Seems like it would be a good idea to recommend FLiRT variants KP.2 and .3 for the mRNA vaccines that can be dialed up more quickly, but allow JN.1 formula for the slower to produce Novavax. Since there is not a huge difference in spike between these anyway, and it might actually give us some hedging of our bets which way the dominant SARS CoV-2 evolution will be in the next 3 months.
Also I’d like to acknowledge the courageous, intelligent, and heroic efforts of DR. Fauci, who did the best he could under incredibly difficult, real time, politically poisonous circumstances. He performed amazingly well during the congressional hearing this week, despite low blows and the intimidation of 2 goons/felons planted behind him, who mocked him even as he described death threats he and his family have received.
A country that cannibalizes its best and brightest on the way to undermining science and the rule of law itself cannot stand.
I’m sure Fauci has many fans here, and no one is perfect. I salute him… and Dr. Jetelina, too as I know you have faced similar intimidation.
You need smarts and bravery to be in science and medicine these days.
Watching clips of it last night before bed was not a good idea! It was so hostile and made me so angry and disappointed in certain people. Take some deep breaths along the way if you do compose something, and realize that these flame war, felon types enjoy stoking our outrage. Michelle has it right; when they go low, we go high.
Well, you beat me to it. I was just thinking allowing Novavax the JN.1 and the mRNA vaccines for the FLiRT variants. I don't see anything that says this not possible. The way the virus ever evolving variants keep popping up, it will likely be outdated by spring.
I appreciate your contributions. I'm reminded of what Thomas Jefferson wrote: "If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe. "-- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816
He was mostly addressing the importance of literacy and a free presss. We are already proving his point about literacy and a free press, and are well on our way to demonstrating the larger point about ignorance. Or, in our case, the substitution of ignorance and belief for reality.
Public health will never regain trust with the public if they continue to be Fauci groupies. The guy was wrong about nearly everything. He either knowingly lied or is grossly incompetent.
Disagree. His career has been exemplary. No one is perfect and I'm sure he has regrets, granted. And I still have great faith in our public health professionals, with the system underfunded and denigrated by political hacks, granted as well.
You have to ask yourself, honestly, what motive would an 80-ish year old doctor have for lying to you and being part of some conspiracy to harm the world when he could have stepped down and chilled during the worst pandemic of his lifetime? He felt called to service, as many of us did, and risked our lives, reputations, and families for the greater good, murky early science a given and missteps certain with a novel virus killing tens of millions.
You should instead impugn those casting stones backwards from 2024, righteous self serving opportunists that they are, and search for greater understanding while giving public health workers the benefit of the doubt. Trust me, when H5N1 hits you'll want them ready to help you again. Or you can believe people with lesser/no qualifications who shout a lot and feed your sense of outrage.
I really appreciate these reports. It is enormously helpful to be brought along on the thinking process and work that goes on to make decisions and develop these vaccines. (In this one, as one example, I had never really thought about why some vaccines, like the measles vaccine, are not updated.) As others here have indicated, I would like to have the option of a vaccine that addresses the newest variants. I think it will be unfortunate if a decision is made against that because of possible confusion. Rather, I would like to see that issue handled through clear public-facing communications.
This is a great question. And it was discussed at the meeting actually. FDA said this *could* happen, but perhaps not the best policy decision because it would be confusing. It sounded like they want to stick to one
I worry that if they require Novovax to target flip there won't be a Novovax. I once read these words: "My commitment must be to the truth, not consistency" and this feels like it goes against that beautiful principle.
It doesn't have to be confusing if it's explained well. If the folks in charge want the public to trust them, they need to be able to truthfully say that they're making the best decisions possible with the information they have, not that they're making decisions that they think will require the least amount of messaging effort. Signed, a frustrated MD who has to beg people to trust the CDC and spends a remarkable amount of time explaining the guidelines and recommendations
That’s exactly what I’m thinking. I feel like people should be given that choice. That crazy guy in Germany who got vaccinated over 200 times is totally fine. I’m not suggesting we get vaccinated every other week, but 3-4 times a year for those who need/want it seems like a valid possible choice.
If something is safe and effective at preventing infection, its not ok for the government to tell us we should content ourselves with 1 dose a year and just stop caring about infection (because all they care about is deaths and hospitals), when its clear that it’s still much better not to get infected. That choice should be between patients and doctors.
