Covid 19 Vaccine

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Waterfall said:
Do you personally think we have enough protection then?
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Define enough protection.

Delta was one of the first major variants that had a large wave. The vaccines were pretty effective for that. I think we will see any of these 3 updated vaccines be effective for 6 months for any of the Omicron subvariants, with some slight differences between them. It's where the mutations go next, and I do think the mutation that is common to BA.4 and BA.5 is likely to persist in any new varients/subvariants for a while, especially as that is where the new mutations are likely to come from just based on numbers.
 
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ChemGal said:
They target different subvariants. There is both a Moderna and a Pfizer vaccine that target the BA.4 & BA.5 variants. The one approved today is for BA.1
My next dose may end up being that, will have to wait to see what the plan is. Canada will be looking at both of those in addition to what was approved today.

noted - changed that from variants to subvariants.
These ones are all more likely to work for all Omicron variants than the original vaccines we had.
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Thanks for clearing that up. Many news articles don’t use BÀ.1, etc. Perhaps they’re afraid don’t know what they mean.
 
Oh and to clear one thing up, these are all bivalent with 2 different mRNA molecules - one based on the original COVID variant and one based on Omicron.
Because some are for both BA.4 and BA.5 they are assuming that the bi is referring to one for BA.4 and one for BA.5 - that's not the case, it's just that BA.4 and BA.5 share a mutation. I'm not totally sure, it's possible the vaccine doesn't even contain any of the mRNA in the part of the virus that makes BA.4 and BA.5 different from each other.
 
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BetteTheRed said:
Agreed, chemgal. I don't know what "enough" means, but I'll trust the same folk who "guess" at my annual flu shot combo to "guess" at my now annual covid booster...
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Really,? The flu shot has a low effectiveness rate over the last 25 years...especially for the elderly.
 
BetteTheRed said:
I say "like", my dear, but to many of us, "it's clear as mud but it covers the ground"...
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The last part was mostly because of comments I have seen online, stating the US is just focusing on BA.4 and BA.5 now and nothing else. Not true, they all basically have a 'booster' to what we had plus an updated vaccine.
I have seen the US referring to these shots as updated boosters, not sure if Canada will do the same.
 
Basically, the bivalent vaccine is original COVID + Omicron BA.1 but Chemgal is saying that one that has original + Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 (the last wave was BA.5, likely the one I had) is also in development. Any of them will protect against Omicron better than one that only covers original.
 
Waterfall said:
Really,? The flu shot has a low effectiveness rate over the last 25 years...especially for the elderly.
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Waterfall, if a person gets a flu vaccine, they are less likely to get/die from the flu. Especially older people living in LTC. I've watched/been through the LTC route with parents, and the lockdowns and the deaths. Covid was just much worse.
 
Waterfall said:
Really,? The flu shot has a low effectiveness rate over the last 25 years...especially for the elderly.
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It's a guessing game based on what is going to be going around in the future. The same will be true for COVID We cannot produce vaccines instantly.
Based on the Alberta database April, May and June BA.4 was very dominant, now it's almost all BA.5 who knows what it will be in November.
 
BetteTheRed said:
Waterfall, if a person gets a flu vaccine, they are less likely to get/die from the flu. Especially older people living in LTC. I've watched/been through the LTC route with parents, and the lockdowns and the deaths. Covid was just much worse.
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Just google "effectiveness rate for flu vaccine for last 30 years".
 
Waterfall said:
Just google "effectiveness rate for flu vaccine for last 30 years".
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Waterfall, if the effectiveness rate is above the very miniscule rate of vaccine adverse reaction, it's a plus. If you are old, if you are immune compromised, if you are institutionalized, or even if you're reasonably healthy, even if the "effectiveness rate" of that particular year is low, you are still less likely to acquire/get whatever flu strain goes around if you get the shot and you will be less sick if you are infected.
 
BetteTheRed said:
Waterfall, if the effectiveness rate is above the very miniscule rate of vaccine adverse reaction, it's a plus. If you are old, if you are immune compromised, if you are institutionalized, or even if you're reasonably healthy, even if the "effectiveness rate" of that particular year is low, you are still less likely to acquire/get whatever flu strain goes around if you get the shot and you will be less sick if you are infected.
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Science | AAAS

www.science.org www.science.org
 
That did not disprove what I said. It was an interesting article. It seems to me that scientists might be learning from COVID that may apply to other vaccination programs. When we use the word "vaccine", there seem to be two different sorts - the measles/polio/pertussis types that "prevent" infection, and the other - flu, covid - that "lessen" infection?

I didn't say that flu vaccines were perfect. I said that they were better than going without.
 
ChemGal said:
They target different subvariants. There is both a Moderna and a Pfizer vaccine that target the BA.4 & BA.5 variants. The one approved today is for BA.1
My next dose may end up being that, will have to wait to see what the plan is. Canada will be looking at both of those in addition to what was approved today.

noted - changed that from variants to subvariants.
These ones are all more likely to work for all Omicron variants than the original vaccines we had.
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I was rummaging around trying to catch up on the Covid news and I read that BA.1 is no longer circulating. I seem to recall that from before I went into the hospital in July. I used to follow the Covid news more carefully.
 
jimkenney12 said:
But the vaccine against it works on the other Omicron variants.
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Why would we use a vaccine against BÀ.1 if we have a vaccine against 4 and 5? Are you thinking that because the first vaccine is available and ready to go, we should take it now and just wait till the newer vaccine becomes available? Excuse my ignorance, but I got distracted during my August hospital stay and stopped following Covid news.
 
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