Jen Psaki and Hillary Clinton have tested positive for Covid-19 but their husbands have tested negative.
From wapo. For some reason I could open so copied
“Vaccine maker Moderna announced Wednesday its two-dose pediatric coronavirus vaccine was safe in young children, toddlers and babies in a study.
But the effectiveness of the shot in children 6 months to 5 years old was more of a mixed picture because of the challenge presented by the highly transmissible omicron variant.
In a trial of the vaccine, the shot met the main criteria the company and regulators had defined for success, generating immune defenses equivalent to those that protected young adults before the omicron variant emerged, according to a Moderna news release.
But in the face of omicron, the immune defenses mustered by two doses in adults were less robust, particularly in preventing infections — and the same pattern was seen in children, with vaccine efficacy of about 40 percent.”
40% is not good. And, it’s a pre-approval estimate. Every pre-approval estimate of vaccine efficacy has proven to be too high. When I tweeted about this I of course got some trolls who can’t see nuance, thinking I was anti-vaccine. Far from the truth, as I’m very much pro-vaccine. But, the numbers Moderna presented are not encouraging. If my children were infants, I would probably NOT have them vaccinated. The questionable benefits are outweighed by the possible disutilities, in my view. In today’s polarized world, that makes me anti-vaccine. How the hell did we get to this point?
FDA’s standard just one year ago was that any approved vaccine must have more than 50% efficacy. Now, pre-approval, a company releases data that says the vaccine is 40% efficacious in the infant to 6 year old category, and some in the media portray this as “good.” It’s not good. It’s also not 40%, or at least won’t be once an independent review is done – not a company press release of a company study! My guess is efficacy will drop to 30-35%, which is woeful.
Joshua,
From what we have learned over the past two years, the symptomatic efficacy number is not as important for my comfort level. Of course it was great to hear of 90 to 95% efficacy, even if the actual number proved to be somewhat less (a lot less with future variants). I assume that the protection against severe outcomes is still very high, even with the lower concern in this age group? In my opinion, this is the benefit that should be touted, when weighing the risk/benefit ratio, as well as any protection from the rare occurrence of MIS-C…. I would never consider you anti-vax, of course!
Interesting discussion. Thank you both. I do not have grandchildren in that age range. In truth the risks from the vaccine to me trump the efficacy. My grandkids are just getting their second vaccine thus week and next (5 and 9 year old today). As you can see, my kids have opted to nit expose while keeping an eye on risks. And there are some…..especially for one grand.
The concern is we do not have the data on mRNA vaccines for the years out that these kids will with God’s grace be adults.
By the way, the U.S. just passed 1 million Covid deaths, according to Worldometer.
Massachusetts data show a very gradual increase, which is actually good news. It means that even though BA.2 is increasing, it’s not leading to a large increase in cases and hospitalizations. I’m hoping this continues, as it would mean we’ll only experience a ripple. We shall see.
I’ll repost tomorrow. But thought Joe snd Joshua would be interested based on discussion above.
I’m not sure I like the ending where kids are used to determine safety
Thank you Vicki! Nice article that covers many of the points I was trying to make. I guess my comfort level is much higher with the vaccine and was surprised that the hospitalization numbers were as high as the article referenced. Thanks again.
C-19 for 3-24 is ready.
Comments are closed.
Your no-hype southeastern New England weather blog!
Thanks TK.
Jen Psaki and Hillary Clinton have tested positive for Covid-19 but their husbands have tested negative.
From wapo. For some reason I could open so copied
“Vaccine maker Moderna announced Wednesday its two-dose pediatric coronavirus vaccine was safe in young children, toddlers and babies in a study.
But the effectiveness of the shot in children 6 months to 5 years old was more of a mixed picture because of the challenge presented by the highly transmissible omicron variant.
In a trial of the vaccine, the shot met the main criteria the company and regulators had defined for success, generating immune defenses equivalent to those that protected young adults before the omicron variant emerged, according to a Moderna news release.
But in the face of omicron, the immune defenses mustered by two doses in adults were less robust, particularly in preventing infections — and the same pattern was seen in children, with vaccine efficacy of about 40 percent.”
40% is not good. And, it’s a pre-approval estimate. Every pre-approval estimate of vaccine efficacy has proven to be too high. When I tweeted about this I of course got some trolls who can’t see nuance, thinking I was anti-vaccine. Far from the truth, as I’m very much pro-vaccine. But, the numbers Moderna presented are not encouraging. If my children were infants, I would probably NOT have them vaccinated. The questionable benefits are outweighed by the possible disutilities, in my view. In today’s polarized world, that makes me anti-vaccine. How the hell did we get to this point?
FDA’s standard just one year ago was that any approved vaccine must have more than 50% efficacy. Now, pre-approval, a company releases data that says the vaccine is 40% efficacious in the infant to 6 year old category, and some in the media portray this as “good.” It’s not good. It’s also not 40%, or at least won’t be once an independent review is done – not a company press release of a company study! My guess is efficacy will drop to 30-35%, which is woeful.
Joshua,
From what we have learned over the past two years, the symptomatic efficacy number is not as important for my comfort level. Of course it was great to hear of 90 to 95% efficacy, even if the actual number proved to be somewhat less (a lot less with future variants). I assume that the protection against severe outcomes is still very high, even with the lower concern in this age group? In my opinion, this is the benefit that should be touted, when weighing the risk/benefit ratio, as well as any protection from the rare occurrence of MIS-C…. I would never consider you anti-vax, of course!
Interesting discussion. Thank you both. I do not have grandchildren in that age range. In truth the risks from the vaccine to me trump the efficacy. My grandkids are just getting their second vaccine thus week and next (5 and 9 year old today). As you can see, my kids have opted to nit expose while keeping an eye on risks. And there are some…..especially for one grand.
The concern is we do not have the data on mRNA vaccines for the years out that these kids will with God’s grace be adults.
UK data with graphs: https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1506667555016089612
By the way, the U.S. just passed 1 million Covid deaths, according to Worldometer.
Massachusetts data show a very gradual increase, which is actually good news. It means that even though BA.2 is increasing, it’s not leading to a large increase in cases and hospitalizations. I’m hoping this continues, as it would mean we’ll only experience a ripple. We shall see.
I’ll repost tomorrow. But thought Joe snd Joshua would be interested based on discussion above.
I’m not sure I like the ending where kids are used to determine safety
https://insidemedicine.bulletin.com/covid-19-vaccine-successful-in-youngest-children-moderna-says
Thank you Vicki! Nice article that covers many of the points I was trying to make. I guess my comfort level is much higher with the vaccine and was surprised that the hospitalization numbers were as high as the article referenced. Thanks again.
C-19 for 3-24 is ready.