Isn't it time to stop the nonsense of updated intramuscular vaccines that do not prevent infections and focus on mucosal vaccines that do? The only real way to avoid Long-COVID and post-COVID conditions to not get infected...
Personally, I think it's time for people in the forum to stop presenting uninformed opinions as facts. https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/ebiom/PIIS2352-3964(23)00150-0.pdf The Lancet article is just one of many which you could have found with a quick DuckDuckGo search. But I doubt that you're really interested in looking for facts.
Hi Stephen, I don't think I presented opinions as facts. IM vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 provides extremely limited protection against infection because they do not engage the MALT (mucosal-associated lymphoid tissues) and therefore, do not induce IgM production (antibodies that patrol the nose, throat, lungs, and gut). Mucosal vaccines induce robust IgM and some in development look promising but are moving slowly due to lack of funding. The authors of the Lancet paper note that there is still a lot of work to do to develop a fully effective mucosal vaccine against COVID; I'm advocating that vaccinologists get the funding that they need in order to do that work. Eric Topol and Akiko Iwasaki (are they uniformed too?) published this paper a few months ago making the same case; it's worth a read: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.add9947?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Except that you did. The 2022 article you cited does not, in fact, support your sweeping generalization that "intramuscular vaccines that do not prevent infections" and that nasal mucosa vaccines do. All it does is describe a promising study with mice.
You are on safer ground by dialing it back to " I'm advocating that vaccinologists [sic] get the funding that they need in order to do that work." But that begs the question of whether or not researchers are getting the funding they need.
Frankly, I'd like to see some input on this by someone with more credentials in this area than either of us.
Hi Stephen, I don't know anything about your 'credentials' nor do I understand why, from your first post, you have taken a hostile tone rather than a collaborative one. I hadn't seen the Lancet paper you linked to, so thank you for that. I'd be happy to share with you a slowly growing mountain of information about mucosal vaccination which I and many of the top (most 'credentialed') people in medical science believe is the future of vaccinology–if only it were receiving half the attention and funding of traditional (intramuscular) vaccines. In addition to the two studies you cited in your last post, you might want to look at this paper from NIH which neatly summarizes the advances in the development of mucosal vaccines since the COVID-19 pandemic, and concludes with the following statement "We believe that mucosal vaccine technology would be key in not only controlling the transmission of future pandemics like SARS-CoV-2 but also in controlling seasonal influenza and RSV, which disproportionately impact the young and elderly populations".: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10611113/. Medicine is like a big ship that turns slowly. All I wanted to say is that it should be turning away from intramuscular COVID-19 vaccines that do not offer reasonable protection against infections (a fact, not an opinion), and toward mucosal vaccines which an enormous and ever-growing body of evidence suggests do.
Thanks for that - far clearer than early newspaper reports. It opens a question: My wife and I (in our mid-seventies) were last vaccinated in September 2023 (Moderna) and had planned another dose (Pfizer) for later this month, a few weeks before some summer travel to Scandinavia. Should we cancel our appointments and wait for the new versions? Or get our mid-June vaccination and get the new one later in the fall? Thank you again
Interesting I am part of a Facebook group that could consists of mainly transplant people and immune compromised promised people . It is a private group of highly informed people and they feel that novavax is more effective and Moderna . Many are retired doctors etc .
Just wondering: did you mean to write Novavax is more effective than Moderna? Moderna has been more effective than Pfizer due to a higher dose--which they're trying to lower due to side effects. Mixing vaccinations seems like a good idea also.
Whatever is chosen, as a person over 65, I'm wondering if I should get a booster dose of the most recent version (from last fall) or just wait until this fall. I started to schedule it, but it appears that one of the eligibility criteria is not having had a Covid vaccine in the last 4 months. Does that mean that if I have one now, I will have to wait until mid-October for the new one? Or do we not expect the new one until then or later anyway?
The wife and I just had a second dose of the available vaccine (I'm 72, she's 77). The usual kicker for me… two days to fully recover from the side affects. I hope you all who are working on the vaccine end of this miserable virus and get to the point that this is an annual shot vs. 2–3 annually.
I always had the same cruddy 2 days of feeling awful post-vaccine/booster (Moderna). I switched to Novavax because I heard anecdotally that most folks didn't feel rotten afterwards, so I wanted to try it. I can confirm I had zero side effects, other than a slightly sore arm. But no blecch whatsoever. So if Novavax is a possibility where you're located, it might be worth a try. I'm a convert.
