Yes, but remember, my statement was based on doing this early and with accurate tests. Had we had that capacity, many of those factors would have been different. If everyone tested everyday and was compliant we could have dispensed with masks, shutdowns, etc.
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Unless this was done worldwide it would likely just delay. As seen in other countries, with worldwide travel even countries that do better still can have new outbreaks
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General emails say people have options of participating remotely, but Senior leaders are encouraged to show up in person. Lunch will be provided. Hmm, no i wonât be eating indoor with people I donât know.
I know people want to believe Covid is done and everything is back to where we were before. It is still with us, but It doesnât mean we canât do a lot of things we were doing before, at the same time we could do things to make it less risky.
I just had a business get together this evening at a bar. I picked an enclosed ventilated outdoor place with heat lamps. I have another business meeting to go to tomorrow and the venue will be outdoor.
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Yep, âperfect worldâ as was the caveat. 
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Last week I was told here that we are each only responsible for ourselves. If we want to mask, we mask. If we want to social distance, we social distance. I would put testing in the same category. Itâs time we learn to live with covid around us, and it is simply not right to expect that restrictions be placed on others for our comfort.
And as far as young children, I donât know that mitigations for others to do to protect the young children holds much meaning anymore. Only 28% of children ages 5 - 11 got vaccinated. It is expected that an even lower percentage of younger children will get the vaccine (when itâs eventually approved).
Moderna announced results of testing of a vaccine originally targeting the beta variant, and they are developing a âbivalentâ vaccine, possibly for the fall, that will have address the original COVID and Omicron variants.
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I found this article so useful for anyone who is concerned for immunocompromised folks (themselves or others). The misinformation that vaccines donât work for immunocompromised people has been terrible, and can definitely be harmful (both in terms of discouraging vaccination âbecause it wonât workâ, and eliciting disproportionate levels of fear and anxiety that may also deprive people of meaningful experiences. This article does the best job Iâve seen of laying out the facts & figures on the effectiveness of vaccines for the very wide range of immunocompromised individuals (the risk of covid to a vaccinated younger person with rheumatoid arthritis vs. the risk of covid to an unvaccinated elderly organ transplant recipient is Vastly different, they are not in the same category and clumping them together and just labeling them âimmunocompromisedâ isnât very helpful). And the impact of getting the 4/now sometimes 5 vaccine doses that are recommended, which in most cases cut the risk of severe disease to similar rates as the general population. The article does not mention the availability and power of EvuShield, for some reason. Anyway, thought this would be interesting for people with concerns about the immunocompromised (donât we all?).
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Canât access this article. What is the gist?
Thanks Hippobirdy for the screenshots. Too bad I canât figure out how to get the full access article posted; itâs really good and worth searching for. Iâd say the key points are that there is a strong tendency to imply in articles that the vaccines donât work for immunocompromised people, and that is patently false. It seems that they donât mount as good of an antibody response, so the likelihood of infection after vaccination may be higher for immunocompromised, but they still reap enormous benefits against severe disease and hospitalization. Yet because of some experts and reporters and just people casually implying that immunocompromised arenât protected, this has led to increased vaccine hesitancy in that population (âWhy bother? Itâs not going to work for me anywayâ). Recent survey showed 25% of surveyed autoimmune patients taking immunosuppressive meds were not vaccinated even with 1 shot. But the vaccines (especially getting all the shots theyâre eligible for, which is now 5) actually do provide robust protection from severe disease. So all these people feel âleft for deadâ and that âsociety doesnât care that I will die if I get covidâ, but really that is massively blown out of proportion and untrue, and itâs cruel to perpetuate that false information because these patients could legitimately feel far safer than they do if they were provided with the data. Also, most articles lump all immunocompromised people into one category, but the increased risks for someone with fibromyalgia are very minimal vs. the general population, whereas they are higher for small slices of the immunocompromised population particularly organ transplant recipients. So a lot of people are stuck with excessive worry because of this myth that vaccines donât work for immunocompromised. The vaccines actually provide different levels of protection from hospitalization depending on the condition, with most categories getting similar protection to the general population: 81% decrease in hospitalization for people with rheumatologic issues, 79% for those with solid cancers, etc, down to the lowest is a 59% reduction in hospitalization for organ transplant recipients. And in most of these surveys, the people hadnât even gotten all their shots & boosters, so protection would be higher if they got all they were eligible for (and Iâd add, Evushield) .So the vaccine IS highly protective for immunocompromised, and itâs harmful to perpetuate the idea that it isnât, as it leads to greater vaccine hesitancy and probably an inappropriate feeling of being âleft for deadâ by loosened restrictions. I learned a lot from the articleâwhile I had previously read that immunocompromised people greatly benefited from the 4th shot, I hadnât realized how close their results are to the general population. We should encourage people in these groups to get their full arsenal of vaccines and also they can feel safer than they probably do. Final quote: âAge continues to be, far and away, the most powerful [risk factor] for becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus. Putman, the rheumatologist, uses an example of a 64-year-old doctor counseling a 24-year-old autoimmune patient to take precautions. The patient should probably be admonishing the doctor instead, he told me.â
Ha ha ha, Iâm not very good at succinctly summarizing, I guess 
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Personally, I think the author took facts out of context and this calls into question the whole article.
The first reference, ineffective, was taken from a NYT article which read in full: 'For a small percentage of Americans, vaccination is impossible or ineffective. This group includes people who are receiving cancer treatments and those who have received certain organ transplants."
