#covid vaccines

[culturevulturette]

This was always the claim. Don't let them gaslight you.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

The answer is "by the skin of their teeth," but this article is too polite to say it.

By Joshua Boscaini

COVID-19 is evolving and with it the need for new vaccines to protect people against serious illness and death.

Australia has detected its first cases of the highly transmissible XEC "recombinant" variant — a mix of two previous Omicron variants called KS 1.1 and KP 3.3.

Researchers have been working to ensure immunisations that provide an adequate level of protection against new COVID-19 variants are widely available to the community.

So if there are always new variants, how do scientists keep up with mutations and update the vaccines?

How are mRNA COVID-19 vaccines made? When reports of coronavirus first emerged, researchers quickly obtained a genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19.

This helped researchers work out the genetic make-up of the virus and how it causes disease in people, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

Once scientists analysed the genetic sequence, they identified the spike protein as the most effective target for the immune system and created a copy or code for it.

Unlike traditional vaccines that contain an inactivated or weakened version of the virus, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines contain a message or code that is delivered to someone's cells.

Doherty Institute professor of virology Damian Purcell said that spike protein code — or RNA message — was "packaged" into lipids to keep it protected for distribution in syringes.

Professor Purcell said once the mRNA vaccine — or message — was injected into a person's muscle, it instructed their cells to reproduce the spike protein.

"These are little bubbles of fat, four different lipids, that together encase the RNA [and] enable it to be protected as it is packaged into syringes and injected into your muscle," Professor Purcell said.

"Those lipids facilitate the uptake and delivery of the essential messenger RNA — the message to be coded within your own cells so your own cells start making the … spike protein."

The process triggers an immune response which creates spike protein antibodies.

The NHGRI said those antibodies remained in the body and recognised the virus if someone became infected, attacking the antigen before it reached healthy cells.

How are vaccines modified to keep up with new strains? Westmead Institute for Medical Research Centre for Virus Research director Tony Cunningham said new strains emerged when the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein changed, making the virus more transmissible.

Professor Cunningham said the mRNA vaccines allowed scientists to change the spike protein code and update the vaccine with the new message.

"If you actually think about RNA like DNA is coloured beads on a string — four coloured beads and they vary along the string — then it's in essence changing that sequence," he said.

"You can just simply change the middle bit of the RNA and that can be done very quickly.

"That spike protein is the one that actually allows the virus to attach to the cell and what we want to do is produce antibodies that stop viruses attaching to the cell."

Professor Purcell agreed, saying one of the advantages of mRNA vaccines was they could be changed and produced usually within a month.

"It's actually one of the really powerful aspects of the mRNA technology, is that many, many steps … can remain the same," he said.

Professor Cunningham said the key to responding quickly to new variants was maintaining good surveillance.

He said it was up to the World Health Organization to recommend what strains should be included in updated vaccines.

Professor Cunningham said the vaccines then needed to be approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia to make sure they were safe and effective, a process which could take about two months.

Why do vaccines need to be updated? COVID-19 vaccines need to be updated because they cannot protect against newer strains of the virus as effectively, according to Professor Cunningham.

He said that was because the immune system did not have the same antibodies to recognise and fight off the mutated virus.

"Variants can change so they're no longer completely protected against the antibodies that are circulating," Professor Cunningham said.

"That's why we need to keep changing our vaccines, and … particularly in aging people, we need to be immunised every six months to keep the antibodies up."

Professor Purcell said the first Omicron strain was an "escape" variant that required an updated vaccine.

"When the first Omicron came, it had many, many, many changes — more than we'd ever seen before and that was a very significant escape variant," he said.

"People vaccinated with the ancestral strain of vaccine were not protected from transmission with that COVID variant."

He said while people still had some immunity from the original vaccine, it was not enough.

"We do have some underpinning immunity that's capable of still preventing severe disease from those infections but it is still relevant enough to develop a new strain of vaccine," he said.

What vaccines have been approved for use in Australia? Australian Department of Health statistics showed 72.3 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered as of October 9.