I'd love a shot with little to no lost time afterwards. However in our area (we live in downtown–old town Scottsdale) with two Walgreens and a CVS within 2 minutes drive all we get is Pfizer. As if Pfizer has somehow locked up this territory.
Related and unrelated I watched some clips of a House committee skewing Dr. Fauci over his work at the onset of covid. A modern day version of what I'd imagine was done across Europe in the 13th century before a jury of clerics would proclaim someone a heretic and have them summarily burned on a cross. Maybe next year.
As I understand it VE is calculated as 1-(VAR/UAR) where VAR is vaccinated attack rate and UAR is unvaccinated attack rate. However using this simple formula does not yield the numbers reported in the CDC figure. Have they done some adjustment and why??
Thank you for this update. I'd greatly appreciate it if you would clarify two points:
(1) How, for example, is the 16% figure shown in the chart "Vision: VE of 2023-2024 COVID-19..." regarding VE against hospitalization of people 65 and older after 120 days calculated?
(2) Regarding your point that "these numbers are relative" and "vaccine effectiveness now represents the incremental benefit above and beyond the baseline protection in the general population," what does that mean for risk on an individual level? If VE for someone 65 years and older after 120 days is 16%, doesn't that still mean that individuals in that age cohort have a 84%* risk of being hospitalized? If it does *not* mean that, what *does* it mean?
16% effectiveness for hospitalization means that of the people who get covid, 16% fewer people who were vaccinated will be hospitalized than those not vaccinated. If 1,000 vaccinated people and 1,000 unvaccinated people get covid, if 100 unvaccinated infected folks require hospitalization, only 84 vaccinated infected folks will require hospitalization (I'm an M.D., internal medicine)
Thank you for your helpful reply. A question, if I may: Ms. Jetelina says above that "vaccine effectiveness now represents the incremental benefit above and beyond the baseline protection in the general population." I understand that you are making a general statement using a hypothetical example to explain the principle underlying VE numbers to me, but would you now explain how the 100 UNvaccinated people in your example relate to the real-world (so to speak) "general population" referred to in Ms. Jetelina's statement? In other words, do your hypothetical 100 UNvaccinated people have the same degree of immunity -- or more? or less? -- as the real-world "general population" being referred to in Ms. Jetelina's statement?
Thank you for any additional light that you are able to shed on this issue.
Do I understand correctly that if 1,000 vaccinated people, and another 1,000 unvaccinated people get covid AND the hospitalization rate is currently 10% for the general population overall (and that would change by variant), then 100 unvaccinated and 84 vaccinated will be hospitalized? So, not much of an advantage really when the vaccine immunity has waned? Is that right?
It would be helpful to have some guidance for those of us >65 who are weighing whether to get a booster jab this summer, or just wait for the fall. Since the recommendations for how long to wait between boosters have changed, it's hard to be confident that if I get a shot now, I'll be eligible for another in the fall with the new formula.
Not making the vaccine the most current with diminish uptake, without question, and booster uptake is low enough. IMHO.
Children are certainly a reservoir, some times more than others.
I write this from home. Covid positive after a very meaningful HS reunion. Knew the risks going and definitely was a spreader event w many classmates reporting positive tests in the last 2 days.
That being said, after only a second Covid infection in January, this time was barely a thing, thankfully.
Amazing how few doctors even allow patients who ask to get Paxlovid. All my fellow Dr alum are taking it this week…
Seems like it would be a good idea to recommend FLiRT variants KP.2 and .3 for the mRNA vaccines that can be dialed up more quickly, but allow JN.1 formula for the slower to produce Novavax. Since there is not a huge difference in spike between these anyway, and it might actually give us some hedging of our bets which way the dominant SARS CoV-2 evolution will be in the next 3 months.
Also I’d like to acknowledge the courageous, intelligent, and heroic efforts of DR. Fauci, who did the best he could under incredibly difficult, real time, politically poisonous circumstances. He performed amazingly well during the congressional hearing this week, despite low blows and the intimidation of 2 goons/felons planted behind him, who mocked him even as he described death threats he and his family have received.
A country that cannibalizes its best and brightest on the way to undermining science and the rule of law itself cannot stand.
I’m sure Fauci has many fans here, and no one is perfect. I salute him… and Dr. Jetelina, too as I know you have faced similar intimidation.
You need smarts and bravery to be in science and medicine these days.
