a third shot of the vaccine now sold under the brand name Comirnaty should be offered to select groups: individuals 65 and older, people at risk of developing severe disease, and those, including healthcare workers, whose occupations put them at high risk of infection. Dr. Peter Marks, who leads the FDA’s evaluation of drugs and vaccines, told panel members that the agency could give its blessing to booster shots with an emergency use authorization— a regulatory step that falls short of the full approval Pfizer had sought. The company issued no statement Friday in response to the panel’s vote. Researchers in the United States have been warning for months that the immunity afforded by COVID-19 vaccines might be waning. The CDC reported that in late July, close to three-quarters of the 469 people swept up in a Massachusetts outbreak were fully vaccinated. And the agency has launched several studies aimed at detecting changes in vaccine effectiveness in healthcare workers and others who were vaccinated early. But virtually all of those infections appeared to be mild. And health officials eager to induce vaccine skeptics to step up for their shot — including Fauci and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — have repeatedly praised the vaccines for keeping most fully vaccinated people out of hospitals. The new report on waning vaccine efficacy challenges that expectation. Researchers from around the country found striking differences between two mRNA vaccines long thought to be interchangeable. When the Moderna vaccine received emergency use authorization in December, the company reportedthat 30 people in its clinical trial developed severe cases of COVID-19, including nine who required hospitalization. All 30 patients were in the placebo group, resulting in a vaccine efficacy against severe disease of 100%. Ten people in Pfizer’s initial clinical trial developed severe cases of COVID-19. Nine of them were in the placebo group, including seven who were hospitalized, resulting in a vaccine efficacy against severe disease of 88.9%. Once the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were rolled out to the public, their records of preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations in the first four months were neck and neck — 93% and 91% effective, respectively. But the degree of protection diverged after that. When they focused specifically on the period 120 days beyond the second dose, the study authors found that the Moderna vaccine remained 92% effective at preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations. But the equivalent figure for the Pfizer vaccine was 77%. The results were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are based on mRNA technology, which delivers temporary instructions to the body’s muscle cells that help it learn to recognize the spike protein, a key part of the coronavirus’ structure. But “they’re actually not necessarily interchangeable,” said Dr. Timothy Brewer, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at UCLA. Each vaccine is formulated and administered differently, Brewer said, and those differences could affect the strength and duration of the two vaccines’ protection. Moderna’s shot contains 100 micrograms of vaccine, more than three times the 30 micrograms in the Pfizer shot. And Pfizer’s two doses are given three weeks apart, while Moderna’s two-shot regimen is administered with a four-week gap. Brewer also pointed to evidence that the Moderna vaccine seemed to elicit higher levels of a key antibody than the Pfizer vaccine. “We know from other studies the neutralizing antibody levels will decay over time, so starting at a higher level will mean that you have farther to go before you decay to a point where efficacy drops off,” he said. Dr. Robert Murphy, who directs Northwestern University’s Institute for Global Health, said the Pfizer vaccine’s reduced protection against severe disease may bolster the case for boosters for all who got the vaccine, not just the specific groups identified by the FDA advisory panel. “Based on the data I have seen, persons who received the Pfizer vaccine would benefit from a booster dose at this time,” he said. “I don’t see why we have to wait until the younger people get sick and become hospitalized.” But Dr. Arnold Monto, who chairs the FDA advisory panel, applauded the agency’s willingness to withhold a full-throated call for boosters until a stronger case can be made. And he suggested that as more evidence accumulates, boosters for all might still get the nod. “That’s the beauty of the emergency use authorization,” said Monto, an epidemiologist at University of Michigan. “It can be changed based on changing data.”
this is a bit of a update or completion of the info for wrb... not trying argue with him because he brought science and that is all I ask. And while it is a risk... we can not quantify it. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00789-5 One potential hurdle for antibody-based vaccines and therapeutics is the risk of exacerbating COVID-19 severity via antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). ADE can increase the severity of multiple viral infections, including other respiratory viruses such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)9,10 and measles11,12. ADE in respiratory infections is included in a broader category named enhanced respiratory disease (ERD), which also includes non-antibody-based mechanisms such as cytokine cascades and cell-mediated immunopathology (Box 1). ADE caused by enhanced viral replication has been observed for other viruses that infect macrophages, including dengue virus13,14 and feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV)15. Furthermore, ADE and ERD has been reported for SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV both in vitro and in vivo. The extent to which ADE contributes to COVID-19 immunopathology is being actively investigated.
Seriously -- and article from September 2020 before Covid-19 vaccines even came out. A study that is pure speculation --- Whose conclusion states "clinical data has not yet fully established a role for ADE in human COVID-19 pathology" -- and more study is needed. Now for months after a large numbers of humans have been vaccinated in 2021 -- it has been clearly established that ADE with Covid-19 vaccines is not an issue and is merely nonsense pushed by deranged anti-vaxxers. Remember that the unvaccinated are the variant generators -- this has been proven. So to protect society get vaccinated now.