Pfizer's Omicron XBB. 1.5 and original vaccines were approved for use in children aged five to 11 years old, while Pfizer's original vaccine was also available for children aged six months to four years.

Pfizer's Omicron XBB. 1.5, Original/Omicron BA.4/5 and Moderna's Omicron XBB. 1.5 were available for people aged 12 years and older, according to Healthdirect.

The TGA said it was evaluating Pfizer and Moderna's JN.1 strain vaccine for use in Australia.

[long-anti-covid]

article date: July 26, 2024

"Historically, when we're talking about COVID vaccines, we're talking about boosters that would happen at some time post your previous vaccine," said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor. "Now we're targeting annual vaccines for COVID-19 that is similar to flu. It's a reformulation based on what's circulating, and this is why we're talking about an annual campaign rather than a booster," he continued.

[pandemic-info]

News on Fall Boosters

(I focus on Novavax for reasons previously discussed on this blog, searchable via its tag.)

June 14, 2024 - Novavax Submits Application to U.S. FDA for Updated Protein-based 2024-2025 Formula COVID-19 Vaccine

Novavax's JN.1 vaccine has demonstrated broad cross-neutralizing antibodies against multiple variant strains, including KP.2 and KP.3, indicating the potential to protect against forward drift variants.

June 27, 2024 - U.S. CDC & ACIP Recommend Use of Authorized and Approved 2024-2025 COVID-19 Vaccines

Today the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted unanimously in favor of a universal recommendation for the use of 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccines ... Novavax intends to provide doses of our 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine at the start of the vaccination season and upon EUA by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Aug. 14, 2024 - COVID is surging again. Here’s the latest on new variants, updated vaccines, and masking

Novavax, an American biotechnology company, had already developed a JN.1-targeted vaccine and the company said it wouldn’t have time to change the formulation before the fall. Novavax’s vaccine is the only protein-based COVID-19 vaccine

[I disagree with Mark Sawyer, MD's quote in the article that “It’s important to have Novavax as an option because some people are still concerned about mRNA”. I in particular have no issue with "mRNA tech", have taken it, and am familiar with it due to having worked on some of the earliest science-journalistic reporting about it. Many choose Novavax for other reasons, again, discussed previously / elswhere, and will continue to as long as it confers equal or better protection vs mRNA options.]

Is it time to wear a mask again? ... Sawyer also recommends masking while traveling or in high-risk situations.“ If you’re in a community where the virus is surging, as so many people are, it is smart to wear a mask if you’re in indoor, crowded conditions,” he says.

[*For some of us it isn't "again"; we didn't stop in any situation where it was "smart" to.]

Despite COVID not being a seasonal illness, new vaccines are still being offered on a seasonal schedule. Updated boosters are again expected in September.

[gumjrop]

The Weather

As of September 13, 2024, national wastewater levels remain high. The CDC’s national wastewater map has contracted viral activity levels from ten grades of color to five grades of color while our map below maintains the original ten grades of color based on CDC data. We will adjust to the five grades in future reports. With schools in full session and the weather transitioning in northern regions to cooler temperatures, transmission continues to occur. Wastewater activity is either “High” or “Very High” in 37 states according to the Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) dashboard. Activity is “Moderate” in 8 states and the District of Columbia, and there is no data available for New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam. 

According to the Wastewater COVID-19 National and Regional Trends dashboard, COVID wastewater levels have plateaued, remaining between high and very high in all regions except for the West, which is having a slight increase. The highest levels remain in the West as of 9/7/2024 (data captured on 9/13/2024). 

In order to access local COVID wastewater levels, you can refer to the CDC’s state/territory trends page as well as the WastewaterSCAN dashboard. State and local public health wastewater trackers may also be available for example in Illinois, they are reporting over 80 locations. Also, the National Academies of Medicine recently published a second report stressing the importance of a robust wastewater surveillance system and its invaluable role in infectious disease surveillance. They recommend improving the consistency and quality of wastewater surveillance for COVID and other infectious diseases.

