I'm not aware of any double-blind placebo-controlled trial that is powerful enough to determine risk reduction for death or severe disease in vaccines, much less over several months.
What, precisely, do you think we know? The vaccines were tested against the first strain so it's not surprising that they lost effectiveness at preventing infection entirely against variants like Omicron with significantly greater immune evasion but even there we still see massive benefits against severe cases. The current performance of the mRNA vaccines against Omicron is still better than many people cautioned would considered a good result for the first iteration of a vaccine created for a new virus.
At the same time, we didn't see "massive benefit" against severe cases in breakthrough infections in a matched cohort study[2]. This leads me to suspect that current statistical observations do not reflect reality and may well be artifacts. Paradoxically, we're also observing increased odds of Omikron infection after (two dose) vaccination.
Furthermore, we're administering boosters even to teenagers based on good faith, not good science. Hence, there still is a need for placebo-controlled trials.
[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410
[2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.26.21265508v...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-vaccine-booster-shot-c...
If you look at the matched cohort study I linked, vaccine efficacy against severe outcome isn't anywhere near 90%, but rather 30%-50%. If the vaccine then also fails to protect against infection, as it does with Omikron, it couldn't possibly have 95% efficacy against severe disease. What could explain this discrepancy, other than statistical shenanigans?
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
You forgot to read this part of your source when making your cherry-picked anti-vax argument.
Remember, the people defending Ivermectin also argue that it's unethical to do further trials when it is "clearly effective" (according to under-powered studies). Consider that pharma companies deliberately avoid follow-up trials to avoid finding results that don't align with business interest. Remdesivir and Molnupiravir both looked promising in early trials, but were found to be rather ineffective (and dangerous) in later trials.
I don't have a problem with administering drugs/vaccines based on good faith and speculative benefit if that is declared appropriately. Just don't dress it up as "scientifically validated".
I agree with your last sentence a lot, we can do a lot of things and administer a lot of things, just don’t say “an attack on it is an attack on science”
The evidence for covid vaccines is that they provide robust protection for months, and then protection may begin to wain.
Evidence for ivermectin is that, ehhh it might have some effect.
Those aren't the same. Trying to dress them up as similar is wrong. These two things as re not equally scientifically validated.
Hone your own advice and be precise in your claims.
There is good evidence that two doses of the vaccine were protective for at least three months, against the variants dominating 2021.
It's 2022, there is a new escape variant about and we endorsed teenagers to get a booster shot to "protect" themselves from this new variant - based on what evidence exactly?
> Evidence for ivermectin is that, ehhh it might have some effect.
There is lots of weak evidence that it's highly effective and some weak evidence that it does nothing. This adds up no good evidence for anything.
> Those aren't the same. Trying to dress them up as similar is wrong. These two things as re not equally scientifically validated.
That's not the point. The question is, do you apply the same standard to both? Do you reject weak observational data as evidence? If so, a lot of the claims about vaccine effectiveness (here and now) are not supported by evidence.
I was. The claims I made are backed by strong randomized controlled trials.
> There is good evidence that two doses of the vaccine were protective for at least three months, against the variants dominating 2021.
And also good RCT based evidence that a third dose (or perhaps just a more recent dose) provides robust protection against delta and omicron variants. The precise level of protection is different because the variants are all a little different, but the conclusion of "boosters provide robust immunity against variants" is strongly supported.
So yes, there is good evidence that boosters provide protection. There is not good evidence that ivermectin does anything.
> It's 2022, there is a new escape variant about and we endorsed teenagers to get a booster shot to "protect" themselves from this new variant - based on what evidence exactly?
To be clear, there are two reasons you run studies
1. To validate effectiveness
2. To validate safety
There's not really a reason to believe that the boosters will be less effective in teens. In fact, there's strong reason to believe that they'll be just as effective as in everyone else. You really don't need a study for this.
What you might need a study for is validating safety, which is why we break out pregnant people, teens, young kids, and adults. Those groups can have different safety impacts (kids and teens weigh less, so doses might need to be smaller to be safe!).
Except that we already know that the exact substance we're sticking in teens is safe in teens, because its half of the exact same thing as in the initial doses. So if your concern is safety, its fine, and if your concern is efficacy, well we have strong RCT evidence of efficacy. We also generally speaking know that ivermectin is safe. But, we have no evidence to its efficacy.
So I apply precisely the same standard.
> Except that we already know that the exact substance we're sticking in teens is safe in teens, because its half of the exact same thing as in the initial doses. So if your concern is safety, its fine, and if your concern is efficacy, well we have strong RCT evidence of efficacy.
My concern would be risk/benefit. As far as I'm aware, not everyone gets a half dose for the booster, but even then there's a risk for Myocarditis with the third dose, among other things. What is the additional risk reduction for an Omikron infection in a healthy young (male) teenager that has already been vaccinated with two doses? Is it really worth the risk of side-effects? There is no good data on this.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
Even if that's the hill you've chosen to die on, Delta is still out there and at a high prevalence especially in North America and you've admitted that the vaccine is effective but wanes, so a booster makes sense in that cost benefit regardless.
These boosters are administered to teenagers, who are also at the highest risk for Myocarditis. What makes you so confident that the imputed benefit of a booster outweighs the risk? Where is the data?
If you want to administer boosters to everyone based on speculation and weak observational data, go right ahead. Just don't act as if you have "the science" backing you up.