Will a yearly booster be necessarly?

4,812 Views | 32 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by P.U.T.U
eric76
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The CEO of Pfizer is saying that we'll need a booster within a year.

From https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/pfizer-ceo-says-third-covid-vaccine-dose-likely-needed-within-12-months.html

Quote:

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said people will "likely" need a booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated. ...

He also said it's possible people will need to get vaccinated against the virus annually.
beerad12man
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InfectionAg said on the other board he doesn't believe so. Many articles have come out suggesting immunity could last much longer. The former VP of Pfizer also said we shouldn't, though I'm not sure if he's just a nutcase or not? Don't know much about him.

At best, it's an unknown at this time. We would need to check in on the original recipients around the 12 month mark and see their immune response.

My unprofessional guess is, no, immunity will last longer than a year for most and it won't be necessary. Only time and studies will tell for sure.
CowtownEng
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eric76 said:

The CEO of Pfizer is saying that we'll need a booster within a year.

From https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/pfizer-ceo-says-third-covid-vaccine-dose-likely-needed-within-12-months.html

Quote:

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said people will "likely" need a booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated. ...

He also said it's possible people will need to get vaccinated against the virus annually.



Meh. Total fluff article considering we only have months worth of data, nobody knows anything for sure. It's also possible that the typical 2 dose MRNA vaccine elicits durable long term immunity for years.
PJYoung
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In 4-5 months we will start getting data in as that will be about a year since the Phase 3 participants got their shots.

Everything I've heard makes it sound like immunity will still be strong.
Tex117
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Yeah, these feels like it is better to say "another dose" then to be wrong and get people all pissed they need to get another one in a year.
cone
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probably want another shot more specific to the newer variants, especially ones like the SA

mRNA seems nimble enough to facilitate this, shouldn't be a big problem IMO.

i'm in for a penny in for a pound
BiochemAg97
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There are two possible reasons for a booster.
1) revised vaccine to address variants that the first one wasn't effective for. We haven't really seen any of those, although the vaccines seem to be somewhat less effective against the S.Africa variant.

2) immunity doesn't last long. We have no evidence to support this one way or another, and are several months away from getting any data one was or another. The earliest indications would be antibody titers from the phase 1 study subjects, and that would be very small numbers.

Too early to tell, but I bet we don't. Of course, with the paranoia, it would probably be an easy sell to convince the Biden administration they need to buy more and vaccinate everyone again.


Regardless, it would be far better to focus on vaccinating the world rather than revaccinating the US while most of Africa/SouthAmerica hasn't been vaccinated yet. The biggest risk is probably from variants, and the more people getting sick in 3rd world countries, the higher the risk of getting a variant that escapes the vaccine.
amercer
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Pfizer has been working on a booster for months (as has everyone else). They started when the first troubling variants were found. With what we know now, I don't think one will be needed. Or at least the one they are working on won't be needed as a 3rd shot.

Maybe by fall they switch to the new shot that is designed against the SA variant, but since the current regimen gives good protection I don't think you'd need to boost with it.

If we need a booster by fall it will be because a whole different variant has shown up that actually escapes the current vaccines. And that would suck since no one is working on a booster for a variant that doesn't exist yet.
NicosMachine
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I think the pharmaceutical companies will tell us we need a shot every year. It will be worth billions to them. I'd rather die of Covid.
BiochemAg97
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amercer said:

Pfizer has been working on a booster for months (as has everyone else). They started when the first troubling variants were found. With what we know now, I don't think one will be needed. Or at least the one they are working on won't be needed as a 3rd shot.

Maybe by fall they switch to the new shot that is designed against the SA variant, but since the current regimen gives good protection I don't think you'd need to boost with it.

If we need a booster by fall it will be because a whole different variant has shown up that actually escapes the current vaccines. And that would suck since no one is working on a booster for a variant that doesn't exist yet.
It won't suck that bad, With the mRNA vaccines, designing a new one doesn't take very long. Moderna had their vaccine designed within a week or so of the Chinese publishing the first sequence, and had it in small batch manufacturing for animal tests days after that.

