Pfizer just reported its #vaccine doesn’t perform well in 2-5 year-olds.
This is what science looks like: we get mixed findings and try to communicate with transparency.
Lots of parents want protection for their kids. Stay tuned. ❤️
— Scott Hadland, MD (@DrScottHadland) December 17, 2021
Pfizer is applying to modify their protocol to add a third shot to the sequence to see if they can get an antibody reaction similar to older kids and adults for this age group.
Steeplejack (phone)
I did not need to see this title in my current state.
JPL
Ten minutes before the announcement, son and I were discussing how great it was going to be for the grand imps to be vaccinated.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Steeplejack (phone):
Everything ok?
VeniceRiley
@JPL: Ouch. I’m so sorry!
Baud
I blame the children.
Another Scott
Interesting. I could have sworn I heard someone on the radio saying yesterday or so that the dose was 1/10 of the adult dose and (roughly) “it produces an immune response just as intense as in adults”.
There’s too much shooting-from-the-hip and wishful thinking about this stuff in the mass media.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
I’m old enough to remember when the media Jan-Feb 2020, in an attempt to provide “balance” and both sides the COVID outbreak in China, compared it to seasonal flu…
Mousebumples
Speaking as the parent of a 2 year old – well, crap. ?
Here’s hoping Moderna is having better luck.
VeniceRiley
Are they testing their new pills in this age group, I wonder?
Steeplejack (phone)
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I am recovering from surgery in that area. Progress is good, but I don’t need triggers. ?
scav
On the plus side, finally one of the jan 6 Rioters got a five year sentence (after pleading guilty) for his repeatedly dumbshit escapades. WaPo.
rikyrah
This makes me sad :(
JPL
@rikyrah: Why not approve for six months until 24 months. At least that way infants are protected.
bah humbug
Ratt
It’s interesting tho, isn’t it?
Dorothy A. Winsor
That is really too bad.
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Hell, I am old enough to remember when Omicron was brand new and people were wondering if it might spread. And now this:
Also, the Omicron variant is now thought to have replaced Delta as the dominant form of the virus in Scotland.
Good news is that the booster appears to be very effective and cases continue to be mild.
But damn, this variant is a fast spreading little sucker!
JPL
@Brachiator: I did read children are susceptible to the virus. Hospitals are seeing more cases, which makes the news today, really sad.
Baud
@Brachiator:
Fast may be better than slow in some ways, but it may put more pressure on hospitals.
JPL
fkfk Fauci is saying probably the second quarter for under five. It’s important to get it right.
Baud
@JPL:
When I’m president, that’s something you’ll never have to worry about.
Roger Moore
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It’s too bad the vaccine doesn’t work as expected. It’s good that we know and won’t be vaccinating kids ineffectively.
trollhattan
That’s a shame, but there are other vaccines and they may be able to tweak the current Pfizer to work better. Stuff’s rather magical when a rube like myself digs a little into how they build mRNA vaccines.
Just now reviewing the county’s dashboard where they report a whopping 42k 5-11s have received a vaccine. Good response, I think. Nearly 200k 12-19s on top of that. IMO this reduces the liklihood of repeating last holiday’s huge case surge, which coincided with all those kids being out of school.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Baud:
This. I wonder how many “excess deaths” there will be from other causes because patients couldn’t get a hospital bed.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Time from exposure to symptoms supposedly something like half, which makes catching it pre-transmission stage nearly impossible.
scav
All in all, I’d rather see them follow the data rather than our hopes and their sales. Also that they started with low doses and will be testing up. Disappointing, sure, but we’re still benefitting from a phenomenal scientific baseline. It’s the civilian meatware that’s been letting us down (when not actively savaging our communal chances).
raven
More fodder for the anti-vaxxers. J&J doesn’t work, Pfizer doesn’t work, even if you are triple vaxxed the BJ “community” says get in the fucking bunker.
Feathers
Man. Terrible. The local branch library near me is basically half kids library and you see them in their little masks so happy to see each other. And their parents to get out of the house. Sometimes the lobby is full of strollers.
Got a really weird bad stuffed nose Wednesday. Took NyQuill was still stuffed in the morning, took a Dayquill and haven’t had a real problem since. It was a strange 12 hours though. Feeling paranoid, although I’m vaxxed and boosted and been good about masking and distancing. Ugh.
ETA Needless to say, I haven’t left the apartment since.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator:
The boosters are really effective in general – 6 times the antibodies with Moderna booster vs. just 2 shots of Moderna.