As of September 10, 2024, COVID levels are “likely growing” in 3 states and territories according to the CDC Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics dashboard. Thirteen states have reached “stable or uncertain” levels, and 31 states are seeing “declining” or “likely declining”, while levels are “not estimated” in 4 states. 

Note, this model utilizes emergency department visit data to estimate COVID transmission’s Rt, which is an estimate of the average number of new infections caused by each infectious person. An Rt greater than 1.0 indicates that infections are growing, while an Rt less than 1.0 indicates that they’re declining.

According to the CDC's COVID Data Tracker, there has been an increase to nearly 1,000 deaths and slightly more than 1,000 deaths per week from COVID during the entire month of August 2024. The last time this occurred was during the winter months of 2024. This total count of weekly COVID deaths is likely to be an underestimate due to limited COVID testing and reporting. The loss of these lives could have been prevented if layers of protections were consistently implemented in preventing infections. 

A recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine highlights the importance of preventing infections especially during periods of high rates of transmission. It notes that COVID death rates were higher when healthcare systems faced a larger strain as a result of increased levels of transmission. Comprehensive policies that protect people and prevent healthcare-acquired COVID infections are needed to prevent healthcare system overload.

Variants

According to the CDC’s variant tracking dashboard, KP.3.1.1 remains the dominant variant of all currently circulating strains. Nowcast modeling projects that KP.3.1.1 will increase to 52.7% by 9/14/2024, followed by KP.2.3 at 12.2%, followed by LB.1 at 10.9%, and KP.3 at 10.6%, respectively. The most prevalent circulating variants are JN.1-derived, and closely related to both JN.1 and KP.2. Updated vaccination with any of the available options (Pfizer, Moderna, or Novavax) is recommended to better match current variants.

Vaccines and Treatment

Although the Bridge Access Program, covering the updated vaccines for uninsured and underinsured adults, has ended, several states including California’s Bridge Access Program and other departments of health have taken steps to partially address this major gap by either providing funding for no-cost access to COVID vaccines or using budgets to acquire a limited supply for their residents. Ultimately, the federal government must contribute resources to ensure no-cost access for all who are uninsured or underinsured. We continue to demand from the federal government to provide continued funding for the Bridge Access Program as well as the Vaccines for Adults Program. As people access the updated COVID vaccines, it is notable that a longer 1.5 inch needle may be needed for adults with higher body weights, in order to pass through subcutaneous tissue into muscle. Complete guidelines for vaccine administration in consideration of age, weight, and injection site can be found on the CDC's website.

It is important to seek treatment when facing a COVID infection. A recent study, reviewing population data of nonhospitalized individuals ages 18 and older during the period of January 2022 and December 2023, showed that nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid)—treatment for COVID—was less commonly used among those who identified as non-Hispanic Black and Latinx/e patients. Although the Test-to-Treat program prematurely ended, there continue to be programs available to ensure financial access to Paxlovid.

Wins

This is a reminder that another batch of no-cost COVID rapid antigen tests can be ordered and sent to your home address at the end of September 2024. Through the CDC’s Increasing Community Access to Testing (ICATT) program, no-cost access to COVID testing access is limited to those who are uninsured or underinsured at places including CVS, Walgreens, eTrueNorth, and other local sites as well as in New York City, which is supported by the NY Department of Public Health.

We are eagerly awaiting news on updates from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid on mandatory reporting of COVID infections in healthcare systems, which begins November 1 thanks to our community’s advocacy. It is invaluable that all healthcare systems participate as case data is paramount for keeping track with current COVID trends and understanding the volume of healthcare acquired COVID infections. 

Take Action

The National Institute of Health (NIH) is seeking public comment and feedback on the next phase of RECOVER clinical trials, which focus on Long COVID. Meetings will be held virtually and on-site between September 23 and 25 to solicit feedback and comments. Register to attend these virtual or on-site sessions by September 25, 2024. It is very important to participate and ask NIH to commit to studies that will result in developing a better understanding of Long COVID, effective treatments for Long COVID, and key approaches to preventing Long COVID. 

