News Forum - Moderna finds booster shot effective against Omicron variant

[Thaiger]

Following in the footsteps of Pfizer, Moderna has announced positive results in their study of how the mRNA vaccine stands up against the new Omicron variant. In their new assessment, the makers of Moderna found that, very similarly to the Pfizer vaccine, 2 doses of Moderna is less effective against the Omicron variant than previous strains, but a third booster shot vastly increases its efficacy. The new study is being rushed to a preprint server which allows the research to be peer-reviewed quickly in order to officially publish the findings. So far, their research has found that a 50 microgram […]

The story Moderna finds booster shot effective against Omicron variant as seen on Thaiger News.

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[HolyCowCm]

Well this is good news at least. Sinovac looking at its effectivness? Why bother as no one wants it!

[Poolie]

Shock, horror, probe. One more shot, only 1600baht. Cheap at twice the price.  

[El_Trauco]

21 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

Well this is good news at least. Sinovac looking at its effectivness? Why bother as no one wants it!

Sinovac barely crossed the threshold for effectiveness (50%) with the original strain. Pfizer/Moderna 90%+ original strain. I doubt further studies will be forthcoming on the newer variants.

[Stonker]

As many here may be intending to use booked / paid for Moderna as a booster / third shot, it may be worth pointing out that their 'standard' jabs are 100 microgrammes while their boosters are only 50 mcgs in order to reduce side effects and increase availability, but they've given full doses (100 mcgs) to the immuno-compromised as boosters with no issues.

Pfizer give a full dose for their boosters.

[HolyCowCm]

14 minutes ago, Stonker said:

As many here may be intending to use booked / paid for Moderna as a booster / third shot, it may be worth pointing out that their 'standard' jabs are 100 microgrammes while their boosters are only 50 mcgs in order to reduce side effects and increase availability, but they've given full doses (100 mcgs) to the immuno-compromised as boosters with no issues.

Pfizer give a full dose for their boosters.

Just anotehr way to suck money. Something is seriously wrong with this Moderna situation as we bought and wait and wait and wait but low and behold were able to get a free moderna jab for my wife pretty easily. Hospitals don't have but other enities do?

[Easterneye]

Moderna is the one they have halted in the younger age groups due to inflammation in the heart and cardio vascular problems

[AlexPTY]

got it yesterday, cheap, quick and service was efficient at VIMUT

[Jason]

I'll be lining up in January for the booster, prior to coming to Thailand. My country's advice is 5 months between the initial doses and the booster. The jury seems to be out about Sino something vaccines. Hopefully the Thai people get quality vaccines as a booster. I know we all like to lampoon the CCP vaccines, but it was better than nothing. I only hope the Thai Government don't close the borders. France has just done so to the UK.

[longwood50]

I really hope that in the coming years the daily news is not consumed with what variant is discovered this week and what the pharmaceutical companies are doing to alter their vaccines to combat it.  If we did this with the Flu, Chickenpox and the Measles  the only thing reported on would be new variants and vaccines. 

[Stonker]

1 hour ago, HolyCowCm said:

Just anotehr way to suck money. Something is seriously wrong with this Moderna situation as we bought and wait and wait and wait but low and behold were able to get a free moderna jab for my wife pretty easily. Hospitals don't have but other enities do?

Nothing "seriously wrong", as has been explained several times.

The paid for jabs were bought by / from Thonburi Health Group who over-promised in order to get deposits, as did the private hospitals they were selling to.

The state-delivered doses were from donors such as the US and Japan who already had the vaccines themselves so all they had to do was to get approval and deliver.

[Stonker]

13 minutes ago, Jason said:

I know we all like to lampoon the CCP vaccines, but it was better than nothing.

Arguable.

It was / is ineffective against Delta so no better than nothing there, but it made people think they were protected when they weren't so more likely to take risks and put others at risk; it caused side effects putting some people off having any vaccine at all, including vaccines that were far more effective but had less side effect; it meant that those who'd had it early and were most at risk couldn't get a more effective vaccine until six months later, while those who were at less risk already had better vaccines.

There are a lot of serious flaws with the 'anything's better than nothing' argument.

[Cabra]

mRNA vaccines have proven again to be the gold stardard. News from the medical community at large seems to suggest their effectiveness is waning, but still reasonably effective at keeping people out of the hospital. Either way, I'd rather have the jab then not.

[Poolie]

28 minutes ago, longwood50 said:

I really hope that in the coming years the daily news is not consumed with what variant is discovered this week and what the pharmaceutical companies are doing to alter their vaccines to combat it.  If we did this with the Flu, Chickenpox and the Measles  the only thing reported on would be new variants and vaccines. 

You could always ignore the news, its largely fabricated rubbish anyway.

Who cares what Murdoch thinks?

[Stonker]

1 hour ago, Easterneye said:

Moderna is the one they have halted in the younger age groups due to inflammation in the heart and cardio vascular problems

Not true.

It's use has been suspended in a handful of countries that have sufficient unused Pfizer stock, pending more detailed studies into reports of myocarditis.

In a full CDC study released yesterday, there were only two possible cases out of 470 million mRNA doses administered.

[JohninDublin]

2 hours ago, El_Trauco said:

Sinovac barely crossed the threshold for effectiveness (50%) with the original strain. Pfizer/Moderna 90%+ original strain. I doubt further studies will be forthcoming on the newer variants.