I was actually just writing down my thoughts about Fauci testimony! Have many thoughts about it
Watching clips of it last night before bed was not a good idea! It was so hostile and made me so angry and disappointed in certain people. Take some deep breaths along the way if you do compose something, and realize that these flame war, felon types enjoy stoking our outrage. Michelle has it right; when they go low, we go high.
And thank you, Jaime Raskin, for consistently getting it right and speaking up.
I don't watch for the that reason. Expect a low bar and they manage to go lower. It is such a joke and embarrassment.
Well, you beat me to it. I was just thinking allowing Novavax the JN.1 and the mRNA vaccines for the FLiRT variants. I don't see anything that says this not possible. The way the virus ever evolving variants keep popping up, it will likely be outdated by spring.
I appreciate your contributions. I'm reminded of what Thomas Jefferson wrote: "If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe. "-- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816
He was mostly addressing the importance of literacy and a free presss. We are already proving his point about literacy and a free press, and are well on our way to demonstrating the larger point about ignorance. Or, in our case, the substitution of ignorance and belief for reality.
Totally my thoughts on mRNA and Novavax … exactly.
Public health will never regain trust with the public if they continue to be Fauci groupies. The guy was wrong about nearly everything. He either knowingly lied or is grossly incompetent.
Disagree. His career has been exemplary. No one is perfect and I'm sure he has regrets, granted. And I still have great faith in our public health professionals, with the system underfunded and denigrated by political hacks, granted as well.
You have to ask yourself, honestly, what motive would an 80-ish year old doctor have for lying to you and being part of some conspiracy to harm the world when he could have stepped down and chilled during the worst pandemic of his lifetime? He felt called to service, as many of us did, and risked our lives, reputations, and families for the greater good, murky early science a given and missteps certain with a novel virus killing tens of millions.
You should instead impugn those casting stones backwards from 2024, righteous self serving opportunists that they are, and search for greater understanding while giving public health workers the benefit of the doubt. Trust me, when H5N1 hits you'll want them ready to help you again. Or you can believe people with lesser/no qualifications who shout a lot and feed your sense of outrage.
Right on! I have yet to hear a reasonable and serious criticism of Dr Fauci's efforts.
Paul is a twatwaffle who should be ignored.
Please delete your comments then your account.
I really appreciate these reports. It is enormously helpful to be brought along on the thinking process and work that goes on to make decisions and develop these vaccines. (In this one, as one example, I had never really thought about why some vaccines, like the measles vaccine, are not updated.) As others here have indicated, I would like to have the option of a vaccine that addresses the newest variants. I think it will be unfortunate if a decision is made against that because of possible confusion. Rather, I would like to see that issue handled through clear public-facing communications.
There were a lot of people during public comment that were saying the same thing—want the most updated variant. We’ll see what they decide!
Is there a reason novovax couldn’t target JN.1 while the MRNA people targeted flip? In other words, why do they all have to target the same variant?
This is a great question. And it was discussed at the meeting actually. FDA said this *could* happen, but perhaps not the best policy decision because it would be confusing. It sounded like they want to stick to one
Understanding the differences between two vaccines won’t be confusing for those that care and believe in them.
I worry that if they require Novovax to target flip there won't be a Novovax. I once read these words: "My commitment must be to the truth, not consistency" and this feels like it goes against that beautiful principle.
It doesn't have to be confusing if it's explained well. If the folks in charge want the public to trust them, they need to be able to truthfully say that they're making the best decisions possible with the information they have, not that they're making decisions that they think will require the least amount of messaging effort. Signed, a frustrated MD who has to beg people to trust the CDC and spends a remarkable amount of time explaining the guidelines and recommendations
Thank you for this, Abi S. More power to you!
Isn’t it possible for the mRNA vaccines to include both JN.1 and the flirts?
I have the same question!
It seems simplistic to ask-- but if protection wanes at 4 months, shouldn't we be getting a booster every three-to-four months instead of once a year?
That’s exactly what I’m thinking. I feel like people should be given that choice. That crazy guy in Germany who got vaccinated over 200 times is totally fine. I’m not suggesting we get vaccinated every other week, but 3-4 times a year for those who need/want it seems like a valid possible choice.
If something is safe and effective at preventing infection, its not ok for the government to tell us we should content ourselves with 1 dose a year and just stop caring about infection (because all they care about is deaths and hospitals), when its clear that it’s still much better not to get infected. That choice should be between patients and doctors.