But I just read an article today that says Pfizer is only 33% effective for Omicron symptomatic infections.
Omicron is a whole different ballgame. That’s what has me looking at changing my plans.
gvg
@Feathers:
The home covid tests are now available. Around here Walmart has them 2 for $14. CVS and Walgreens have them around $27 and seem to be out pretty often. I think the cheaper price means people might actually use them instead of saving them for when they feel really bad.
frosty
@Steeplejack (phone): Ouch! No kidding!
WaterGirl
@raven: Surely you are aware the the current vaccines are much less effective against Omicron, right?
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (phone): Maybe shrinkage at the thought will help with the swelling?
~Pollyanna
Baud
@WaterGirl:
With the booster?
gvg
@Mousebumples: Moderna hasn’t even submitted data for the under 18 as far as I know. Not sure why. I wish they were. My nephews got Pfizer of course but for adults Moderna is holding up better. I was Pfizer originally but chose a Moderna booster….hoping that helps.
raven
@WaterGirl: It depends on who you listen to
The COVID-19 booster shots appear to be stopping the omicron variant, raising doubt that we will need an omicron-specific vaccine in the future, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser on the coronavirus, said Wednesday that there is no need to change the current booster shots to be more directed at omicron, CNBC reports.
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Fauci said that the original two-dose regimen of the vaccine still works to fight off omicron pretty well, though there is less protection.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
WaterGirl
@Baud: I believe so. That was my impression anyway, but I don’t recall that they made a distinction. If there was a distinction, one would think the article would have mentioned it.
But who knows?
Suzanne
Fuck. Fuck.
raven
@WaterGirl: This is what’s got me not feeling like believing anything. “I read an article” to “surely you are aware”? I’m aware that there is plenty of in and mis-in formation going around and I’m just not prepared to freak out.
raven
@WaterGirl: Here’s your article
Two doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine seem to provide just 33% protection against infection with the omicron coronavirus variant but still give strong protection against severe illness, according to a real-world study from South Africa’s largest health insurer, promising early findings as governments around the world battle to contain the fast-moving variant.
Brachiator
@raven:
Probably one of the best things that anti-vaxxers could do would be to read the Covid-related threads in Balloon Juice.
Matt McIrvin
@raven: It really depends on what we think the vaccines are for. If they’re for stopping transmission, the existing vaccines do not work very well at that, against Omicron. They work some, but not a lot. They worked great with wild-type COVID and with Alpha, but it’s been downhill since then.
If they’re for the originally stated goal of preventing severe, acute disease and death, they’re holding up, though perhaps only fully with boosters (for people who can get boosters).
For preventing long COVID — that’s a big question mark.
I suspect someone is going to buy Omicron-tailored booster shots sooner or later, whether or not it’s the US, and if that happens we will probably follow. Unlike Delta, most scientists seem to think that Omicron’s added mojo comes to some degree from its mutations giving it significant immune escape. If that’s the problem, a reformulated vaccine should help. The manufacturers say they can cook one up in a few months (probably start producing it instantly, but testing and getting it authorized and scaling up production and distributing it takes longer). Unfortunately the bulk of the wave may have already gone by by then.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
Much less? Not true.Some snippets from BBC News stories:
And another story:
Also, the data is preliminary. The Omicron variant is fast moving and the response and analysis is developing quickly.
And often the information is about boosters. I don’t know that there has been any deep tracking of people who have very recently received their first shot of the vaccine and who are then exposed to the Omicron variant.
It makes no sense to make hard conclusions about the variant as new data keeps flowing in.
raven
@Matt McIrvin: Yea, and with the trump fuckheads we can forget about stopping the transmission so that lead back to what are we going to do with our own lives. I’ve done everything I can but I just don’t have the gas to go back into lockdown.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator:
I agree with that statement. But Christmas is a fixed date so decisions have to be made with incompletel, inadequate and often conflicting information.
That’s the source of my struggle.
Feathers
@gvg: Thanks. I don’t have a car. Money is tight enough that I’d rather spend it on upgraded masks. The nearest CVS is a free Covid testing site, so if anything comes back, I’ll just go there. I have enough supplies to stay inside through Monday. Realizing that I’ve kind of been depression nesting and didn’t do my usual deep clean before shutting myself in for the winter. Focusing on getting rid of all the dust. Hopefully that will be the end of it.
