and again from first link: Uruguay, in the first release of real world data on Sinovac’s efficacy Tuesday, said the vaccine was over 90% effective at preventing ICU admissions and deaths, as well as 61% effective at preventing infections. 2nd link: No vaccine fully prevents transmission, and people can still fall ill after being inoculated, but the relatively low efficacy rates of Chinese shots have been identified as a possible cause of the recent outbreaks. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have efficacy rates of more than 90 percent. A variety of other vaccines — including AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson — have efficacy rates of around 70 percent. The Sinopharm vaccine developed with the Beijing Institute of Biological Products has an efficacy rate of 78.1 percent; the Sinovac vaccine has an efficacy rate of 51 percent. The Chinese companies have not released much clinical data to show how their vaccines work at preventing transmission. On Monday, Shao Yiming, an epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said China needed to fully vaccinate 80 to 85 percent of its population to achieve herd immunity, revising a previous official estimate of 70 percent.
Why 'waning immunity' from COVID-19 vaccines isn't as bad as it sounds Long-term immune protection against severe COVID-19 remains strong, data suggests Canadians concerned over waning immunity from COVID-19 vaccines, breakthrough infections and the need for booster shots in the general public could benefit from a dose of some important context, experts say. Antibodies, your first line of defence against COVID-19 infection, do decline — and may even be doing so as you're reading this — but that's not unexpected. While one aspect of your vaccine-induced immunity to COVID-19 is technically "waning" in the weeks and months after vaccination, that's not necessarily a bad thing — because it's not your immune system's only form of protection against the virus. "I don't even like the term," said University of Toronto immunologist Jennifer Gommerman. "And the reason I don't like the term is that it implies that the immune response in its entirety is declining." It's "entirely normal" for antibody levels to drop initially after vaccination and your immune response to the virus to become "contracted" over time, she said. But your body is also creating "highly efficient" memory B cells to fight off COVID-19 long term. B cells work quickly to generate large quantities of antibodies in the weeks after vaccination, but they typically produce more effective antibodies as time goes on, helping sharpen the long-term response to a virus. So while reports of waning immunity may sound concerning, that initial decrease in antibody levels may also be necessary in the fight against COVID-19, as it helps fine-tune the immune system's plan of attack. A new study published in the journal Science found "robust cellular immune memory" from B cells for at least six months after mRNA vaccination against all circulating strains of the virus — even the highly contagious delta variant. The researchers found those memory cells, unlike the initial wave of antibodies, continue to learn how to fend off the virus months after vaccination and are actually getting better at it over time. "That doesn't sound like 'waning' to me," Gommerman said. "There's a natural contraction, but waning implies that something bad is happening." Breakthrough infections don't tell the whole story Reports of waning immunity and breakthrough infections have sporadically emerged across Canada in places like the Northwest Territories and New Brunswick, but lack important context and data on who is seriously affected and why. The N.W.T. has been in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak since mid-August that started in the Sahtu region before spreading to Yellowknife and its surrounding communities. It has infected 1,584 residents. During that time, there have been 54 hospitalizations attributed to the outbreak, about 17 of which were among fully vaccinated people. A government spokesperson declined to comment on how many of the nine deaths in the territory were among those fully vaccinated. In New Brunswick, where reports that one in five COVID-19 deaths occurred in people who were fully vaccinated made headlines this week, the data shows that while 17 fully vaccinated people have died, evidence of widespread waning immunity is lacking. "New Brunswick has not identified confirmed evidence of waning immunity among COVID-19 cases," a government spokesperson said in a statement. In terms of national numbers, 94.7 per cent of all COVID-19 cases in Canada since Dec. 14 have been among those not fully vaccinated, as well as 95.8 per cent of hospitalizations and 94.3 per cent of deaths, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). That means a total of 520 fully vaccinated Canadians have died of COVID-19 in the nearly 10 months since our vaccine rollout started, compared with 8,520 who were not considered fully vaccinated during that same time period. "If we have 100 per cent or 95 per cent of the population vaccinated, almost all the cases that we see, including severe cases, will be in vaccinated people — just because most everyone's vaccinated," said Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases physician and associate professor at the University of Alberta. View video about Base Rate Fallacy that explain what happens when countries reach high vaccination rate @ "So that very rare outcome becomes the majority of the outcomes, and seeing an increasing number of cases in vaccinated people over time doesn't actually mean that the vaccine works less well, necessarily." Underlying conditions key to breakthrough infections PHAC says fully vaccinated Canadians who do get COVID-19 are also 79 per cent less likely to be hospitalized and 64 per cent less likely to die, backing up new Canadian data showing strong vaccine protection from infection, hospitalization and death. But key information on the age, underlying health conditions or specific vaccine combination administered to those who were hospitalized or died from COVID-19 two weeks after their second shot is not available in Canada due to health privacy laws. The recent death of former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell from COVID-19 sparked fresh debate about breakthrough infections and waning immunity. But less attention was paid to the fact he was at heightened risk due to a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. Former U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell dies of complications from COVID-19 Older, frailer Canadians living with comorbidities in congregate settings, such as long-term care facilities, are at increased risk of breakthrough infections because their antibody levels drop "much faster" than in the general population, said Gommerman. A recent preprint study from the Toronto-based Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Sinai Health analyzed 119 Ontario long-term care residents and 78 staff over four months, finding much lower levels of neutralizing antibodies in the elderly patients. Gommerman also stresses there's an important difference between infections and disease. "So that very rare outcome becomes the majority of the outcomes, and seeing an increasing number of cases in vaccinated people over time doesn't actually mean that the vaccine works less