The state of the vaccines

I was really enjoying your answer until you got the "lay people" patronizing crap. But, thanks all the same. I've read previously that further spacing between the shots seems to produce a fuller response. Take care, Zorro.

 

What gets me is the arrogance. I'm sure I come off as arrogant but I'm really not. 99% of the time I am merely deferring to the consensus opinion of respected experts. Almost never do I buck that consensus unless it happens to be an area where I have expertise. I am just defending the science. It is proven to work. Science gives us the most objective view of reality that we can hope to find.

But people who are less educated, often far less educated, with no formal training in science, with no understand of math, and who often demonstrate a shocking lack of logic, think they have it all figured out. The arrogance is shocking beyond belief to me. I find it personally offensive. It offends my sense of decency.

 

The words "put out a paper" are a hyperlink.

Yale just put out a paper listing both Moderna and Pfizer as offering 95% efficacy, isn't it clear at this point that neither are hitting that mark? Why aren't they using the most accurate and update date information? It would go a long ways toward creating trust if they showed more commitment to accuracy than "messaging".

 

No, Zorro, this shouldn't be taken as patronizing. I profoundly respect everybody's particular expertise. For example, the user known as Death here is a lawyer. I have little knowledge of the law, so I often ask for his opinion when it's a legal matter. I have no problem confessing that my "knowledge" of the law comes from watching Law and Order on TV... So, yes, I defer to his much superior knowledge, and that's natural. For him, I'm a lay person regarding the law. He is a lay person for me when the topic is Virology and Immunology.

Look, when a pipe bursts in my home I call a licensed plumber. When it's a fuse that blows I call a licensed electrician. When I smell gas I call the gas company or the firemen. All of these people possess much higher expertise in their professional areas than me, and I'm a lay person in their areas. But if these plumbers and electricians and gas specialists at some point need some advice regarding vaccines, yes, they should ask me because I'm not a lay person regarding those matters.

This is just a fact, no arrogance needed.

 

There are things you don't know that experts do. And unless you want to put in the time and effort to become an expert, you know, like 12 years of formal studies, it will remain that way.

Deal with it.

 

Ah ok, sorry, I didn't realize it was a hyperlink.

But whoa, Zorro, here you've been very unfair to Yale.

Because, see, they DID say that the INITIAL information was outdated. They simply listed in sequence what happened. Here, my bold/red color:

"How well it works: Experts continue to learn about Pfizer’s efficacy both in the laboratory and in the real world. Pfizer’s initial Phase 3 clinical data presented in December showed its vaccine to have 95% efficacy.

In April, the company announced the vaccine had 91.3% efficacy against COVID-19, based on measuring how well it prevented symptomatic COVID-19 infection seven days through up to six months after the second dose. It also found it to be 100% effective in preventing severe disease as defined by the CDC, and 95.3% effective in preventing severe disease as defined by the FDA. Another study, not yet peer-reviewed, provided more new data that brought the efficacy number down to 84% after 6 months, although efficacy against severe disease was 97%."

Then, further down, they said:

"But Israel later reported the vaccine’s effectiveness to be 90% effective against severe disease, and 39% against infection in its population in late June and early July."

So why are you saying they are not using the latest info??? They just did!

And also, Zorro, this is NOT a paper. This is an informational page... and I hate to say it since you balked at the term... but this is a page for lay people. They seem to update it from time to time and simply intend to inform the public. This is not a scientific paper.

But what exactly is your objection? That they said in all words that the INITIAL data pointed to 95%? They made abundantly clear that it was the initial data, and it changed subsequently.

And guess what, that initial 95% WAS correct, because it was calculated in a time when only the ancestral Wuhan variant was around, and we know that the virus at the time had not mutated to more aggressive strains.

 

Oh gosh, I'm not sure if I should click on this... it's likely to make me angry, LOL

 

Here is the link to the Yale Study.

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/covid-19-vaccine-comparison

Here is where we were just months ago on the Pfizer vaccine:

December: 95% effective at preventing infection.

Compare with more recent information:

5 months later - April: the company announced the vaccine had 91.3% efficacy against COVID-19, based on measuring how well it prevented symptomatic COVID-19 infection seven days through up to six months after the second dose.