Isn't it time to stop the nonsense of updated intramuscular vaccines that do not prevent infections and focus on mucosal vaccines that do? The only real way to avoid Long-COVID and post-COVID conditions to not get infected...
Personally, I think it's time for people in the forum to stop presenting uninformed opinions as facts. https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/ebiom/PIIS2352-3964(23)00150-0.pdf The Lancet article is just one of many which you could have found with a quick DuckDuckGo search. But I doubt that you're really interested in looking for facts.
Hi Stephen, I don't think I presented opinions as facts. IM vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 provides extremely limited protection against infection because they do not engage the MALT (mucosal-associated lymphoid tissues) and therefore, do not induce IgM production (antibodies that patrol the nose, throat, lungs, and gut). Mucosal vaccines induce robust IgM and some in development look promising but are moving slowly due to lack of funding. The authors of the Lancet paper note that there is still a lot of work to do to develop a fully effective mucosal vaccine against COVID; I'm advocating that vaccinologists get the funding that they need in order to do that work. Eric Topol and Akiko Iwasaki (are they uniformed too?) published this paper a few months ago making the same case; it's worth a read: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.add9947?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Except that you did. The 2022 article you cited does not, in fact, support your sweeping generalization that "intramuscular vaccines that do not prevent infections" and that nasal mucosa vaccines do. All it does is describe a promising study with mice.
Promising results from animal studies are certainly there, e.g. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn7786 and https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45348-2 but that's a long way from establishing superiority in humans in the outside world.
You are on safer ground by dialing it back to " I'm advocating that vaccinologists [sic] get the funding that they need in order to do that work." But that begs the question of whether or not researchers are getting the funding they need.
Frankly, I'd like to see some input on this by someone with more credentials in this area than either of us.
Hi Stephen, I don't know anything about your 'credentials' nor do I understand why, from your first post, you have taken a hostile tone rather than a collaborative one. I hadn't seen the Lancet paper you linked to, so thank you for that. I'd be happy to share with you a slowly growing mountain of information about mucosal vaccination which I and many of the top (most 'credentialed') people in medical science believe is the future of vaccinology–if only it were receiving half the attention and funding of traditional (intramuscular) vaccines. In addition to the two studies you cited in your last post, you might want to look at this paper from NIH which neatly summarizes the advances in the development of mucosal vaccines since the COVID-19 pandemic, and concludes with the following statement "We believe that mucosal vaccine technology would be key in not only controlling the transmission of future pandemics like SARS-CoV-2 but also in controlling seasonal influenza and RSV, which disproportionately impact the young and elderly populations".: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10611113/. Medicine is like a big ship that turns slowly. All I wanted to say is that it should be turning away from intramuscular COVID-19 vaccines that do not offer reasonable protection against infections (a fact, not an opinion), and toward mucosal vaccines which an enormous and ever-growing body of evidence suggests do.
Thank you so much for the link to this illuminating article!
Thanks for that - far clearer than early newspaper reports. It opens a question: My wife and I (in our mid-seventies) were last vaccinated in September 2023 (Moderna) and had planned another dose (Pfizer) for later this month, a few weeks before some summer travel to Scandinavia. Should we cancel our appointments and wait for the new versions? Or get our mid-June vaccination and get the new one later in the fall? Thank you again
Should we get a Covid vaccine, a booster now, and then the new one n the fall??
Interesting I am part of a Facebook group that could consists of mainly transplant people and immune compromised promised people . It is a private group of highly informed people and they feel that novavax is more effective and Moderna . Many are retired doctors etc .
We actually don’t know, which is one of the most frustrating things. Would love to see data from this past season. No head on head comparison
Just wondering: did you mean to write Novavax is more effective than Moderna? Moderna has been more effective than Pfizer due to a higher dose--which they're trying to lower due to side effects. Mixing vaccinations seems like a good idea also.
No I meant they liked novavax over Moderna
Modena is more effective that Pfizer
Some felt novavax was more effective
Thanks!
Whatever is chosen, as a person over 65, I'm wondering if I should get a booster dose of the most recent version (from last fall) or just wait until this fall. I started to schedule it, but it appears that one of the eligibility criteria is not having had a Covid vaccine in the last 4 months. Does that mean that if I have one now, I will have to wait until mid-October for the new one? Or do we not expect the new one until then or later anyway?