The_Fox
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NicosMachine said:

I think the pharmaceutical companies will tell us we need a shot every year. It will be worth billions to them. I'd rather die of experience mild cold-like symptoms from Covid.
FIFY
amercer
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BiochemAg97 said:

amercer said:

Pfizer has been working on a booster for months (as has everyone else). They started when the first troubling variants were found. With what we know now, I don't think one will be needed. Or at least the one they are working on won't be needed as a 3rd shot.

Maybe by fall they switch to the new shot that is designed against the SA variant, but since the current regimen gives good protection I don't think you'd need to boost with it.

If we need a booster by fall it will be because a whole different variant has shown up that actually escapes the current vaccines. And that would suck since no one is working on a booster for a variant that doesn't exist yet.
It won't suck that bad, With the mRNA vaccines, designing a new one doesn't take very long. Moderna had their vaccine designed within a week or so of the Chinese publishing the first sequence, and had it in small batch manufacturing for animal tests days after that.




I think the question is how much they would allow the trials to be streamlined.
BiochemAg97
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amercer said:

BiochemAg97 said:

amercer said:

Pfizer has been working on a booster for months (as has everyone else). They started when the first troubling variants were found. With what we know now, I don't think one will be needed. Or at least the one they are working on won't be needed as a 3rd shot.

Maybe by fall they switch to the new shot that is designed against the SA variant, but since the current regimen gives good protection I don't think you'd need to boost with it.

If we need a booster by fall it will be because a whole different variant has shown up that actually escapes the current vaccines. And that would suck since no one is working on a booster for a variant that doesn't exist yet.
It won't suck that bad, With the mRNA vaccines, designing a new one doesn't take very long. Moderna had their vaccine designed within a week or so of the Chinese publishing the first sequence, and had it in small batch manufacturing for animal tests days after that.




I think the question is how much they would allow the trials to be streamlined.
I would expect the trials would be pretty streamlined. It would be a fairly minor change, wouldn't need to show safety again. Really just need to show efficacy, and I would think animal trial plus phase 1 type antibody endpoint would be sufficient.

How much testing is done on the flu vaccine each year? Bigger difference between flu vaccines than tweaking COVID for a new variant.
nortex97
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Eventually it will be a combo mRNA vaccine for both the flu and covid. That will be a great thing, as it wont be limited to just the 4 strains they guess at 6 months out so they can slowly build the northern hemisphere flu one in eggs etc. for 3 months. Safer, more effective, easy.

But there will also always be folks who swear it is poison etc. because the medical community lost a ton of credibility during covid as to public health.
P.U.T.U
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No, see the areas hit hard by SARS and how they do not have the same infection or death rates as countries that did not. And that was almost 20 years ago
BiochemAg97
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nortex97 said:

Eventually it will be a combo mRNA vaccine for both the flu and covid. That will be a great thing, as it wont be limited to just the 4 strains they guess at 6 months out so they can slowly build the northern hemisphere flu one in eggs etc. for 3 months. Safer, more effective, easy.

But there will also always be folks who swear it is poison etc. because the medical community lost a ton of credibility during covid as to public health.
I would love to see an mRNA vaccine for flu. There is also work on a universal flu vaccine that targets a common portion of the flu virus rather than the two pieces that are different between every strain. If that is successful. You end the annual flu vaccine.

I just don't see combining flu and COVID unless you actually need an annual COVID.
nortex97
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Yep, I can't find it right now (where I'd read about that goal, specifically for moderna I think), but this discusses it. Regardless of the frequency (which may be less than annually) I think it will probably happen at some point (not sure when.)
samsal75
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BiochemAg97 said:

There are two possible reasons for a booster.
1) revised vaccine to address variants that the first one wasn't effective for. We haven't really seen any of those, although the vaccines seem to be somewhat less effective against the S.Africa variant.

2) immunity doesn't last long. We have no evidence to support this one way or another, and are several months away from getting any data one was or another. The earliest indications would be antibody titers from the phase 1 study subjects, and that would be very small numbers.