So effectiveness lowered and benchmark eased from "prevents infection" to prevents symptomatic infection.

4 months on - August: the CDC also published studies that showed vaccine effectiveness dropping to 79.8% against infection.

Israel which has some of the highest vaccination rates in the world is stating that they are finding 39% effectiveness against infection in its population in late June and early July.

So, in 8 months we went from 95%to 39%. That's hell of a drop. And there was nothing in the original information that lent itself to this expectation, in fact, it was "get your vaccination and then you can take off your mask." Only to find that the vaccinated still catch it, still spread it, and distancing protocols should have been continued.

My doctor warned me in December that she was not convinced that this approach was going to work and that her concern was that we would see the rapid proliferation of variants resulting in an equally rapid deterioration in effectiveness that indeed we see. She talks about some previous experience we had with something similar where it initially seemed to work, but with very re-exposure to the disease the reaction was worse until the study subjects died. Mostly it was animal studies, but there was at least one human study, and the vaccine was being deployed against a disease that was highly survivable, which makes it a rather foolish choice to be killed by the vaccine for a highly survivable illness.

I see a rosy scenario rapidly being destroyed by real world evidence, rapid ad-hoc scenario adjustments, complete with the "lay people" patronizing crap that is obvious code for "shut up and listen to your betters" when you can't tell me with a straight face that the real world situation we find ourselves in as we move into September is what was expected even as late as March.

Given your profession, you know full well that what is termed "not serious" because you didn't end up in an ICU is still maybe as sick as you have ever been in your life, with about a 30% chance of a long term destruction of vital health that one may not be fully aware of for several months.

If this isn't going to work, the sooner that is admitted and we return to a full court press for more effective treatment the better.

And a bit more tolerance for the folks that are waiting for more evidence to accumulate is simply good manners. And the fkn bullying of Big social media that bans posts that express doubts about the overall effectiveness of the vaccine approach, SMH.

My doctor told me that she has never been subjected to the level of bullying she is enduring to follow the choir that she is experiencing today. On every other subject we correspond by website messaging, on this, we pick up the phone.

I'm a big fan of following the models that produce the most accurate prediction, and right now, her model is a much tighter fit than Fauci and the Happy Clowns were delivering as late as May when they were saying the vaccinated could remove their masks. Maybe even June.

Step back a bit, there is not part of you that can't see that the scenario that was painted has really gone to to hell in July and August? (Maybe starting in June) I'd have to go back through my notes.

The smart move now is stop, fully reassess, and recheck every assumption, because what is happening is not what was expected. Anyone who tells you it is either a liar or fool.

 

Those are all good choices and I do the same.

 

Fair point. I saw the link and read a description, that when time permitted and I dug in deeper, left a lot out. I sent you another reply after I read through it more carefully.

 

I personally think that the basics of research evaluation should be taught in high school

 

No it is hilarious!

 

Zorro I know we do not agree on, well basically anything, but I am more than willing to share my knowledge of how to identify good research from bad - but even I am not an “expert” in this - it takes years and years to be really good at it

 

Zorro, even though the chance of infection has dropped significantly to as low as 39% due to a new and highly infectious variant, that's not the drop in preventing hospitalization, ICU care, and death. The vaccines remain highly effective. Like I said in another thread I started on this, it's an issue of recalibrating expectations. They were set too high when the vaccines first tackled the Wuhan variant. Maybe the message should have been from the beginning: "take the vaccine, it may not avoid the infection but will prevent you from needing to be hospitalizing, needing a ventilation, and dying, in the vast majority of cases."

I agree with you that the CDC celebrated victory too soon and I've posted multiple times berating them from it.

Look, you are being a bit unfair to the vaccines too. Remember, they were manufactured taking into account the Wuhan variant's spike protein. The Delta spike protein is quite different. But the same technology can be adapted to make a vaccine geared towards the Delta spike protein. What happened is not exactly the fault of the vaccines (actually the Delta's genome was first uploaded on October 5, 2020, therefore it was probably already circulating a couple of months prior, while the vaccines started being given in India where the Delta surfaced, only months later on January 16, 2021). The genome for the Wuhan variant was sequenced in January 2020, when scientists then started working on the vaccine.