Amid ongoing COVID spread, masking in healthcare remains central to safe access to healthcare. As we await implementation of COVID hospitalization reporting and prepare for CDC’s next Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee meeting in November, you can use this letter campaign to ask your elected officials to take action for healthcare masking.

And finally, because all of us need access to the updated COVID vaccines regardless of our insurance status or ability to pay, use our letter template to demand free COVID vaccines for uninsured and underinsured adults nationally.

[lasseling]

Pfizer Concealed Cancer Links to Covid Vaccines from Health Agencies

[montmorillionite]

I went to go get my flu shot and COVID booster today, and successfully got my flu shot.

I'm between insurance at the moment and do you want to know what the COVID booster costs without insurance? $200. Fucking ridiculous. I'm lucky that I get insurance through my job in a couple weeks so I can wait till then but holy fuck. I really feel and worry for anyone who isn't insured at the moment.

[theculturedmarxist]

There have been many scandals associated with covid in the last nearly 4 years.

I want to tell you about another one that has got zero media coverage.

The top-line is this: the UK government gave more than 2.3 million vulnerable and older people a covid vaccine that isn’t matched to the currently dominant covid strains. And they did it to save money.

The dominant covid strains right now are known as the XBBs. They have been dominant since late summer in most places, when they took over from the BA strains of omicron.

But rather than give people the new more effective XBB vaccine, the British government decided to use up their stockpile of the older BA vaccines first.

The worst thing is, those who got the outdated vaccine were those first in line for vaccines, such as older people and people with health conditions.

But they won’t know this.

So 2.3 million vulnerable people in the UK are walking around thinking they are well-protected this winter against covid when they’re not.

The British government didn’t hide why it did this. On the official government webpage it spells it out. In bold are the clues hiding in plain sight.

“The choice of vaccine products for autumn 2023 has been determined based on available data on vaccine safety, effectiveness and immunogenicity, logistical factors, programmatic deliverability and a bespoke cost effective assessment. Other vaccines which may offer similar protection, but which would incur additional costs, are expected to be less cost effective within the bespoke cost-effectiveness assessment compared to pre-procured Omicron-variant mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.”

What they are saying, under the cover of the gross language of ‘bespoke cost effectiveness assessment,’ is that they’d already bought the older vaccines and it was cheaper to use them than buy extra new ones.

They used people’s bodies as asset dumps for old medical stock.

In the UK the booster roll-out began on September 11th. We know that in Scotland they switched over to XBB on September 25th and in England and Wales they switched to the new ones on October 2nd, as confirmed that day by Meaghan Kall, an epidemiologist at the UK’s health security agency responsible for covid.

But by September 29th the British government reported 2.35 million people had been covid boosted. So we know this was largely with the old vaccine (save 4 days in Scotland). In response to my thread on Twitter, many reported receiving the old vaccine. Even now, people are saying they’re still only being offered the old vaccine.

Boosting people with a vaccine not matched to the dominant strains will certainly lead to worse outcomes as an average than if these people had received the updated vaccine. People will die for this penny pinching.

But then the British government has for some time now been relaxed about killing people for austerity.

The Brits are also tightly restricting access to covid vaccines, in contrast to almost every other country. And in a final twist, the Brits are now stockpiling the new XBB vaccines and are almost certainly going to take the same approach to deploying an outdated vaccine next time round.

When I tweeted about this, the Guardian journalist George Monbiot responded and we subsequently exchanged emails. Monbiot did then write a very good column about the ongoing burden of covid in the UK and the various public health failures.

But the article omitted any mention of the millions who were given the older vaccine.

I can’t criticise Monbiot. I wouldn’t be surprised if he included this and it was cut by his editors. And his article stands head and shoulders above almost any other reporting of covid in the mass media, a mass media that has played a key part in normalising the transmission of a virus that has become the leading cause of infectious disease death in the world today.

These lies and misinformation about covid in the mass media continue. Last week was no exception.

