I have a question that perhaps one on BioLogos may be able to answer for me:
Does anyone have any information regarding recommendation of a third booster for Covid19 and it’s variants? Thanks in advance
This may help you. Depending on the actual question you have.
Here is a recent article showing how the booster markedly lowers death rates:
And the editorial discussing it from the NEJM: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMe2117592
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Thanks for this
From the article:
And, in a statement released on 11 January, the World Health Organization warned that “a vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable”.
Repeated booster doses of existing vaccines also probably offer only diminishing returns in terms of protection against future strains, says Miles Davenport, a computational immunologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. New vaccines that target specific variants are likely to be much more effective, he adds.
Whether four shots boost levels of infection-blocking antibodies any higher than a third dose remains to be seen, Davenport says, but that hasn’t deterred nations including Chile, Cambodia, Denmark and Sweden from offering fourth doses to specific groups.
Exactly. So while more and more boosters probably will continue to offer more and more protection it’s potentially not sustainable. At least not freely.
But do masks work when properly used to reduce the distribution of the virus by limiting its velocity? Yes.
Is there further improved when coupled with social distancing and hand washing? Yes.
Does the vaccine reduce the severity of the virus in most people? Yes.
If the overwhelming majority of the population follows these rules would it significantly help reduce this virus and limit the amount of lives it takes? Yes.
Like with anything regardless of how good the data and information is the interpretation of it is limited by the one reading it themself. So with the info you quoted depending on many factors you could walk away with more info or you could walk away misunderstanding it and spreading misinformation.
Should also be noted that when you said third booster i was not sure if you meant 3rd shot with one being a booster or getting the vaccine plus multiple boosters.
The article I shared is talking about is about getting the vaccine followed by multiple boosters and how 4+ shots is not sustainable.
All evidence so far shows that the vaccine plus an additional booster ( 3rd shot ) is beneficial and seems sustainable.
The amount of circulating antibodies goes down over time, and this is true whether it is from the initial vaccination, boosters, or the infection itself. Even if the antibodies produced to the old vaccine are not as effective as they used to be, they are still going to be more effective than much lower levels of circulating antibodies from the initial vaccination more than 8 months ago. You can think of it like armor. While there are new weapons that can pierce the armor more effectively, you are still going to be better off with more layers of the less effective armor than you are with fewer layers.
New vaccine formulations are already being designed and tested. I am hoping that they will be approved in the next 6 months for the next round of boosters. Even then, we may be playing catch up for quite a while, especially if we have lineages that evolve outside of detection and then suddenly spread (i.e. like what happened with Omicron).
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