So you're asking a vaccine against A to protect against B, and of course the efficacy has dropped given that B is different from A and more infectious. But still, the vaccine is doing what vaccines should do: prevent hospitalization and death. Also do notice that 39% was only in one study, and all things considered it's likely higher than that, and even 39% is not 0%, which is the protection the non-vaccinated "enjoy." (Or slightly above that for people with more exposure to previous versions of coronaviruses and other factors).

"She talks about some previous experience we had with something similar where it initially seemed to work, but with very re-exposure to the disease the reaction was worse until the study subjects died."

She is talking about Antibody-Dependent Enhancement. It's a concern but actually it hasn't happened with these mRNA vaccines. So let's not panic about something that is just theoretical. No, the vaccine is not killing a lot of people, not beyond a very very very tiny percentage that is related to other issues, not to ADE. Yes, some very rare people have died of thrombotic/thrombocytopenic syndromes, anaphylactic reactions, etc., but last I checked this percentage was about 0.0008%. This of course compares very favorably to the issues caused by the virus itself, which is much worse for thrombosis, much worse for death, etc.

"The smart move now is stop, fully reassess, and recheck every assumption, because what is happening is not what was expected. Anyone who tells you it is either a liar or fool."

Well, I'm neither a liar nor a fool but I'll tell you something different: the smart move is to continue vaccination with the product we do have, which does very significantly decrease hospitalizations and death (although is no longer as good at preventing infection), while we work on updated vaccines to newer variants, and while we study what boosters can do to enhance the efficacy of the current product. Stopping now would just increase the number of dead people. We are in the middle of a freaking dangerous pandemic, which is why we saw emergency authorizations. If this were a theoretical issue applied to a rare disease then maybe we should stop and reconsider, but the pandemic is raging now and the vaccine still provides significant precaution, so, no, absolutely not, we shouldn't stop.

"with about a 30% chance of a long term destruction of vital health that one may not be fully aware of for several months."

Exactly. I'm glad that you're one of the few who understand that the issue with this virus is not just death, but also significant organ damage. But see, this is another reason for vaccination. This extensive organ damage happens when the virus multiply unchecked for several days. Even the incomplete protection delivered by the current vaccines still significantly decreases the time until the organism clears the virus (even if waning antibodies don't prevent the infection, secondary immune response by an immune system primed by the vaccines with memory cells, then kick in and clear the virus). So, with the virus less able to continue to multiply in various organs, the odds of organ damage decrease.

Also do realize that it's precisely because we have such a high proportion of unvaccinated individuals, that variants keep developing. A variant typically emerges when the virus lingers for a long time in someone's system. The vaccines, like I said, decrease that time for clearance and decrease the likelihood of variant emergence.

There are several good reasons to continue the vaccination. But yes, most likely this virus will remain endemic and we'll need maybe an yearly updated shot like we do for the flu.

 

I think you mean the inverse, the chance of infection has risen from 5% to 61%, that's an increase of over 1200% and in a matter of several weeks. Yet, this was neither predicted nor anticipated by the "experts" who speak with the arrogant presumption of our unquestioning obedience. We were being told that the vaccinated could resume crowding. At 61% risk of infection crowding means no sense at all. So the "experts" model was flawed, which led to dangerous policy changes, but, it's "unreasonable and irresponsible" to question the core assumptions of this entire approach and to consider that it may prove flawed and ultimately unsuccessful?

Completely predictable and it won't be the last one. With a 12 fold increase in infections among the vaccinated, over the course of weeks what has that done to the opportunity field for more variants to emerge? How many of the remaining 39% are simply more cautious and continued separation rather than resuming crowding and just haven't re-encountered the virus? If I'm symptomatic, I know to quarantine, if vaccination has increased asymptomatic infection or slight symptoms (misattributed to allergies and so on) is virus spread by the vaccinated is a real and unanticipated exposure? I think you would have to admit that it is.