The BBC’s health editor Nick Triggle wrote a truly noxious covid story full of half-truths, lies by omission and propaganda. He said covid was less deadly than the flu, that it is becoming a seasonal ‘bug’, that people who were concerned about rising hospitalisations were just anxious. (Nick Triggle’s sister-in-law is a Tory member of parliament, which might explain some things).

In the US, the New York Times interviewed the epidemiologist and long-time covid downplayer Michael Mina who said rates of long covid are drastically falling - without citing a shred of evidence - and said repeated exposure to covid for most people will not be harmful and will build immunity. In the comments below the piece, one person said the “excellent story begs the question as to whether healthy people should take any precautions against covid.” Job done.

Then there was the ‘long cold’ research paper which was amplified across global media.

If you missed it, the thrust was that long colds might be as common as long covid. So far, so fine.

But the findings were stripped of critical context in relation to covid.

It failed to acknowledge that even if long colds do exist, and almost certainly they do, Sars-Cov-2 is a different beast, behaving in a completely different way to other common cold-causing coronaviruses.

And rather than the conclusion here being ‘ok, so if long colds are this common, long covid might be very common too and maybe we should do something about it,’ the stories led us towards the conclusion that long covid itself is nothing to worry about because post-viral illness is nothing new.

All of this would have been bad enough without mentioning the methodology.

The study was conducted in 2020-2021 and relied on people self reporting a respiratory illness that they said wasn’t covid. We know for a fact that far fewer people got a respiratory illness that wasn’t covid in these years, so I expect a good number of these ‘not covids’ leading to ‘long colds’ were, in fact, covids leading to long covid. But again, the media stories failed to provide any of this context. Nick Triggle was one of those who wrote a story.

Triggled twice in two weeks.

Over and over, it seems that those who are concerned about covid come armed with data, and those who aren’t come armed with gut feeling in order to keep business-as-usual ticking over.

It’s 2019 again! Stop worrying!

Normalisation is the most powerful sociological force in the world today. Through a captured media, the ruling class can make us absorb a pandemic, accept climate collapse and shrug at apartheid. Change is unnecessary because nothing is wrong. It is just the natural order, flowing.

We also found out this week that just 2% of Americans have stepped up for the new covid jab, a rate of uptake that can be traced back to the early over-hyping of vaccines and the manufacturing of a narrative that says covid is mild and we’ve all achieved immunity now anyway.

I didn’t know where we’d be nearly four years on from the start of the pandemic, but I didn’t think we’d be here. New waves, millions being infected, thousands dying every week. And a media and public knowledge blackout of Novavax, the most effective vaccine. A vaccine we’ve known is the most effective for over two years.

It is tiring to keep up, to keep bearing witness to these fuck-ups, to this cruelty.

But we have to.

Because to believe in change means documenting the incompetence, the failure, the lies and the indifference that eventually compels that change to come.

[nowstomorrow]

"What about people who had mRNA doses previously but want to consider Novavax? There have been several studies now that found mixing the two, getting mRNA and then Novavax actually gave better results than just mRNA on its own.

One study found that getting Novavax as a booster after mRNA "may enhance the persistence and durability of vaccine-mediated immunity compared to mRNA options" with slower decay rate compared to an mRNA booster dose and less side effects than mRNA boosters.

A randomized controlled trial found that getting a Novavax dose after Pfizer mRNA elicited the highest humoral and peak cellular immune responses.

The mRNA + Novavax combination also had the lowest rate of breakthrough infections and the study also found fewer moderate and severe systemic adverse effects for Novavax than Pfizer mRNA.

Neutralising antibodies against Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 were higher with Novavax after mRNA compared to two mRNA doses."

- sources and graphs at the link:

[vizthedatum]

This is a brief vent and tangential aside about the healthcare hype surrounding naming some of the current trending and contagious COVID-19 variants, the "FLiRT" variants (of course, please stay safe this summer (2024) with COVID-19).

Linking my Substack article about this, which gets updated with corrections

--

Here are some highlights of this post (the TLDR):

- It's a vent about naming the FLiRT COVID-19 variants (a well-known stereotype that scientists like to make acronyms or catchy names).

