What is driving the push for a booster less than a year after the initial offering was available? Interested in science based answers - not the political / pharm profit answers

[We don't want the trolling. Check your email. - Staff]

Let's say that threshold of protection for original strain is "X" antibodies. Right after vaccination, most people are well protected (10X-100X). After 6 months, say antibody levels drop. If you boost them, now the range might be 50X-500X. With this level of antibody, just about everyone should be resistant.

Antibody overproduction has been a known proven tactic against viruses that overproduce antigens in an attempt to overwhelm the immune response since the Hepatitis B vaccine.

https://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/files/coronavirus/covid-19-infection-survey/finalfinalcombinedve20210816.pdf

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02261-8

amercer said:

---

The antibody response from the vaccines seem to fade pretty quickly.

A booster after 6 months greatly increased the amount of circulating anti Covid-19 antibodies.

This has been correlated to better protection in Israel (which was the first place to see a decline in immunity from the vaccines and the first place to start boosting, but may be unique in other ways too). There are plenty of additional ways your immune system works beyond antibodies, which is why the vaccines still are great at preventing hospitalization and death unless you are really high risk. But high circulating antibodies probably mean that you don't get infected at all, and thus don't need the other immune responses to kick in.

I think there is a lot of debate about how much a booster of the same vaccine helps against new variants (and right now they all immunize against the same spike protein) I'd rather see boosters against the delta spike.

On the positive side for boosters, initial Moderna vaccination seems better than Pfizer, and the difference was that Moderna is a higher dose. So there is some evidence that more is more, even if it's not against the current variant.

I'm not running out to get a booster because I don't think the evidence is there yet that it really helps lower risk people. But I also don't think a third shot is going to do any harm.

---

It's also worth noting that there is a significant level of disagreement within the medical community regarding boosters (at least for the mRNA vaccines).

It's true that antibodies will wane over time, but the other aspects of the immune response - T Cells and memory B cells - appear to be quite strong six months post vaccine.

Waning antibodies have resulted in more "break through" infections; however, the vaccines continue to do a fantastic job at preventing severe disease. That being said, a subset of the population (e.g., older folks, immuno comprimised, several risk factors for severe COVID), would likely benefit from a booster to ensure a robust immune response.

If the goal is to prevent all infections, including asymptomatic infections, then a periodic booster will likely be needed. As most of the world remains unvaccinated, and the majority of "break-through" cases result in mild or even a complete lack of symptoms, I find this to be a bizzare position.

On the other hand, if the goal is to prevent the possibility of severe disease, and essentially turn COVID into just another URI, then a "booster" dose may not be needed for years, if at all. Considering the infectiousness of Delta, it's reasonable to expect that we will all have an encounter (or several) with COVID in the future. For those with pre-existing immunity - either through prior infection, vaccination, or both - these scenarios will likely serve as a natural booster anyways.

It stops working after 6-7 months, thus booster needed.

Is it that it fades over time or that we have a variant our current vaccines may not provide as robust protection against?

I'm not really aware of any clear information on that.

Are these covid boosters exactly the same as the original vaccines? Or, have they been updated or modified?

Fenrir said:

---

Is it that it fades over time or that we have a variant our current vaccines may not provide as robust protection against?

I'm not really aware of any clear information on that.

---

I'm not completely sure, but many experts were speculating pre-Delta that efficacy was less than a year with these vaccines.

Moderna still has very high effectiveness against delta last time I saw numbers.

The earliest effectiveness concerns I recall were from Pfizer earnings reports which I have concerns about obvious bias issues.

That's why we went with Moderna and also suggests these vaccines just stop working over time.

But, frankly, we don't really know what the truth is on some of this because of all of the politics and lies around it.

YouBet said:

---

It stops working after 6-7 months, thus booster needed.

---

The public health messaging on this topic, including the Biden Administration, CDC/FDA, and mainstream media, has been quite poor.

A recently published paper in science shows that memory B cell and T cell levels actually increase as antibody levels wane over a 6 month period, this provides the technical basis to explain why the vaccines are still doing a great job preventing hospitalization, for all virus variants.

https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.abm0829

Fair enough but the scientific papers aren't helping themselves. Just look at the study you linked.

Title of paper: "mRNA vaccines induce durable immune memory to SARS-COV-2 and variants of concern"

But then....