A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does ...
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/grim-warning-israel-vaccination-blunts-does-not-defeat-delta
As of 15 August, 514 Israelis were hospitalized with severe or critical COVID-19, a 31% increase from just 4 days earlier. Of the 514, 59% were fully vaccinated. Of the vaccinated, 87% were 60 or...

November 2020: ‘Absolutely remarkable': No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe COVID-19.

https://www.science.org/news/2020/1...ernas-vaccine-trial-developed-severe-covid-19

So 10 months ago, 100% effective against severe COVID.

Two things, clearly herd immunity does not occur at 78% vaccination. And check this out:

So, Nov, with vaccination 0% risk of hospitalization for the vaccinated. 8 months obviously not true. 8 months from now what are the range of possibilities? Can we stick all of our eggs in the basket of we are going to beat this with mRNA vaccines? Is that the most prudent course of action? Wouldn't be a more reasonable approach to pursue a multidisciplinary push toward light cases and natural immunity?

"Downgrading" is a better fit than "recalibration". Recalibration describes the news getting better or worse, whereas in this experience every change has been a downgrade.

It's unethical to bully people into what is essentially a massive medical experiment, and one that quite frankly does not appear to be going well.

Forcing or tricking folks to join a medical experiments is not only wrong, it is illegal under US law:

https://leohohmann.com/2021/08/25/f...een-granted-full-approval-when-they-have-not/

And one hell of a lot of money is flowing into the vaccine channel. Are these vaccine manufacturers risking their own assets? Why no. They demanded a grant of immunity against harm that results from the vaccines and it was granted.

Only a fool blindly follows the dictates of these "experts" or believes their gentle admonishments that we are but "lay persons" who would be better off accepting their "suggestions" which are rapidly becoming commands with consequences if not obeyed. The most consistent thing we have seen is that they are:

• Consistently wrong
• Miss every time to the upside.
• Are always consistent with their political affiliations and financial interests even when that is 180 degrees against the best policy from an infectious disease standpoint.

Just honesty about what they know, but, instead we get constant "messaging". They want us to take a particular action or hold a particular view and then all the "messaging" is consistent with producing that response. We have no nobility in this country. We are a self-ruled free people. There is no legitimate grant of power to these folks to engage in duplicity and manipulation. Their loss of credibility is on them.

Think of all you have invested in time money and opportunity costs to get to where you are. You are happily singing the company song, but you stop signing? or worse, determine that they are herding you into a course that may not be in the best interest of your patients, and even worse, begin to speak freely your views that they may be wrong? You could very quickly find your license to practice at risk. What are you going to do if you find yourself in a choice of either listening and obeying them, or best serving the needs of your patents? And if that point is reached, how will you answer the question of "how did they accumulate this level of unjust power? And did I contribute to their accumulation of illegitimate power?"

continued below

 

@CenterField ...continued...

I think it would be more accurate to say vaccinate against A to protect against A and A'. It's a slight variation of A not a completely different virus. Further, if I understand correctly it only acts against spike proteins rather than the whole virus, so it's a very narrowly based strategy, that was clearly oversold. It was always very predictable that variants would form that affected spike proteins. Millions have taken the vaccine based on a false picture deliberately painted by these experts, through wording carefully calibrated to induce obedience. I'd like to see a greater effort on simple accuracy rather than "messaging" geared toward provoking a particular response.

But the unvaccinated have zero risk of vaccine exposure, while the vaccinated have a 100% exposure to vaccine injury. Whereas in the last 19 months only 1 in 8 Americans has caught COVID. Over the next 19 months are my risks of catching COVID going to increase or decrease?

Or if you are currently vaccinated with the MMR and DTAP

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-evidence-mounts-mmr-tdap-vaccines.html

Many Americans are either vaccinated against both, or have had measles/mumps/ and kept current on tetanus shots. I'd say that 38%+ compares very nicely with 39%.

The loaded language is a bit condescending and dismissive, here, let me help: "So let's not panic exercise reasonable caution about something that is just theoretical an obvious exposure give the rapid proliferation of variants with this approach.

