It seems strange we'd opt for 3-4-5 shots given the benefit of mRNA was its ease of creation and modification.
The omicron surge is happening now so health authorities are looking at solutions and a third shot worked great, so a fourth one is an obvious (short term) solution. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work.
Best guess would be the strain specific boosters will come out of nowhere and suddenly saturate news coverage. But don’t quote me on that.
* presumably the pharma companies and national governments funding them. So a conspiracy, but not a QANON conspiracy.
There's nothing quiet about it - Moderna has already publicly announced[1] that they're nearly ready to take their Omicron booster to clinical trials.
1. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
That's a cynical take, but tbf don't the vaccines require logistical infrastructure that those parts of the world don't have? Other vaccines like j&j are perhaps more appropriate for that reason.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-pfizer-omicron-va...
I doubt there's a lot of utility to boosting a 4th time with anything unless you're immunocompromised in some way.
And by the time we start vaccinating for Omicron it'll likely be too late and we'll be onto the next variant which the Omicron booster will only partially cross react with.
But the vaccines have largely done their job, the boosted mature T-cell response is what is going to be saving lives and keeping people out of the hospitals. And the virus probably can't mutate enough to ever escape from T-cells.
A meta question: how do these studies control for the fact that people who care enough to get a booster are more likely to care proactively about their health?
Lots of good outcomes correlate with caring.
Whether the population in the trial generalized to the population at large is a bit different question and I think is where the bias you’re highlighting could come into part
Are there studies to show people who care about health get boosters? My neighbors are hyper healthy and undosed. I am undosed and I exercise regularly.
I generally see many people who sat on couch for two years put on considerable weight. Getting dosed while eating ourselves into 2x pants sizes doesn't seem to be good for health, as it increases the co-morbidity counter.
Does an extra booster prevent infection?
Does an extra booster reduce hospitalizations and deaths?
Seems this study only addressed the first question.
But instead of giving a fourth shot based on the OG Covid, seems an updated version based on omicron, delta, and any new variants of concern would be a better idea.