First sentence: "The durability of immunity after SARS-COV-2 mRNA vaccines remains unclear."

Completely contradictory statements. How are people supposed to interpret that?

YouBet said:

---

Fair enough but the scientific papers aren't helping themselves. Just look at the study you linked.

Title of paper: "mRNA vaccines induce durable immune memory to SARS-COV-2 and variants of concern"

But then....

First sentence: "The durability of immunity after SARS-COV-2 mRNA vaccines remains unclear."

Completely contradictory statements. How are people supposed to interpret that?

---

That first sentence is part of the abstract, which among other purposes, describes why the research was even done in the first place.

The actual data, and summary conclusions, appear later in the paper. Also, the next few sentences of the abstract provide a pretty clear summary (IMO) of the topics which are covered:

Quote:

---

The durability of immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination remains unclear. Here, we

longitudinally profiled vaccine responses in SARS-CoV-2 nave and recovered individuals for 6 months after

vaccination. Antibodies declined from peak levels but remained detectable in most subjects at 6 months.

We found mRNA vaccines generated functional memory B cells that increased from 3-6 months post-

vaccination, with the majority of these cells cross-binding the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants. mRNA

vaccination further induced antigen-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, and early CD4+ T cell responses

correlated with long-term humoral immunity. Recall responses to vaccination in individuals with pre-

existing immunity primarily increased antibody levels without substantially altering antibody decay rates.

Together, these findings demonstrate robust cellular immune memory to SARS-CoV-2 and variants for at

least 6 months after mRNA vaccination.

---

I think that much of immunity gained from a vaccine depends to a degree on the number of viruses or viral particles seen. This is one reason why there may be multiple vaccinations instead of just one. Also, a vaccination or series of vaccinations may provide better immunity in some cases than actually having the disease. A booster would include more viruses or viral particles and thus give the body a chance to enhance the immunity.

This obviously isn't the only factor. For example, the immunity gained also depends on your immune response. If you have a poor immune response, you might not gain much, if any, immunity from a vaccination.

Also, the immune response is partly an issue of probability. For example, a rather small percentage of young dogs will not gain any immunity from a rabies vaccination.

And, as has been mentioned here, the immunity normally declines over time. There are a number of vaccines for which a booster is encouraged.

For something really serious, they may not even take chances at all. For example, if you are exposed to rabies, you get a rabies vaccination even if you have already been vaccinated for rabies. You may have had sufficient immunity from the previous vaccination, but why take a chance that your immunity might not be enough?

Early on, with the knowledge that the four known coronaviruses that can cause a cold only resulted in immunity of something like 8 to 12 months, there was some thought that having covid would not give you long term immunity and no vaccine for it would likely to give you long term immunity.

It seemed to me that those who were most sure the vaccine would give you long term immunity were those with no medical training. Also, it seems like those who are most adamant about natural immunity from having the disease would be long term tend to be those with no medical training. This seems to align with my impression that the people who are most sure that what they know is true are those who know the least about it. The more you know about a subject, the more you are likely to be aware of the limits of your knowledge.

Yeah, I get that but it doesn't help the case. Anyone can take that (like I did) and make a logical assumption the report is confusing and contradictory because it's not clear.

Even so, the conclusion is that the vaccines are good for at least 6 months which still really doesn't answer any questions for us. Our known horizon for vaccine efficacy remains ~6 months according to this study.

Quote:

---

This seems to align with my impression that the people who are most sure that what they know is true are those who know the least about it. The more you know about a subject, the more you are likely to be aware of the limits of your knowledge.

---

Duning-Kruger!

YouBet said:

---

Yeah, I get that but it doesn't help the case. Anyone can take that (like I did) and make a logical assumption the report is confusing and contradictory because it's not clear.

Even so, the conclusion is that the vaccines are good for at least 6 months which still really doesn't answer any questions for us. Our known horizon for vaccine efficacy remains ~6 months according to this study.

---

No disagreements on your second point. It's impossible to predict the future. I do think it's reasonable to expect the vaccines (and prior infections!) to continue doing a fairly good job protecting against severe disease based on the latest research regarding cell-mediated immunity.

Is there a natural booster? Ie, exposure/contamination with covid positive individuals introducing the virus in to your system again should trigger a similar reaction as a vaccine booster, right?