Mary G
@Feathers: I have been the same way. Some woman who looked almost exactly like Marjorie Taylor Greene ran up to me in my driveway and said I needed help (I said, no I do not). She kept maneuvering to pat my arm or my hand and trying to put her unmasked face up to mine and I was wheeling around trying to avoid her breathing on me and mostly did, but I kept dreaming she gave me Covid.
So when I woke up this morning and two different oximeters used on both hands, then every finger came up with values between 73 and 80, I freaked out and called 911. And of course theirs read 100 and 97, BP 116/81, all else good. I felt like a fool. Evidently the type of oximeter I have reads low if your hands are cold and mine were because I didn’t turn on my new heat pump because was going to be warmer. Lesson learned there.
My new roof was supposed to start yesterday but because of the big storm he’s handling emergencies only because mine doesn’t leak even it’s past its useful life.
I did find the landscape designer I like who uses many succulents. Judging by their portfolio they are way out of my budget, but will do a consultation for $150 bucks.
@Feathers:
sab
@WaterGirl: My sister is coming back before Christmas from her last sabbatical, in Europe. No way in hell will she see my dad in his nursing home before next year. DeWine has relaxed most rules, but seems pretty strict on nursing homes. My brother in law from China hasn’t seen his parents in China for almost three years. That’s really tough because they are a close knit family, and all the siblings are in North America. The parents are relatively safer in China, but the travel restrictions back and forth are severe and unpredictable.
Taking Ponyo the dog tomorrow to trot around the nursing home pond. Dad has never seen her, and she is a goofy looking dog.
Matt McIrvin
@raven: A lot of those unvaxxed Trumpsters are about to get a rude kick from the virus. Maybe less likely to be a fatal one if they’ve already gotten Delta, which a lot of them have, but they’re going to have a rougher time of it than vaccinated people, even if we all get it.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
I’ve done what I can to get vaccined up and boostered up. I wear masks and hang with others who have been cautious, etc. My main thing is to just try to avoid contact with anti vaxx deniers and similar boneheads.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
sab
@Mary G: I went to Costco this wek, all maskwd up, to buy food through the holidays. There was a Mazerati in the parking lot!
Okay shopping until we got into the checkout line. Unmasked creature my age kept crowding me to the point of actually bumping me with her cart. So I went to the front if the cart to get the six feet distance.
When we went back to our cart and unloaded, lo and behold the unmasked creature behind me turned up and unloaded her groceries into the Mazerati.
Matt McIrvin
@raven: I’ve been seeing some people celebrating about Omicron because they think it will convince authorities everywhere that stopping transmission is hopeless, so all the mitigation measures will go away.
Another Scott
@raven:
Here’s a 3-day-old preprint (28 page .pdf) from a group in Boston that reaches similar conclusions. I believe Fauci talked about it in a recent press briefing.
Note that boosters still work on Omicron and note the other caveats:
IOW, this is a study of the virus in a test-tube. This is not a study about severity of disease, response to treatment, etc.
Omicron is something to be concerned about, and unvaccinated people need to get vaccinated NOW, and people eligible for booster should get them NOW, but the last sentence is something to keep in mind.
[eta.] – Earliest reports said that we wouldn’t really have a good handle on things like transmissibility, how well the existing vaccines work, severity of disease with Omicron, etc., until the end of the month. I think that timeline still holds.
Hang in there, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
WhatsMyNym
If this hasn’t been talked about yet, some good news.
sab
@sab: Not like the Iron Wall or Korea, but families who love each other are still separated. Health reasons, but still separated.
The Republican stupid pandemic rules have completely fucked up the message which makes sense, because they are sociopaths who don’t even like their own families. Separatians. Just makes the anit-Democrats angry.
Prolonging the pandemic might be good politics. Bad public policy but good public message. Are We Rs or are we Ds?
sab
@sab: Who the fuck goes to the grocery with a Mazerati? Don’t you have a Civic or GM in the driveway?
Was she so rude because stuff has hit the fan in her life? Hoping, because she was obnoxious.
sab
@WhatsMyNym: And nobody sent them vaccines at all!
Another Scott
@sab: A Maserati is a glorified FIAT or Chrysler. Manchin’s Maserati SUV is built modified Chrysler 300C chassis.
Nissan and Mercedes have built cars and trucks together.
Badge engineering is a thing, especially in autos, even when the brands are nominal competitors.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Apparently the laws of physics trump holidays with fixed dates.
Shorter: laws of physics > Christmas
WhatsMyNym
@sab: maybe this is why…