well, necessarily." "We expect people to get infected — even healthy people to get infected — as antibody levels decline, because the only thing that can protect you against a breakthrough infection are antibodies," she said. "But we have to think about who we're looking at, and what underlying comorbidities might be there in people who experienced breakthrough disease." Other immunocompromised groups, such as transplant patients, have shown declining protection from COVID-19 vaccines, as evidenced in the New England Journal of Medicine from researchers at the University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto. "If you are a healthy person and you've been fully vaccinated, you don't need to worry about getting severe COVID-19," Gommerman said. "If you are worried about getting infected with SARS-CoV-2, you should worry because you have people around you who are not vaccinated or who are under-immune." Boosters for general population 'premature' in Canada New data from researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Toronto, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found fully vaccinated people over 16 in Ontario were highly protected against both infection and severe COVID-19 after eight months. ICES's vaccine estimates, which have not yet been published, show that protection against symptomatic infection does drop — from 94 per cent to 81 per cent — but protection against severe outcomes remained high, at more than 90 per cent. "The main takeaway is that we don't need to do boosters at this time for the general population. We can hold off and wait and see — and when we start seeing the waning, then that's when we should use the boosters," said Dr. Jeff Kwong, an epidemiologist and senior scientist at ICES. "It would be premature to do it at this time and not in our best interest, because we're allowing other variants to emerge potentially if we let the pandemic spread uncontrolled in other parts of the world [where] they're not vaccinated." Saxinger said the vast majority of Canadians who get severely ill or hospitalized after full vaccination are the very elderly, the immunocompromised, transplant patients and people with certain types of cancers. "That group of people, of course, they should get a third dose," she said. "But even with a third dose, they still are going to remain vulnerable as long as we have circulating virus in the community." https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/wani...ines-breakthrough-infections-canada-1.6221608 ---------- Simply, your body doesn't need a 3rd vaccine dose (booster) unless you're elderly, the immunocompromised, transplant patients, and people with certain types of cancers. wrbtrader
Oh definitely. I have churned and chugged away a bit on the issue ad naseum - especially early on- so I will just say: Yes. Vaccines Are Pushing Pathogens to Evolve https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-vaccines-can-drive-pathogens-to-evolve-20180510/
Antibiotics and vaccines behave differently. In addition, there are different levels of antibiotics for the same disease. For example, if you're sick with Covid with mild symptoms as in you went to the doctor early in the disease...you'll be treated with a set of antiviral therapeutic treatments. Yet, if you're sick with Covid and you have difficulty in breathing and your oxygen levels drop to a dangerous level that's causing you to not be able to breadth...resulting in an ICU admission. Your treatment then moves to the next level in which you'll be treated with a completely different set of antiviral therapeutic treatments. Hospitals will most likely not treat a severe Covid illness with the same initial antibiotics when it was just a mild illness because the virus has adapted to the prior initial treatment. Regardless, viruses are able to evolve on their own without assistance from antibiotics or vaccines thanks to infecting different types of hosts. Yet, if viruses evolve with the help of antibiotics or vaccines...high probably it will do such within hosts that become reinfected or immune compromise that had prior exposure to the virus... That in itself makes it more important to surround yourself with healthy individuals that are fully vaccinated instead of those that are not vaccinated. wrbtrader
It is the simplest thing in the universe to understand. Vaccines do not protect your body. Your body protects your body. When you get infected with a virus, the body normally learns what the virus is doing and generates antibodies while fighting off the infection. When the body gets infected with a nasty novel virus that wreaks havoc, the body may have big trouble fighting off the virus, because it has never seen it before, and is trying to mount a defense, learning as it goes, as the virus is killing you. This is very taxing on the immune system. Some people do not make it. By getting vaccinated, the body is given a primer on how to fight off the virus without the body getting infected from the virus, because it is an attenuated vaccine, or mRNA, or what have you.
Yeah, I think you missed my point though. It wasn't about Covid, it was more about the medical community jumping the gun, over-prescribing the latest and greatest out of big-pharma to cover their ass by assimilating within their ranks , and not letting the remarkably resilient human body do what it does best, and has done for millennia... fight some trench warfare on a microbiological level. Yeah some die, but have you ever wondered if in the years to come many more will die due to our near term prophylactics? Don't rule it out, I'm just sayin'. Food for thought.
This is a known fact about over treatment of antibiotics involving drugs but what I stated about Covid is still valid just in case a reader thinks its about Covid considering it's being mentioned in this thread. The human body is strong (resilient as you stated) but the immune system begins to weaken as we get older...if I'm not mistaken...such occurs after 40 years of age. Yet, some individuals' bodies may weaken much earlier due to flaws in their genes, environment (e.g. pollution, poisons, smoking, alcohol, poor nutrition et cetera)... Big Pharma has made big investments in their drugs that the above continues. Also, it's not just Big Pharma hoping the above continues... it's the driving revenues for health companies, gyms, exercise classes, and sports... People want to stay healthy to avoid having a weakened immune system. Just look at the history of wellness spas/centers for the rich after the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. In fact, early in the Covid Pandemic in 2020...it was difficult to find Zinc, Vitamin D, Vitamin C at the pharmacy. Yet, if you buy them online...the prices were jacked up a few bucks. Just the same, home gym equipment was flying off the shelf... That's capitalism just like Big Pharma exploiting it too for profits. wrbtrader
An interesting chart, is one that depicts the rise in U.S. pediatric asthma cases since 1990. It looks like the chart of a meme stock. Know why? Because of the advancements mandated by regulations regarding residential construction. We grew up with windows that would cake with ice on the inside on a cold morning lol. Our houses friggin' breathed. But whatever. I really think too much medicine is a bad thing, just like building houses en masse that don't breath leads to respiratory problems in the children that were born and raised in them, in aggregate.