6,128 deaths reported through the CDC website for Vaccine Injury Event Reporting in 8 months. All things being equal these same folks had a 7/8ths chance that they wouldn't catch COVID at all. Were they fairly informed of the risks from the vaccine? I can assure you that they were not. There was zero mention of "by the way this massive vaccine roll out will result in nearly 800 of you dying each month, associated with the vaccine for a disease there is 7/8 chance you won't catch over the same period and if you do, a 99+% chance that you will survive it.

I can assure you that they were not informed of the risks because the risks were unknown, and that too was carefully concealed in the messaging.

What if you are doubling down on a losing strategy. mRNA immunity, unlike natural immunity, does not make adjustments. It's a one trick pony, and will produce the effect programmed into it whether it works or not, a different response will require a different set of instructions delivered by yet another vaccine, necessary because the previous one is no longer adequately effective, which in this cycle was clear by July, and true for folks vaccinated as recently as this Spring, but, what if vaccine immunity compromises natural immunity? Natural immunity is much more effective against the variants because it acts against the entire virus rather than only 10% of it. Natural immunity may prove to be the only way out and if vaccine immunity compromises natural immunity, everyone that is vaccinated could end up lifetime dependence on boosters, which works out very well for those associated with booster manufacturing sales and distribution and very costly for those now wholly dependent on them.

So your answer is "No. We can't stop and reconsider." I'm certain you are familiar with falsification criteria. What is the set of circumstances that would result in you stopping your current approach of combatting this through mRNA vaccine immunity and instead focus on treatments that maximize the likelihood of a mild case followed by natural immunity?

Your answer assures me that if this approach is flawed that our "experts" will continue in mindblindness beyond the point where a more tentative commitment to this model would have allowed them to recognise that they were off course and made sensible corrections. That's great if you are right, but it's a repeat of the Charge of the Light Brigade if you are wrong.

Yes. Vaccinated CT values generally exceed 30 in about 10 days and unvaccinated it's 16 days. I'd like to see the CDC update their guidance on quarantine for the unvaccinated from 14 to 16 days, but, for businesses trying to follow both guidelines and good sense, and two days off every 7, 14 days likely works in most cases.

The fact that the vaccinated continue to catch this disease is a huge game changer on variant formation. I don't know that a CT value of 30 or greater is the magic line, but, I'd think both 10 and 16 days would be sufficient for forming variants. The heart breaker on variant formation is that vaccinated are continuing to catch this. In fact, it may be the back breaker to this approach.

In our first cycle here, it does not look to me like annual would be enough. The interval I see more commonly discussed is 8 months, and I fully expect to see that conversation morph to 6 months.

Returning again to falsification criteria, what interval would be so short as to be unworkable?

 

Yes, sure, I misspoke, of course I meant a drop of efficacy to 39%. Still, I don't believe that the real number is 39%. Unsurprisingly you latched onto the lowest number. Beware of deciding your whole reasoning based on ONE study. Like I said, they have variable and contradictory results. And beware of transferring data from one country to another country. Sure, the Israelis seem to be in some trouble... but who knows if their specific ethnic background makes them more vulnerable? I'll tell you one thing: in my hospital, virtually NO patient on a ventilator is vaccinated. Not one. They are all unvaccinated.

A lot to digest, Zorro, but I respectfully disagree with most of what you're saying. I think the vaccines ARE going well because they are still preventing hospitalization and death. Yes, the people who have failed them are likely to be the immuno-incompetent. But there are many people who were saved by the vaccines.

This is what you fail to consider, that literally millions of people all over the world have been already saved by the existing vaccines.

You seem very angry at "they, them" etc. - but you seem to be lumping together scientists, vaccine makers, public health officials, and politicians.

So "they" said this and that...

Who? Fauci? I'm not Fauci and feel no need to defend him. I've criticized him many times.

The CDC? I deplore their various blunders under both the Trump and the Biden administration.

But I draw the line at the scientists... (I'm one of them). We are not responsible for what the politicians make of our work.

So, what exactly did you want us to say?

"Hey, folks, we have solid, irrefutable data pointing to 95% efficacy of this vaccine against this Wuhan strain of the virus, but hey, don't take our data seriously. We are SURE that SOME day SOME variant will bring the numbers down! Therefore our vaccine sucks! Don't take it!"

Uh, what?