I am having trouble with all these reports about the efficacy of A, B C, etc.

I recently got my booster shot, "Pfizer", following 2 X AZ. Within days I was hearing on a UK news channel, that Pfizer had only 1/40th effectiveness against Omicron variant. I did wonder how they had concluded this so rapidly because Omicron was less than a month old, and it takes a fortnight for the full efficacy to kick in? How could they have done such an effective study in such a short time in so few patients?

Now I read on this post, that Pfizer has had good reports against Omicron. 

Is it any wonder that vax hesitancy exists when this is how news is reported? It's not as if the latest report debunks the prior one. For many, they will have only heard one of these news reports, and may act on this, but clearly at least one of these two reports is wrong.

[Chatogaster]

31 minutes ago, JohninDublin said:

 

[...] clearly at least one of these two reports is wrong.

 

They're not contradictory:

"It is not effective" (1/25 ~ 1/41) is based on exposing samples that are taken from fully vaccinated people (not boosted, at least in most studies), whose most recent shot was over 3 months ago.
"It is effective" is based on samples taken from fully vaccinated people who also additionally received a booster (mRNA, same type as original shots) 1-2 months ago.

In summary:
No recent booster = bad
Recent booster = good

NB. The fact that Omicron hardly existed over a month ago is irrelevant (the studies are petri-dish studies, i.e. exposing serum samples  to Omicron in the lab; they don't need loads of Omicron-infected patients just for counting the resulting antibodies).

 

[JohninDublin]

19 minutes ago, Chatogaster said:

They're not contradictory:

"It is not effective" (1/25 ~ 1/41) is based on exposing samples that are taken from fully vaccinated people (not boosted, at least in most studies), whose most recent shot was over 3 months ago.
"It is effective" is based on samples taken from fully vaccinated people who also additionally received a booster (mRNA, same type as original shots) 1-2 months ago.

In summary:
No recent booster = bad
Recent booster = good

NB. The fact that Omicron hardly existed over a month ago is irrelevant (the studies are petri-dish studies, i.e. exposing serum samples  to Omicron in the lab; they don't need loads of Omicron-infected patients just for counting the resulting antibodies).

Not sure I understand all of your post, but thanks anyway.

As I've said elsewhere, I am not a Scientist. However, I am a compulsive number cruncher and that I do tend to understand figures etc. My confusion is that one report says Pfizer has very little effect, whereas another says that it works well, though there are no figures to support it. 

[longwood50]

2 hours ago, Poolie said:

You could always ignore the news, its largely fabricated rubbish anyway.

I stopped watching TV news at all November 2020.  Don't miss it at all.  

[Poolie]

22 minutes ago, longwood50 said:

I stopped watching TV news at all November 2020.  Don't miss it at all.  

Well done sir. Only the newspapers to go now and you can live an unruffled life.

[Stonker]

57 minutes ago, Chatogaster said:

They're not contradictory:

"It is not effective" (1/25 ~ 1/41) is based on exposing samples that are taken from fully vaccinated people (not boosted, at least in most studies), whose most recent shot was over 3 months ago.
"It is effective" is based on samples taken from fully vaccinated people who also additionally received a booster (mRNA, same type as original shots) 1-2 months ago.

In summary:
No recent booster = bad
Recent booster = good

NB. The fact that Omicron hardly existed over a month ago is irrelevant (the studies are petri-dish studies, i.e. exposing serum samples  to Omicron in the lab; they don't need loads of Omicron-infected patients just for counting the resulting antibodies).

Actually the results for "no recent booster" are for no booster at all but only the initial double dose.

The efficacy of a booster against Omicron after "1-2 months" or longer are as yet unknown.

[Stonker]

36 minutes ago, JohninDublin said:

My confusion is that one report says Pfizer has very little effect, whereas another says that it works well, though there are no figures to support it. 

The initial double dose has very little effect against Omicron.

A booster to that double dose has upwards of 70% efficacy, although there isn't yet sufficient data available.

[oldschooler]

1 hour ago, longwood50 said:

I stopped watching TV news at all November 2020.  Don't miss it at all.  

watch CNN & BBC TV News _only western news on my True Sat TV_just briefly with sound off_  headlines only _ for entertainment _ for off chance to catch that bad things have happened to bad people _ to make my day_ but still addicted somewhat  to Online Daily  Mail & BBC_pictures too nice_ working on that ……

[El_Trauco]

5 hours ago, Easterneye said:

Moderna is the one they have halted in the younger age groups due to inflammation in the heart and cardio vascular problems

This is a deceptive post implying Moderna has been halted for use in younger age groups universally. In fact, Moderna has been halted in a few European countries (with different age cut-offs). Namely, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland.

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-europe-moderna-idUSL1N2RE22K

 

[Poolie]

18 minutes ago, oldschooler said:

watch CNN & BBC TV News _only western news on my True Sat TV_just briefly with sound off_  headlines only _ for entertainment _ for off chance to catch that bad things have happened to bad people _ to make my day_ but still addicted somewhat  to Online Daily  Mail & BBC_pictures too nice_ working on that ……

Again well done, remember, the more watch it, the longer it will prevail. The DM is little more than a comic.