- It's an explanation of how the naming FLiRT came to be.

- I'm bothered and irked because, in an attempt to distinguish variants, "FLiRT" doesn't. Additionally, it makes light of an ongoing pandemic.

- I really am not critiquing the person or people who came up with the name; I'm more upset about the name (and its playful connotations) catching on in the media and becoming a part of our ever-growing COVID-19 zeitgeist.

- I added some very brief (potentially useful?) insight at the end of my vent about how vaccine development should focus more on KP.2 and KP.3's F456L mutation rather than the JN.1 strain.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

Melbourne researchers have discovered more than 200 new vaccine target candidates from the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, that could lead to the development of vaccines with a longer lasting broader immunity than existing vaccinations.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, research led by Prof Anthony W. Purcell and first-authored by Dr. Asolina Braun from the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, investigates seven proteins of the COVID-19 virus that could become targets for new vaccines.

The initial vaccines designed to combat COVID-19 were targeted against the original Wuhan strain Spike protein. However, while this approach led to the generation of several highly effective, safe vaccines within an astonishingly brief timeframe, it also comes with some limitations, according to Dr. Braun. "The SARS-CoV-2 virus has mutated its Spike protein leading to lower efficacy of current vaccines," she said.

"Also, the original vaccines focused on B cell-mediated antibody responses for developing immunity. We now know that recruiting the other arm of the immune system, the T cells, can help to maintain immunity for longer."

In the study the researchers describe more than 200 SARS-CoV-2-derived peptides that could be targets for new and improved vaccines against COVID-19 and validate that a number of those peptides can trigger T cell responses in convalescent individuals.

Reflecting on this achievement, lead investigator Prof Tony Purcell remarks, "As part of a long term collaboration with Evaxion Biotech, we pivoted and turned our attention to SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic. Rather than continue the mainstream attention that focused predominantly on the Spike glycoprotein, we turned our attention to other more conserved viral proteins as potential next generation vaccine targets.

"The combination of the Monash team's epitope discovery by immunopeptidomics and protein chemistry, T cell immunology at the Peter Doherty Institute and Evaxion's AI-guided bioinformatics expertise was critical to the development of this paper that highlights the potential of several conserved viral proteins as vaccine candidates."

According to Dr. Braun, COVID-19 still continues to pose a high burden on health systems worldwide, and "this continued burden is mainly caused by the spread of several new variants. Thus, an unmet need remains for the development of novel vaccines able to target several viral strains and confer wide-spread protection in the global population," she said.

"The next generation of vaccines will benefit from eliciting both B-cell and T-cell mediated immunity toward multiple COVID proteins. Our study has uncovered promising candidates for the development of just such vaccines."

More information: Asolina Braun et al, Mapping the immunopeptidome of seven SARS-CoV-2 antigens across common HLA haplotypes, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51959-6 www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51959-6

[liberty1776]

With people suddenly dropping dead all over the mRNA-vaccinated world, with oncologists reporting massive increases in cancers, turbo-cancers never previously encountered, with studies documenting menstrual and fertility problems with Covid-vaccinated women, with young children having heart attacks, with a new form of blood clots that look like linguine, with outbreaks of Guillain-Barre syndrome and neurological ailments, myocarditis, pericarditis, spinal cord and brain inflammations, and every other kind of health horror, a controlled narrative explanation is needed.  Big Pharma is dealing with the problem by rounding up a collection of its grant-bribed medical researches to admit the problem but to trivialize  it … Continue reading →

[liesmyteachertoldme]

Former NFL linebacker dies suddenly at 25, no cause of death given. NFL currently touts a 95% player vaccination rate. Jessie Lemonier was just one day from turning 26.

[bernie-buddy]

So the "Florida Surgeon General" just called for a halt in Covid vaccines, citing one (1) paper.

Being skeptical of anything involving Ron DeSantis, I went to actually read the paper.

Just one problem, I don't understand any of this.

If anyone can decipher this paper and make it readable, be my guest:

[gwydionmisha]

I always ask them to do my left as a matter of course. I now feel lucky.