Negative VE isn’t a thing because reasons.
JoeBloggs
Karma: −5
Posts like this seem anything but rational.
Do you have an analysis of why taking the vaccines is the correct decision somewhere in your history of posts that you can point me to?
I wonder if it may make sense for some to even forgo Omicron and wild-type strain boosting altogether. If Omicron looks as though it’s becoming dominant and it continues to look as though illness is mild (and you are sufficiently low risk) maybe it’s best to wait and reserve boosting with an “upgrade” for a strain which is perhaps more virulent down the road. Seeing as this virus is highly mutable, premature and perhaps excessive serial boosting may be unwise per the cited article.
I don’t understand why you think that follows from that passage. I interpret it to mean serial exposure to a series of variant-specific vaccines may reduce overall effectiveness. e.g. Imagining a hypothetical variant sequence of V → V’ → V″. I interpret this as saying if you vaccinate for each with a variant-specific vaccine the effectiveness of the V″ vaccine will be less effective than the original vaccine was for V. Therefore they theorize it may be advantageous to break the chain and e.g. give half the people the V’ vaccine when available while the other half skips V’ and is given V″ vaccine when available.
Their reasoning isn’t entirely clear to me since it’s not clear to me exactly how and by what mechanism(s) the vaccine effectiveness may degrade.
FWIW, there is other SARS2-specific supporting evidence that immune imprinting may be an issue for vaccine updates. Lately in the UK Health Security Agency weekly vaccine surveillance reports they have begun including this note:
>(iii) recent observations from UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) surveillance data that N antibody levels appear to be lower in individuals who acquire infection following 2 doses of vaccination.
(From page 39 paragraph 3 of https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1036047/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_47.pdf)
The UK tracks seropositivity of S and N antibodies. N antibody positivity is used to track the subset of people who were previously infected. This note implies the immune system may not be updating its response when challenged with a new variant of the live virus.
Given the available statistics, I’m a bit surprised at the amount of concern you seemingly place on you or your family contracting the virus. It seems as though death is very improbable if you are otherwise well and relatively young. Are potential long term health consequences more of the concern? Are you worried about infecting someone else who is more high-risk? Curious as to your thinking. I respect your insights in general and I’m not very concerned so I’m wondering if I should be thinking about this differently.
There may be a (potentially unconscious) desire for people to signal that they are not an “anti-vaxxer”. This term is a very strong cultural pejorative lately. It’s similar to being referred to as a conspiracy theorist and almost as negative as being considered a racist. No idea how much this may be contributing to publicly professed enthusiasm for the vaccine but maybe social signaling in this respect is a component.
If he is to be believed as genuine, as interviewed by Oliver Stone in 2017 (see: The Putin Interviews), then his stated goals are prosperity and security for Russia. But he somewhat betrays another goal of his that he doesn’t explicitly state: He is concerned about his and his family’s prosperity and security, particularly after he leaves office. I do get the sense his stated goals are genuine but his unstated goals would override them if necessary. Not exactly revelatory nor a great insight to say that a politician is primarily concerned with saving their own skin but Russian politics strike me as even more dangerous and cut-throat than Western politics. The risks for him are likely much higher.