What did you want us to say? Should we have faked the data to bring the numbers down? AT THE TIME THE NUMBERS WERE INDEED 95%.

So, now, Monday Morning, you say only a fool would not have anticipated that other variants would bring the numbers down. Really? Not necessarily. See, the MERS and the SARS-1 actually petered out. No, we could not have known in advance what the SARS-CoV-2 had in store for us. For a long time it wasn't really mutating in any nasty way.

But then, even if we did express concerns that in the future mutations might make things difficult, what exactly would you have us do?

"F... it, there will be mutations one day, so let's just not make any vaccines!"

We did what we could with the, then, existing strains. And we saved lots of lives in the process. Then the virus mutated, and now we need to either beef it up with boosters, or come up with updated vaccines, or both. We're not done fighting this virus.

Again, what exactly did you want us to do? Make up some hypothetical spike protein that might be the end result of some mutation, and make the vaccines with that, instead? Sorry, but how exactly do you do that? Are you aware that there's been some 400,000 mutation already? How would we know which ones would become clinically significant???

Downgrading, recalibrating, that's semantics.

The fact is: these vaccines have ALREADY saved millions of lives. And they will continue to do so although less well. Then we'll tweak them to a second generation or will right the ship with boosters.

-----------

All your anger at mandates is poorly target when you talk to me about. I've made it clear many times, I'm not for mandates.

"Unethical to bully people into what is essentially a massive medical experiment" - me, I'm not bullying anybody into anything. I've never forced anybody to take the vaccines and like I said I'm against mandates.

And yes, of course it's a medical experiment! We're trying to fight off a novel disease, so we need to experiment, otherwise we'll never learn enough to be able to come up with solutions. Experimentation is the basis of the scientific method.

But, see, this experimentation has been wildly successful so far, with millions of lives saved.

I think what is appropriate to say to the scientific community is "thank you" rather than your systematic attack.

 

Again, lots of ideas that seem to make sense, but don't.

The spike protein *is* the Achilles Heal of the virus. Neutralizing antibodies are the ones that target the spike protein. The virus has many other proteins, and making antibodies against them doesn't really help that much and sometimes lowers the overall protection because the immune system wastes time making antibodies against irrelevant proteins, and these binding antibodies don't neutralize the virus. Yes, the mRNA approach is sound, and genial.

You seem to believe that the mRNA vaccines are done because of the Delta variant. In 6 to 12 weeks we can make new mRNA vaccines against the Delta's spike protein. No, we're not done fighting this off.

Sure, maybe every six months rather than yearly, so what? But this hasn't been established yet. Again, humoral immunity is not all. There's cellular immunity too.

And yes, vaccinated people clear the virus faster and are less prone to giving birth to new variants.

Deaths reported: Deaths will keep happening... people die of various causes... people who get vaccinated against Covid-19 only get better immunity against the SARS-CoV-2, not against other causes of death.

Like many, you seem to believe that if someone dies after vaccination, that means the vaccine has killed that person. Not so. Correlation and causality are vastly different things.

Shark attacks are more prevalent in the summer. Ice cream consumption is more prevalent in the summer. Ice cream consumption does not cause shark attacks.

The real death toll that is reasonably attributed to the vaccines is 0.0008%.

You seem really upset that these companies are profiting from the vaccines. Why shouldn't they? Give me one good reason why a corporation in a capitalist society that developed, produced, and sold a product, shouldn't profit from it.

And no, we can't stop and reconsider. We must do it simultaneously. Continue vaccination with the product we do have, and continue to develop a better product.

------------

I'm not good at line-by-line response, so I hope I covered most of your points but if not, please forgive me. I'm multitasking and short in time to address every single point you made.

 

That's a solid first hand observation, thank you for sharing it.

That's ridiculous. I ask you to be straight with us about the knowns and unknowns and you deliberately reinterpret it to that? That strikes me a very dishonest.

No one asked that of you and you know it.

You aren't covering yourself with glory here.

 

Nonsense, I said associated, not caused. You pretend I said something I did not and then attack your own misattribution.

I asked you to describe what evidence would alert you that the mRNA approach was not the best approach and your reply is more mRNA approach.

