21 Comments

I’ve been looking at the Mayo study. Am I understanding correctly that 1/6 of the “vaccinated” only received 1 dose of mRNA? Wouldn’t that skew the results when deciding if a 3rd dose is needed?

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I would much rather see the rest of the world getting initial vaccines rather than boosters for the general US public. Besides the issue of fairness, won't this help reduce spread?

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ok. two hours after the announcement went out on friday the 13th, (my wedding anniversary) i had the shot. not that hard. they asked are you immunocompromised? i said, i have stage four cancer, whatchoo think? they said come in and get a shot of moderna, which is what i asked for. so at 4:45 pm, i got the shot, exactly six months to the day from the second shot.

did i have to prove i was sick? no. they didn't ask for proof. how's it feel? arm was sore, i felt crummy for two days, then i was good. the second shot was twice as sucky. extrapolating on the sucky scale, i'm guessing i had half the spunk of the second shot left. no scientific practice was used in the making of this SWAG.

should you get it? fork yeah.

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I wrote before about my daughter participating in the Novavax trial. She only had a letter to say she had participated but no proof- of -vaccine card. She decided to get a moderna yesterday as a booster.

She decided to do that based on an article she read that Novavax may eventually be used as a universal

booster. She spoke with the pharmacist also, who didn’t think there would be a problem. (Hope he didn’t graduate last in his class).

She is having some nasty side effects today but nothing a Tylenol can’t handle.

Just from what I’ve been able to scrounge on Google, theoretically the vaccines can be mixed. Even astra Zeneca (which I think is a similar technology to Novavax) , was given with phyzer. There were no problems but more people did experience side effects with that combination.

Just thought You might be interested in this, especially since Novavax should be making its appearance sometime this year.

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founding

Really hoping for J&J data soon! Am a participant in the Janssen Ensemble 2 trial in which my vaccinations were 56 days apart.

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Since vaccines are waning in protection against asymptomatic as well as mild to moderate disease, then they're also waning in protection against asymptomatic spread. The universal 3rd dose is likely an effort to keep the curve as flat as possible, avoid US lockdowns, and, most important to the policy hacks, keep the stock market booming while avoiding further stimulus/unemployment benefits.

The universal 3rd dose would also be extremely necessary to protect the unvaccinated; ie, *HYPOTHETICALLY* Pfizer saying vaxxes for the 11&under set are going to be delayed/not viable.

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Question about seniors. My father in law (a senior) had his second shot of Moderna early March. He is traveling at the end of this month on a plane. Do you think seniors should go ahead and get the booster prior to the 8 months if they are active? Or is it better to wait because they won't get the immunity they should?

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If you look at the Mayo study, the abstract says "We defined cohorts of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals from Minnesota (n = 25,589 each) matched on age, sex, race, history of prior SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing, and date of full vaccination. "

However on p. 3, they list their criteria for matching triplets and age isn't there! Can anyone help me understand this? The study seems like it'd be complete junk without matching age, so maybe they just forgot to list it on p. 3?

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Hi Dr. Jetelina,

Asking this question here because I feel like it's a safer place to do so than on social media. I am currently a US-based (Houston, Texas) Novavax COVID-19 vaccine trial participant. I signed up in January and I know that I received the real deal (not placebo) in Jan/Feb and not during the crossover phase in April/May.

Novavax has been virtually silent with us on boosters. None of the US-based trial sites have any info for us. Those of us in the Novavax trial participant private FB group are growing concerned that we're going to be left high and dry in the US, as Novavax focuses on other countries with faster regulatory approvals and/or less vaccines currently on the market in those countries.

I had such a great experience with the trial up until this point but I also want to be protected when it's my time for a booster along with the rest of the general population here in the US.

Do you have any advice for those of us who are Novavax participants in terms of what we should do regarding boosters? I have a 2 year old and a 6 year old who cannot be vaccinated and I'm concerned with Delta.

Thank you again so much for all you do.

-Vicki

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Just a small point. But T cells and memory B cells are adaptive immunity and not innate. Love your posts!!!

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Does anyone have data on breakthrough infections in 16-17 year olds given that high risk individuals that age were able to be vaccinated in Jan/Feb? Looks like boosters are only for adults. What about high risk 16 and 17 year olds who were able to get vaccinated back in late winter? Aren’t they at increased risk compared to the general (not elderly, immunocompromised, etc) population as vaccine immunity wanes? Especially because they all received Pfizer VS Moderna? I'm also thinking about long Covid here. Thank you for everything!

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