Younger Americans benefit less from booster shots than older people

Re:Younger Americans benefit less from booster shots than ol... by pessimizer on Saturday February 05, 2022 @06:50PM (#30227628)

It brings your chances of death from vanishingly small down to undetectable. I didn't think it was personally worth it; I might as well wait until my double vax decays a bit farther, more research is done, and new reformulations specifically targeting new variants that have gone around have been formulated.

As policy it's definitely not worth it. We can pretend that we as a country care about covid, but if we're stressing the importance of patents and boosting our own over vaccinating the world, we don't really care. If we take years to send out masks, we clearly think more about masks as a public declaration of loyalty than disease prevention devices.

I hate that we've split into two groups, one of nationalistic bleach drinkers that don't believe in the germ theory of disease, and the other of nationalistic OCD paternalists. Now I'm expected to believe that there's no level of protection that is enough i.e. evidence that a booster helps is evidence that I should be taking a booster is evidence that everyone should be taking a booster. I'm worried about covid, but I'm worried about things other than covid.

At least the NYT is staying pretty steadily rational about this.

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Re:Younger Americans benefit less from booster shots than ol... by javagram on Saturday February 05, 2022 @07:01PM (#30227724)

Mass boosting _everyone_ made a lot more sense in the August-November timeframe it was originally proposed and implemented. The booster brought vaccine efficacy against infection back up to 90-95% against the Delta variant. If everyone who came in contact with seniors or almost-seniors was boosted, it would bring down the transmission of the virus (since you can't transmit if you aren't infected) and hopefully prevent those seniors from running the risk of death or serious injury from COVID.

Since the Omicron variant emerged in late November and it bypasses even boosted immunity to infection in somewhere between 30% and 60% of people, as a result we've seen worldwide that vaccination is unable to bring R0 below 1 and stop the spread of the virus.

> If we take years to send out masks, we clearly think more about masks as a public declaration of loyalty than disease prevention devices.

The masks being sent out by the US Government seem more like a reaction to the realization that Omicron bypasses vaccine immunity to infection in a massive number of people, who still want some way to protect themselves from the virus. In 2021, the government was attempting to push vaccination as the only way to protect yourself from catching the virus, because social distancing and wearing masks annoys their voters (especially swing/independent voters) and they have an election to win this year. They only sent out masks and tests when the media/people began to demand it after the vaccine failed to stop Omicron.

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Re:Younger Americans benefit less from booster shots than ol... by thoughtstheseus on Saturday February 05, 2022 @07:46PM (#30228049)

Sounds like how we handle the Flu. Those who are more at risk get flu shots. We should prioritize everyday, holistic health as we work toward a more robust society against future viruses.

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Re:Younger Americans benefit less from booster shots than ol... by javagram on Saturday February 05, 2022 @08:39PM (#30228409)

The CDC actually recommends every adult and child get flu shots, but a lot of people have always ignored that recommendation (I knew someone who claimed the flu vaccine would make you get the flu, people have strange ideas about vaccines even before covid). EU did not have the same recommendation though.

Covid-19 is much more dangerous than the flu though, so the reaction and concern has been different…

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Re:Younger Americans benefit less from booster shots than ol... by peteradio on Saturday February 05, 2022 @09:32PM (#30228710)

Getting the flu shot one year can have negative net efficacy in the following year[1]. Its not necessarily going to be more shots == better for Covid shots either.

1) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2017/02/studies-...

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