You say the solution is more mRNA shots. You say every six months would be workable. If this approach required boosters or new shots every 4 months, is that workable? In your opinion, at what point would a cycle be so short that you would view this approach as unworkable?

 

I disagree. YOU pushed this to absurd challenges. YOU expected too much of what we knew at the time of the development of these vaccines when only the Wuhan strain was prevalent. Then I showed to you how ridiculous this position is. Sure, I dramatized it a little... but it was a very appropriate response to your long post bashing science.

 

OK, good for you. I do confess that I read your post too fast and didn't notice that you said associated. I saw your number of deaths... and reacted like this. Fair enough. Sorry for the misattribution.

Why exactly do you think the mRNA approach was not the best approach? Look at this very thread, from page 1. It talks about dozens of different platforms. Now, pray tell, find me ONE vaccine that has posted results better than the two mRNA vaccines in use, the Pfizer and the Moderna. (Yes, there was one failed mRNA vaccine, the CureVac out of Germany, but the Pfizer and Moderna are astounding success stories).

So, what are you comparing this to? The mRNA vaccines have been shown to be much safer and more efficacious than the adenovirus vector vaccines AstraZeneca, J&J, and Sputnik V. They are way more efficacious than the whole inactivated virus CoronaVac and all the other Chinese vaccines. All the others so far, protein subunit, DNA, etc., have had less good results. The Novavax has been slow to come to fruition. Inovio is even more bogged down. Several others failed and got withdrawn like the Sanofi/SKF.

Actually the Pfizer and the Moderna are the Cadillacs of Covid-19 vaccines, and countries that don't have them are envious of the ones that do.

Do you think that a loss of efficacy in view of mutations invalidates the mRNA approach? Much the opposite, because this platform is MORE agile than others and EASIER to update to new spike proteins. You just need the genetic sequence of the new strains and you can re-synthesize vaccines that target specifically the new spike. While other platforms take 6+ months to update (including the flu shot), we can update the mRNA platform in 6 to 12 weeks.

This said, we are looking at the Medicago/GSK plant-based platform with interest, as it targets three viral proteins instead of just the S. This vaccine targets S (spike), but also the M (membrane), and the E (enveloppe) proteins (by harvesting VLPs or viral-like particles from plant cells), and these can be neutralizing if they can prevent the release of the viral genetic material into the cell. This 3-pronged approach could also have a better cellular immunity effect, while still being focused enough.

This said, and despite preliminary good results in immunogenicity, this vaccine has not yet finished phase 3, so it remains to be seen if this approach will be better than the mRNA (remember, the CureVac looked spectacular in earlier phases, then failed phase 3 just as spectacularly, and was withdrawn). It is to be noticed that the plant-based platform is even more agile than the mRNA and can be adapted in a matter of 5 to 6 weeks.

There is a biological side of this, and a logistics side of this.
New vaccines require raw ingredients, glass vials, syringes, cold chain, etc. - Production, packaging, distribution, administration.
We can make new and updated vaccines in 6 to 12 weeks. How to mass-produce them and get them to be delivered to the population is another matter.
Six months is workable. 4 months is pushing it. Like I said, we scientists can make them in 6 to 12 weeks but to get them into people's arms every 4 months would be difficult, logistically speaking. I do hope we won't need to do this more frequently than every six months. Like I said, given the cellular immunity component which is horribly ignored by all these studies that say the antibodies are waning, makes me hopeful for one updated shot yearly, before the winter. But we would be able to do a bi-annual shot if need be.

 

@Zorro Another advantage of the plant-based Medicago platform is that the plants they use (derived from tobacco) make a lipid shell that surrounds the viral-like proteins, with the proteins then sticking out. This mimics the structure of the virus and facilitates the recognition of the proteins by the T cells.

So, it's genial... but we don't know yet if the end results will be actually better than the mRNA vaccines.

And of course there's also the issue of side effects. It's only in large phase III trials that we start having a better chance at spotting complications. So the Medicago vaccine isn't there yet. We'll see.

 

@Zorro it seems like, from another Israeli study, at least the Pfizer remains highly efficacious against both the Alpha (UK) and Beta (South Africa) variants, at 94%.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260833v1