I'm not particularly concerned by the mix'n'match boosters. I believe, from what I've seen, and immunology 101 (or perhaps a later class...) that an mRNA boost of the J&J will be the biggest bang for the buck.
But: Almost everything considered in the meeting, and almost all you wrote looks at the humeral immunity boost. What do we know s…
I'm not particularly concerned by the mix'n'match boosters. I believe, from what I've seen, and immunology 101 (or perhaps a later class...) that an mRNA boost of the J&J will be the biggest bang for the buck.
But: Almost everything considered in the meeting, and almost all you wrote looks at the humeral immunity boost. What do we know so far about training and retention of cellular immunity, and when, exactly, did we go from protecting against serious disease and death to preventing the disease, or at least symptoms, completely?
Finally, I suspect (strongly suspect, in fact) the VAERS data for myocarditis are inflated. There was a reported effort on some of the more conservative social media sites to create claims of adverse effects on VAERS, and the reports have been considerably higher than usual with the COVID vaccines. While most cases in this country see elevated troponin levels, virtually all resolve and have normal echocardiograms within 5 days, and are discharged. And, relying on Israeli data (it's good to see them collaborate with us on vaccines, and safety/efficacy questions, regardless) is problematical because they use different criteria and age break-points for their myocarditis diagnosis. If the VAERS data are intentionally skewed, interpretation is much harder. Israeli data is hard to interpret for us because virtually the entire country is, indeed, vaccinated, and almost all with Pfizer. With our triple-play of vaccines, can we afford to make decisions on how they performed? Do we have to fall back on just our Pfizer data? If so, we've not got a chance of getting solid evaluation of the Moderna or J&J vaccines because they were essentially not used. Or did I miss a meeting somewhere in all of this?
I'm not particularly concerned by the mix'n'match boosters. I believe, from what I've seen, and immunology 101 (or perhaps a later class...) that an mRNA boost of the J&J will be the biggest bang for the buck.
But: Almost everything considered in the meeting, and almost all you wrote looks at the humeral immunity boost. What do we know so far about training and retention of cellular immunity, and when, exactly, did we go from protecting against serious disease and death to preventing the disease, or at least symptoms, completely?
Finally, I suspect (strongly suspect, in fact) the VAERS data for myocarditis are inflated. There was a reported effort on some of the more conservative social media sites to create claims of adverse effects on VAERS, and the reports have been considerably higher than usual with the COVID vaccines. While most cases in this country see elevated troponin levels, virtually all resolve and have normal echocardiograms within 5 days, and are discharged. And, relying on Israeli data (it's good to see them collaborate with us on vaccines, and safety/efficacy questions, regardless) is problematical because they use different criteria and age break-points for their myocarditis diagnosis. If the VAERS data are intentionally skewed, interpretation is much harder. Israeli data is hard to interpret for us because virtually the entire country is, indeed, vaccinated, and almost all with Pfizer. With our triple-play of vaccines, can we afford to make decisions on how they performed? Do we have to fall back on just our Pfizer data? If so, we've not got a chance of getting solid evaluation of the Moderna or J&J vaccines because they were essentially not used. Or did I miss a meeting somewhere in all of this?