Yesterday, the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel met to discuss the latest data and fall booster plans. Going into this, there were many questions—and we got some answers. Will fall boosters be Omicron-only? Yes. As some experts have argued (and as I’ve written
What about vaccination to reduce Long Covid risk in the “young and healthy” vs your concern re imprinting? That needs to be addressed in any recommendation for or against boosting in the younger population. Would you mind commenting?
Hi yes, I thought this might come up so thanks for asking. Prior to bivalent at least (we don’t know re: bivalent), the rate of infection evens out over time due to imprinting. Therefore LC would be expected to be unchanged. This however could drastically change if imprinting decreases with the new formulation. That means that more frequent boosting in the young/healthy cohort would indeed become more favorable on balance than it is now. It’s just that until now, there’s been a tendency to downplay the possible known and unknown trade offs (in my view and others who carefully look at this)
I really appreciate your response. Concerned parent of a teen who struggled with muscoloskeletal pain and fatigue after his bout with Covid. Not to mention being chronically ill throughout the school year ever since, seemingly unable to thwart any of the other viruses going around. Kids like him don’t show up in any data due to never being hospitalized, but there are millions in this boat. New subscriber and I will stay tuned for more on this!
From Mark Zuckerberg on being asked to lie for the government just this week,
Dr Faust, I’m curious about your thoughts on what Mark Zuckerberg said this week that he was asked to censor true things by the government, here is the full quote, how are we supposed to trust these agencies when it’s clear they are captured by the pharma companies, it’s really complicated
“Just take some of the stuff around Covid earlier on in the pandemic, where there were real health implications, but there hadn’t been time to fully vet a bunch of the scientific assumptions. . . Unfortunately, I think a lot of the establishment on that kind of waffled on a bunch of facts and asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true. That stuff is really tough, right?”
Context: I used to write this newsletter for Bulletin, which Meta owns. I was paid to write whatever I wanted and I was free to agree or disagree with whomever I chose and did so, whether it was people “on my side” or not.
That said, I agree with Zuck in one sense which is that it’s all easier said that done. Posting “Covid is airborne” in January of 2020 would’ve been tagged as misinformation. It turned out to be airborne enough that that statement is now seen as more true than false. What do do about that, I don’t know. I don’t subscribe to just giving up all attempts at content moderation. But I do think caveats are always warranted. I also don’t think many of these mistakes were nefarious due to anyone being bought/sold. Ignorance (rather than malfeasance) is usually a sufficient explanation when things go wrong.
Go to state of the art South Korean medical research published early on that documented airbone infection routes, plural.
I had a friend who was a retired epidemiologist who was taking airborne risk counter measures in February 2020 that I simplied copied & personally warned others particularly Vulnerables.
Does imprinting make you more susceptible to getting the virus again? I don’t know much about imprinting. My plan is to follow what the next advice/guidelines for fall vaccines.
Dies immune imprinting for away? I believe it as I have had five shots. It was out of abundance of caution as I am 53 and pretty healthy except I had a lung tumor removed, no chemo or radiation and I am a non smoker. I got my second bout six weeks after that boost. I did get my bivalent six months after infection as I work with children and need to protect them!
It is unlikely to go away without further exposure to something else. So your second bout and a future non-Wuhan booster might chip away at it. But I’m not certain
What about vaccination to reduce Long Covid risk in the “young and healthy” vs your concern re imprinting? That needs to be addressed in any recommendation for or against boosting in the younger population. Would you mind commenting?
Hi yes, I thought this might come up so thanks for asking. Prior to bivalent at least (we don’t know re: bivalent), the rate of infection evens out over time due to imprinting. Therefore LC would be expected to be unchanged. This however could drastically change if imprinting decreases with the new formulation. That means that more frequent boosting in the young/healthy cohort would indeed become more favorable on balance than it is now. It’s just that until now, there’s been a tendency to downplay the possible known and unknown trade offs (in my view and others who carefully look at this)
I really appreciate your response. Concerned parent of a teen who struggled with muscoloskeletal pain and fatigue after his bout with Covid. Not to mention being chronically ill throughout the school year ever since, seemingly unable to thwart any of the other viruses going around. Kids like him don’t show up in any data due to never being hospitalized, but there are millions in this boat. New subscriber and I will stay tuned for more on this!
From Mark Zuckerberg on being asked to lie for the government just this week,
Dr Faust, I’m curious about your thoughts on what Mark Zuckerberg said this week that he was asked to censor true things by the government, here is the full quote, how are we supposed to trust these agencies when it’s clear they are captured by the pharma companies, it’s really complicated
“Just take some of the stuff around Covid earlier on in the pandemic, where there were real health implications, but there hadn’t been time to fully vet a bunch of the scientific assumptions. . . Unfortunately, I think a lot of the establishment on that kind of waffled on a bunch of facts and asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true. That stuff is really tough, right?”
Context: I used to write this newsletter for Bulletin, which Meta owns. I was paid to write whatever I wanted and I was free to agree or disagree with whomever I chose and did so, whether it was people “on my side” or not.
That said, I agree with Zuck in one sense which is that it’s all easier said that done. Posting “Covid is airborne” in January of 2020 would’ve been tagged as misinformation. It turned out to be airborne enough that that statement is now seen as more true than false. What do do about that, I don’t know. I don’t subscribe to just giving up all attempts at content moderation. But I do think caveats are always warranted. I also don’t think many of these mistakes were nefarious due to anyone being bought/sold. Ignorance (rather than malfeasance) is usually a sufficient explanation when things go wrong.
Go to state of the art South Korean medical research published early on that documented airbone infection routes, plural.
I had a friend who was a retired epidemiologist who was taking airborne risk counter measures in February 2020 that I simplied copied & personally warned others particularly Vulnerables.
Noted, monovalent, omicron only.
Cautiously optimistic on incremental improvement and incremental decrease in imprinting
Does imprinting make you more susceptible to getting the virus again? I don’t know much about imprinting. My plan is to follow what the next advice/guidelines for fall vaccines.
Dies immune imprinting for away? I believe it as I have had five shots. It was out of abundance of caution as I am 53 and pretty healthy except I had a lung tumor removed, no chemo or radiation and I am a non smoker. I got my second bout six weeks after that boost. I did get my bivalent six months after infection as I work with children and need to protect them!
It is unlikely to go away without further exposure to something else. So your second bout and a future non-Wuhan booster might chip away at it. But I’m not certain