Too early to tell, but I bet we don't. Of course, with the paranoia, it would probably be an easy sell to convince the Biden administration they need to buy more and vaccinate everyone again.


Regardless, it would be far better to focus on vaccinating the world rather than revaccinating the US while most of Africa/SouthAmerica hasn't been vaccinated yet. The biggest risk is probably from variants, and the more people getting sick in 3rd world countries, the higher the risk of getting a variant that escapes the vaccine.
Maybe a third reason is to create/extend a vaccine revenue source way into the future; such potentially being very lucrative for certain groups in the medical/pharmaceutical field??? Just saying.
nortex97
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samsal75 said:

BiochemAg97 said:

There are two possible reasons for a booster.
1) revised vaccine to address variants that the first one wasn't effective for. We haven't really seen any of those, although the vaccines seem to be somewhat less effective against the S.Africa variant.

2) immunity doesn't last long. We have no evidence to support this one way or another, and are several months away from getting any data one was or another. The earliest indications would be antibody titers from the phase 1 study subjects, and that would be very small numbers.

Too early to tell, but I bet we don't. Of course, with the paranoia, it would probably be an easy sell to convince the Biden administration they need to buy more and vaccinate everyone again.


Regardless, it would be far better to focus on vaccinating the world rather than revaccinating the US while most of Africa/SouthAmerica hasn't been vaccinated yet. The biggest risk is probably from variants, and the more people getting sick in 3rd world countries, the higher the risk of getting a variant that escapes the vaccine.
Maybe a third reason is to create/extend a vaccine revenue source way into the future; such potentially being very lucrative for certain groups in the medical/pharmaceutical field??? Just saying.
This is naive, respectfully. Do you realize how miniscule vaccine spending is relative to healthcare? Not just in the US but globally, it is an absurdly small component, and as well a low margin business compared to things like stents/optional procedures/cancer etc.

From a business standpoint, this makes no sense at all. Blockbuster drugs like keytruda are what you might focus your ire on if you want to perceive something like this.
Inca
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Question: if you received the Moderna vaccine initially, would you have to get the Moderna booster?

Asking primarily because I had a bad reaction to the second Moderna shot and doing that again is not at all appealing. As in, I think I would pass at this point, unless the booster had less severe side effects.
BiochemAg97
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Inca said:

Question: if you received the Moderna vaccine initially, would you have to get the Moderna booster?

Asking primarily because I had a bad reaction to the second Moderna shot and doing that again is not at all appealing. As in, I think I would pass at this point, unless the booster had less severe side effects.
Unlikely the booster would have less severe side effects. It would basically be the same shot, although the mRNA might be adjusted to account for the variants.
nortex97
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I think it's premature to say that, frankly. The dosage/volume, and frequency we just don't know right now. It could be once every 5 years, and it could as per above be a combo annual one.

It won't really be 'settled' for at least several years, imho, and it's also possible the body's response will adjust (such as, it reacts differently after time/intervening very mild cases etc).

The second Pfizer shot was a bit miserable for me for a half day/night, but I'd still much rather do that infrequently vs. a possible severe case.
Inca
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I had read somewhere about the possibility of adjusting the dosage. As in, the current dosage may be higher than necessary for healthy people, especially those under 55.

I was one of the "lucky " ones that had a pretty extreme reaction. But 36 hours later I felt pretty good and was completely normal within 48 hours.
FTAG 2000
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The covid vax cards have lines for four shots on them. People really didnt think they'd call this good with two shots did they?
ThreatLevel: Midnight
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There will be a new strain every year/season that will require a booster. Just like the flu shot, because $$$$$
Thanks & Gig 'Em
DadHammer
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Well, I am not getting any more. So that's that.
BBQ4Me
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ThreatLevel: Midnight said:

There will be a new strain every year/season that will require a booster. Just like the flu shot, because $$$$$


Yep. Them Evil Pharmaceutical Manufacturers are secretly out in the wild making the flu virus mutate so that they can sell more vaccine. All part of the New World Order. We gotta develop our own space lasers and fight back
chase128
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If there's even a small hint that a booster might be helpful, I'm sure that it will be pushed to happen if Pfizer and Moderna will make money off it. Greed is powerful.

