Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
Not really no.
I'm also looking forward to seeing the studies, if any are produced, that show the effectiveness of the above in fit and healthy <50 year olds, and subsequent age ranges.
I think it's clear the vaccines for the elderly and infirm helped, what's less clear is their effectiveness for younger fit and healthy people.
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I think the studies showed in general that with two doses of original AZ, Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, against the original strains and similar variants such as Alpha, which were widely circulating at the time of the initial roll out and lockdown easing, the effectiveness against symptomatic infection (not just hospitalisation and death) was very high, certainly in the 90s with the mRNA vaccine.
When we got the Delta variant which was more contagious than Alpha but also had some immune escape from it, the efficacy dropped, but a third dose of the mRNA vaccine restored the efficacy to that of 2 shots against earlier variants.
By rolling out vaccine to all those people and triple dosing the vulnerable they were able to keep serious illness down though there was still significant spill over of Delta into double-vaccinated people who hadn't received a booster or third dose.
The mutations in original omicron (and the lineage variants aren't too dissimilar to be considered separate) meant that the spike protein protection most people had was much less recognisable to the immune system which is why we are now seeing plenty of vaccinated people get ill, but even then, the response from the vaccines is keeping plenty more out of hospital. Hopefully a more targeted vaccine will indeed erode at the infections and not just at the serious illness aspect and that this will be rolled out to all ages. Though I disagree that people should basically be coerced into vaccination and if they don't want it that choice should be respected.