The wife and I just had a second dose of the available vaccine (I'm 72, she's 77). The usual kicker for me… two days to fully recover from the side affects. I hope you all who are working on the vaccine end of this miserable virus and get to the point that this is an annual shot vs. 2–3 annually.
I always had the same cruddy 2 days of feeling awful post-vaccine/booster (Moderna). I switched to Novavax because I heard anecdotally that most folks didn't feel rotten afterwards, so I wanted to try it. I can confirm I had zero side effects, other than a slightly sore arm. But no blecch whatsoever. So if Novavax is a possibility where you're located, it might be worth a try. I'm a convert.
I'd love a shot with little to no lost time afterwards. However in our area (we live in downtown–old town Scottsdale) with two Walgreens and a CVS within 2 minutes drive all we get is Pfizer. As if Pfizer has somehow locked up this territory.
Related and unrelated I watched some clips of a House committee skewing Dr. Fauci over his work at the onset of covid. A modern day version of what I'd imagine was done across Europe in the 13th century before a jury of clerics would proclaim someone a heretic and have them summarily burned on a cross. Maybe next year.
Thanks for a wonderful detailed and comprehensive summary. It a major part of educating us about what’s in “the mill” and what to look forward to.
Should we go ahead and get the current booster anyway since I will BE TRAVELING THIS SUMMER AND I AM OVER 70.
As I understand it VE is calculated as 1-(VAR/UAR) where VAR is vaccinated attack rate and UAR is unvaccinated attack rate. However using this simple formula does not yield the numbers reported in the CDC figure. Have they done some adjustment and why??
Thank you for this update. I'd greatly appreciate it if you would clarify two points:
(1) How, for example, is the 16% figure shown in the chart "Vision: VE of 2023-2024 COVID-19..." regarding VE against hospitalization of people 65 and older after 120 days calculated?
(2) Regarding your point that "these numbers are relative" and "vaccine effectiveness now represents the incremental benefit above and beyond the baseline protection in the general population," what does that mean for risk on an individual level? If VE for someone 65 years and older after 120 days is 16%, doesn't that still mean that individuals in that age cohort have a 84%* risk of being hospitalized? If it does *not* mean that, what *does* it mean?
*EDITED.
16% effectiveness for hospitalization means that of the people who get covid, 16% fewer people who were vaccinated will be hospitalized than those not vaccinated. If 1,000 vaccinated people and 1,000 unvaccinated people get covid, if 100 unvaccinated infected folks require hospitalization, only 84 vaccinated infected folks will require hospitalization (I'm an M.D., internal medicine)
Thank you for your helpful reply. A question, if I may: Ms. Jetelina says above that "vaccine effectiveness now represents the incremental benefit above and beyond the baseline protection in the general population." I understand that you are making a general statement using a hypothetical example to explain the principle underlying VE numbers to me, but would you now explain how the 100 UNvaccinated people in your example relate to the real-world (so to speak) "general population" referred to in Ms. Jetelina's statement? In other words, do your hypothetical 100 UNvaccinated people have the same degree of immunity -- or more? or less? -- as the real-world "general population" being referred to in Ms. Jetelina's statement?
Thank you for any additional light that you are able to shed on this issue.
Do I understand correctly that if 1,000 vaccinated people, and another 1,000 unvaccinated people get covid AND the hospitalization rate is currently 10% for the general population overall (and that would change by variant), then 100 unvaccinated and 84 vaccinated will be hospitalized? So, not much of an advantage really when the vaccine immunity has waned? Is that right?
SAME QUESTION from me below -- please explain what this means for risk? What is the "baseline" for infection/ hosp ?
It would be helpful to have some guidance for those of us >65 who are weighing whether to get a booster jab this summer, or just wait for the fall. Since the recommendations for how long to wait between boosters have changed, it's hard to be confident that if I get a shot now, I'll be eligible for another in the fall with the new formula.
Not making the vaccine the most current with diminish uptake, without question, and booster uptake is low enough. IMHO.
Children are certainly a reservoir, some times more than others.
I write this from home. Covid positive after a very meaningful HS reunion. Knew the risks going and definitely was a spreader event w many classmates reporting positive tests in the last 2 days.
That being said, after only a second Covid infection in January, this time was barely a thing, thankfully.
Amazing how few doctors even allow patients who ask to get Paxlovid. All my fellow Dr alum are taking it this week…
I vote FLiRT. My vote doesn’t count.