Covid-19: Treatments, Cures, and Vaccines

Could we move the arguments claiming these supposed vaccine side effects, disinformation and the inevitable rebuttals to the other Covid thread?

 

The best treatment and cure for Covid now is rest and getting outdoors when you can. Tylenol and ibuprofen if necessary. Don’t lay around on your back all day. If you are older be a little more cautious.

We have moved on…

 

Omicron-specific Covid booster shots are just weeks away. Here's who will—and won't—be eligible

Reformulated boosters with Omicron protection to be available in a few weeks.

 

If the shot is just weeks away, seems ridiculous to recommend people go ahead and get a 2nd booster shot now rather than wait.

 

These public health officials are clueless!

Well actually some likely have been acting with intent. That group is evil.

 

The bi-valent booster showed higher neutralizing anti-bodies (in vitro) against BA.5. However, BA.4.6 and BA2.75 are circulating in the United States and may be showing some signs of fitness advantage over BA.5, which renders the new bi-valent shot already pointless. Further, the bi-valent shot does not produce any more broad based T-Cell germination centers as compared to the original vaccine. Mostly since the original vaccine was incredibly robust.

For those 50+, people who received the initial 2 doses primary series, the booster (1) and booster (2) are seeing a nearly 93% reduction in hospitalizations vs unvaccinated. I wish they had the data for 2 doses + 1st booster because it is likely near 90% as well.

If people are really interested, Novavaxx just filed for EUA as a booster shot for people who took the mRNA or Ad-vector primary series. Since this vaccine is based on a a fully synthesized viral protein, not just the spike, its performance as a booster in the age of variants that have numerous amino-acid changes around the receptor binding domain is an extremely interesting option. We just need to see the data presented in the EUA filing.

 

Glad to see that this targets the BA.5. Question, though. Why must one have the initial Covid doses in order to be eligible for this booster? I guess I don't understand how boosters work.

 

I guess because they are dosed and tested to be a booster. Presumably you would need higher dose as a primary and you would have to go through testing and approval for that purpose.

 

Best summary of where we are right now with Vaccines and explanation of the mechanisms of their effectiveness:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add2897#.YwK3xTdaM3E.twitter

Key paragraph, much to the shargrin of the alleged "science followers".

 

COVID Vaccine Boosters: Who's Eligible Now, When Omicron-Specific Shots Will Arrive, and More



When Will the New Boosters be Authorized?
Sources told NBC News this week that the Food and Drug Administration plans to evaluate and potentially authorize updated versions of both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 boosters sometime around Labor Day, citing two people familiar with the discussions.

The updated booster shots will likely be authorized for anyone over the age of 18 who has yet to get a second booster shot, and the Biden administration is preparing to distribute the boosters to eligible individuals under the age of 18 as well, officials said.

 

Cholesterol-Lowering Statins: Do They Help With COVID-19?

Statins may help with Covid.

 

I wonder how much the results are skewed by the early days when anyone admitted to the hospital was taken off all of their daily maintenance medications?

 

Not sure how reliable that study is for the current variants of Covid-19 considering that it only included cases during the period from January 1 through September 30, 2020.
This study actually covering most of the same period reached a different conclusion.
Statins Likely Not Helpful in Reducing Covid-19 Mortality or Severity
This study conducted in South Korea also found no relationship between statin use and Covid outcomes.
Statins and COVID-19: emerging evidence on the safety and efficacy of statins in COVID-19

 

First real-world data is indicating that the Bi-Valent booster does not produce a stronger neutralizing anti-body response against BA.4/BA.5 that the original vaccine did after 4 weeks.

This is only a pre-print, but the data are compelling. This highlights how outstanding the original mRNA vaccine shots really were/are when it comes to preventing severe disease independent of the variant.

Antibody responses to Omicron BA.4/BA.5 bivalent mRNA vaccine booster shot

 

There was some suggestion of this about a year ago. Thought was it helped remove fats that were building up in the lung tissue.

 

Something Offit had said in an interview was interesting. He indicated that we really didn’t know what the results would be. He speculated there was a negative theoretical scenario that by essentially having a half dose of each strain in the booster, you may end up with something that isn’t as good.

 

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

New Covid Boosters Aren’t Better Than Old Ones, Study Finds

Bivalent booster shots from Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. failed to raise levels of protective proteins called neutralizing antibodies against the dominant omicron strains any more than four doses of the original Covid vaccine, according to an early independent study on a small group of people.

Researchers at Columbia University and the University of Michigan compared levels of neutralizing antibodies in blood samples from 21 people who got a fourth shot of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech SE bivalent boosters against antibody levels in 19 people who got four shots of the original vaccines.

Three to five weeks after a fourth shot, those people who received the new boosters aimed at BA.4 and BA.5 variants “had similar neutralizing antibody titers as those receiving a fourth monovalent mRNA vaccine,” the authors conclude in a manuscript posted on the preprint server bioRxiv.org. This held true for antibodies that protect against BA.4, BA.5 and older variants such as the original omicron strain, according to the study.

 

Makes sense. Can’t take statins with Paxlovid, so the statins might help.

 

Another good paper out showing that Booster Shots provide only shorterm increases to the neutralizing anti-bodies, but do not do much to raise the T-cell levels and that CD4+ and CD8+ levels continue to be stable and long lasting.

 

I did my best to read the actual article. Much of it was Greek and parts I read 2 or 3 times.

It seems the tone implication of the article, then the Twitter post, then your post goes from one of neutrality in the article to one of indifference in the post (I may be wrong, I based that on this and your other posts regarding boosters)

These would be my questions and counter arguments, to the extent we may disagree (and we may not)

Even if the T cell response doesn’t change, is there not value in having an increased antibody response up to 6 months. Flu shots are recommended almost solely for their antibody response, as their T cell response is weak. Why recommend a flu shot but not a Covid booster?

This study tested the T cell response at 6 months after complete vaccination. That’s similar to prior studies. Do we have any data beyond 6 months? What about a year? Many people who are getting boosters may not have had their last shot/booster in almost a year.

Also, while I didn’t fully understand everything I read, it did sound like in some cases the T cell / memory cell response was initially boosted, and also boosters may have benefits (cytokine response??) but admittedly I’m out of my league here.

So we are looking just a TCell responses around 6 months. This doesn’t tell how much additional protection, in all forms, a booster may give at 6 months and definitely doesn’t tell us anything after 6 months.