Is that in incorrect?
The second reference (âcannot work on everyoneâ) was a story about a (immunocompromised) woman who was vaccinated and still got covid. Well, doh!
I think that IS incorrect. Even transplant patients get 59% protection against hospitalization. I would say thatâs highly effectiveâŠto call it ineffective seems pretty crazy, doesnât it?
But beyond the references there, I feel I have continually been bombarded with the message that the immunocompromised are barely protected from vaccines. Clearly, thatâs not the case. I learned a lot from reading the stats in the article. Perhaps you already knew how effective the vaccines are for the various immunocompromised groups, so it may not have been as enlightening for you.
I think an important point may be that we are talking about apples, oranges, pears, plums, cherries and more.
It depends not just on what condition or age but what meds and at what dose. For instance, folks on less than 20mg prednisone were advised by my rheumatologist to go ahead and have the vaccine without stopping.
It is up to every individual to find out their risk and act accordingly.
For anyone of any age with a definite vulnerability, there is indeed a feeling of being left behind. For young people this happens in terms of dating, eating out and other social activities that are important for their age group. I donât think it is so much being âscaredâ as being prudent.
I would speculate that this kind of article (from what I gather it says) will hurt immunocompromised people by minimizing risk and supporting those people in their lives who treat them as neurotic for their concerns.
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Oh, thatâs so interesting, your final point. I didnât take it that way at all (as harmful to immunocompromised people)âŠI think it should be illuminating and very encouraging. I mean I think the general population only gets approximately 80ish% protection against hospitalization from the vaccines, so if I had been living in deep fear and now learn that my condition ALSO means I get approximately 80% protection, I think it would make me feel very good. Yes, I am way more likely to get infected since the antibody part of the response is lower, but my risk of severe disease is somewhat comparable to others. I think itâs possible people have been very harmed by not realizing how effective the vaccines are for them. But the article also didnât minimize overall riskâit emphasized the importance of getting the full retinue of vaccines one is eligible for, in order to reduce risk. But I guess everything is open to various interpretations!!
THIS!!!
My S, who is 23 and immune compromised since he was 15, has been vaccinated 3x, boosted once, and received the Evusheld recently. He stays up to date on COVID issues and communicates with his specialists regularly. He knows that he will not die from COVID, but he does not want have long terms problems like long COVID or other long term health problems. He already has two life long health issues. All of his specialists recommend that he continues to be cautions and mask indoors.
As @compmom stated in an earlier post, my son is one of those individuals who feels left behind because he canât socialize as much as his peers and to consider things like dating. Thereâs just too many unknown risks. Please just think what your college and 20 somethings children are doing for social activities on a regular basis - meeting friends at crowded trendy restaurants and bars, vacationing, dating, even hooking up, without worrying about COVID consequences.
My Sâs not hiding in his apartment. He goes to work masked and these days he is one of just 3 people at his company who continues to wear a mask. He continues to hike with his hiking friends. He goes to the gym, but not the gym where many young people go. He joined a gym at a local JCC because it was the only one that required masks all last year (weâre not Jewish). He meets a few close friends at outdoor events and places when weather permits. He canât just do things without planning and thinking through things.
He has to be prudent because after the 3rd full vaccine in August 2021 (prior to Delta and Omicrom), he felt very confident thinking he was protected. He thought he can now go to indoor restaurants and bars with friends. So for the first time in a year, he did one time. Five days later he got COVID. Luckily, his early symptoms were not too terrible and he knew right away to ask for monoclonal antibody treatment immediately and his specialists all approved. We donât know if his outcomes were good because he was 3x vaccinated or because he received the monoclonal antibody treatment. What we do know is that he was very stressed during it for quite a long while after. He canât let his guard down after this experience. Heâll continue to be prudent and may be the lone mask wearer indoors, even if a stranger at an indoor place yelled at him to take off his mask recently.
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Actually, Delta was the predominant variant in the US in August 2021 (it was between late June and late November). However, public awareness and concern tends to be somewhat behind.
Comparison of immune responses to different vaccines, including Novavax trial (NN) as well as Pfizer (PP), Moderna (MM), and J&J (J) (two doses each except one dose for J&J). Also, comparison to infected (I) for some aspects.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.18.484953v1.full
Approximate rankings from graphs:
| Aspect of immune response | Response to different vaccines |
|---|---|
| Spike IgG antibodies | MM, PP > I > NN > J |
| RBD IgG antibodies | MM, PP > NN > I, J |
| Pseudovirus neutralization | MM > PP, NN > I, J |
| CD4+ T-cells | MM, NN > PP > J > I |
| CD4+ T-cells (cTfh) | NN > MM, PP > I > J |
| CD8+ T-cells | J, MM > PP > NN |
| Spike memory B-cells | PP, MM > J > NN |
| RBD memory B-cells | MM > PP > J, NN |
It would be a huge lift, but it would be interesting to see how heterologous boost impacts this. Thanks for the summary!
Or any boost⊠since the more-concerned-about-COVID-19 people in the US have probably already gotten boosters, whether the same or different from their primary vaccinations. Also, other studies have indicated that (almost) any 3 doses is generally better than any 2 doses for protection against COVID-19.
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I read the study with a lot of concentration needed, so appreciate this chart. Thank you @ucbalumnus.
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