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I have a few relatives in the medical field (all vaxxed and boosted) that have explained the booster shot is just more of the same stuff - they haven't had time to make a new recipe.. so isn't this just the same study all over again? i.e 2 shots had high protection in the beginning and waned over time. Can we expect the same from the booster shot?

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Expert on tv explained it just yesterday.. 3 shots is actually what you need for most vaccines and is the common procedure for most if you remember..

1st shot "warns" your immune system 2nd shot really triggers your immune system (that's also why most people see strongest side effects here) 3rd shot then makes your immune remind, and massively increases B+T lymphocytesmemory memory cells

So yeah, you can expect a lot from it.

> Expert on tv explained it just yesterday.. 3 shots is actually what you need for most vaccines and is the common procedure for most if you remember..

The same so called experts that will say that now you need the 4th dose, the 5th etc. It's now obvious that it's a vaccine as a service.

Pfizer ceo's hinted at it last year, saying it would probably be recurring every 6 months.

That’s… fine? I don’t care if I have to get a jab every 6 months. I don’t care if Pfizer and Moderna make a ton of money off this—they deserve it.

That's cool, you can give them as much money as you want. My problem is when it is me giving them the money (directly or through my taxes)

No its not fine because not everyone reacts well to these vaccines. I know numerous people, including myself, that have had crippling heart inflammation after their second dose. I can apply for an exemption but ultimately that does little for what rights I am afforded.

People are being left behind, and its not okay.

And I know people who died from Covid, who'd be alive today if they'd took the vaccine.

The difference here is no one is forcing you NOT to take the vaccine.

But I did take the vaccine, twice. It gives me great anxiety to think about taking it again given what I have gone through. My situation improved significantly but I might not be so lucky next time. I shouldnt have to weigh up potential damage to my heart, versus my right to freedom of movement (im an expat).

Personally im holding out for Novavax now.

What do you suggest as an alternative? This is the current state of the science as far as Covid-19 is concerned. There will most definitely be different types of vaccines with longer lasting immunity [1] and anti-viral drugs [2] in the future but this is the best we have at this time.

[1] https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/emergex-trial-covid...

[2] https://www.npr.org/2021/12/06/1061902658/what-a-new-antivir...

I appreciate the concise explanation.

Is there data yet that demonstrates what you describe is indeed the effect? Or have 3rd doses not yet been deployed widely enough and for long enough to know?

I think there are two schools of thought, with little evidence so far to make one dominant.

What the press seems to be assuming is that it's as simple as the immunity from vaccination simply wearing out over time. But there's at least one alternative explanation.

The alternative is that the timing of the second dose was less than optimal. With little experimentation to guide the authorities, the 4-week delay was chosen in part to give a quicker timeline for vaccination. If they'd said, say, 2 months or 6 months, then we would have been that much slower getting to even that level of immunity, so it was a conscious compromise. But what if the optimal gap between shots really is 6 months, and because the booster achieves that, the effect will be more permanent?

Like I said, not enough is known for sure, but there is some reason to believe that the latter explanation may be true.

We should have the data to study that since some countries decided to wait longer between doses. The UK and Canada focused on getting as many first-doses into arms as possible before folks were eligible for a second jab.

From reading around (not a biologist), I get the impression that there's some kind of super-linear immunity building, not just waning protection. Standard children's vaccines often have a few doses, and not evenly spaced.

Soo... you're building up better immunity against the "baseline" virus with each dose. That immunity translates to some (reduced) immunity to the variants. But if the "baseline" is high enough, you can afford some drop in efficiency.

Perhaps in some ideal world, the boosters would be tuned to the variants. But as you say, they would need to be re-tested etc. Cf. the AZ vaccine, which through some arcane process causes (extremely rare) blood clots, it's probably hard to verify ahead of time a modified vaccine wouldn't suffer from such side effects.

My understanding is that there is poor evidence that any of the vaccines cause a statistically significant increase in blood clots over any other vaccine-- that the act of getting an immunization can (very rarely) trigger a blood clot regardless of what it is and COVID just happens to be in the hyper-sensitive spotlight.

It is likely that the cause or at least a cause of rare blood clots has been found. There is a chance that adenovirus used to make vaccines can bind to a specific clotting factor in the blood which then in rare cases may be attacked by antibodies created by the immune system to fight the infection.

https://www.biospace.com/article/researchers-find-possible-c...

They are comparing 3 weeks after second dose and 4 weeks after 3rd dose. Presumably efficacy drop over time after vaccination is not in scope.

Not enough time has passed under observation to actually determine if it will wane similarly.

It took just weeks after the virus was DNA sequenced to make the first vaccine. The trials are what took so long. The vaccine existed before we started shutting stuff down in the US.

https://covid19.nih.gov/news-and-stories/vaccine-development

The immune response to the booster isn't necessary the same as the response to the second dose, so no, it isn't the same study.

One impact is that antibody levels are higher after the booster than after the second dose.

There are studies that show, that you do not have much protection against an infection half a year after your second dose. This is true for all available vaccines in the western world. You probably still have protection against a severe outcome, but not against getting infected and thus spreading the virus.

A third dose, even of the same stuff, will again increase your amount of antibodies and therefore lessen the chance of an infection in the first place. Using a different vaccine as third dose seems to offer even more protection.

My assumption at this point is: probably, but the immune system is complicated so nobody's really sure.

The important bit is Omicron. Since as you say the recipe is the same it is an open question whether these vaccines can offer the same protection as for delta (and for how many doses)

I think immune response doesn’t necessarily work that way. It’s possible the third shot could improve immunity for a longer time frame of 1-3yrs.

I think I read there is also a new omicron specific mRNA vaccine in the works too.

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