I'm not suggesting in any way that those companies are engineering the virus, but that greed will play into their motivations so if they can make money somehow they will. We've already seen that risk management is not a strong suit of those folks as well.
beerad12man
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We are at 7.8% globally. We are currently at a pace of 0.6% per week, or 31.2% of the world a year. If this thing only lasts a year, we are screwed anyways globally. But luckily that is unlikely to be the case.

Unless we can dramatically increase that pace, NO ONE outside of maybe the highest risk should be getting a 3rd shot before others get a 1st. It's insane to talk about either that, or children, right now, when only 7.8% of the globe has received a first dose. And I'm more of a nationalist than a globalist, but sometimes common sense has to prevail.
BiochemAg97
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chase128 said:

If there's even a small hint that a booster might be helpful, I'm sure that it will be pushed to happen if Pfizer and Moderna will make money off it. Greed is powerful.

I'm not suggesting in any way that those companies are engineering the virus, but that greed will play into their motivations so if they can make money somehow they will. We've already seen that risk management is not a strong suit of those folks as well.
Generally, vaccines don't generate significant profits. The profit margins are so small that once upon a time
Vaccine manufactures threaten to pull out of the US market completely due to litigation risk. Thus the US created the vaccine court and vaccine injury fund.

With covid, multiple vaccine manufactures pledged to not make a profit off the vaccine during the duration of the crisis. I'm sure they benefitted greatly from the manufacturing facilities paid for by the government to increase supply and will use those facilities in the future to make other vaccines, so it isn't like they didn't benefit. Note: a lot of that capacity is contract manufacturing capacity owned by third parties, not directly by the likes of Pfizer, AZ, Moderna, or J&J.

I'm not sure Pfizer and Moderna are looking to keep pumping out billions of doses of vaccine boosters annually. The real value for them will be in pushing mRNA therapies into new more lucrative areas (cancer treatment, for example) and using all that fresh new manufacturing capability to supply those markets.
BiochemAg97
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beerad12man said:

We are at 7.8% globally. We are currently at a pace of 0.6% per week, or 31.2% of the world a year. If this thing only lasts a year, we are screwed anyways globally. But luckily that is unlikely to be the case.

Unless we can dramatically increase that pace, NO ONE outside of maybe the highest risk should be getting a 3rd shot before others get a 1st. It's insane to talk about either that, or children, right now, when only 7.8% of the globe has received a first dose. And I'm more of a nationalist than a globalist, but sometimes common sense has to prevail.
This. After the US is mostly protected, we will get far more benefit from getting the rest of the world protected. With only the US and Europe protected, would would have a constant race against the variants as hundreds of millions of people get infected each year in other areas giving the virus plenty of chances to mutant into something problematic. Vaccinate the whole world (even if only 80% effective against some variants) and you significantly reduce the number of global infections and cut way down on the chance of a new problematic variant arising.

Note: we will likely see another dangerous coronavirus make the jump from animals to humans in the next 10 years (see SARS, MERS, and COVID19, all since 2000). That will likely require a new round of vaccinations, but that is different than a new variant of COVID19.
JP_Losman
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Most talk is on vaccination.

Natural immunity after healing from actual infection is getting very little if any cred out there anymore.

Except in Israel

Dad
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The_Fox said:

NicosMachine said:

I think the pharmaceutical companies will tell us we need a shot every year. It will be worth billions to them. I'd rather die of experience mild cold-like symptoms from Covid.
FIFY
I concur.

I got the vaccine about 2 weeks after it hit the market but I don't think I will line up for these boosters unless we are getting night and day outcomes between people with the booster and people that don't get the booster and the group with the booster are much better off. If a variant breaks through that will give me the sniffles then I'd rather get the sniffles than another round of a vaccine.
P.U.T.U
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The big 2 as of right now are on a pace to be able to make $26 billion a year for the vaccine. That is more than chump change
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