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d0ctorzaius t1_j5qt2j7 wrote

Reply to comment by georgeBarkley12 in FDA wants to simplify the use and updating of Covid-19 vaccines by joshemerson

Answer for the last few boosters has been "wanes after 4 months, nearly gone by 6 months" but that's based on neutralizing antibody data. There's certainly some level of protection (against severe illness) even with low antibody titers. Super high titers really only serve to prevent you from catching it in the first place.

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georgeBarkley12 t1_j5qu8ho wrote

Would it be easy to find out data behind those boosted within the last 4-6 months

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d0ctorzaius t1_j5qwxtw wrote

For antibody data sure, just simple blood draws in patients within different vaccination backgrounds (never vaxxed, first dose, second dose, 1st booster, etc). A big confounding variable is COVID exposure outside of the vaccines which boosts antibody titers in all populations. The more important data is going to be protection from death, severe disease and infection. That data is harder as it requires well-controlled trials (and ideally challenge studies). Yet another variable is what version of COVID do you look at. Maybe boosters worked great against delta, but not so much against omicron. In that case you have to make a lot of assumptions in the data: "patient X was infected and had moderate disease in October when such and such strain was dominant." Real world data is pretty messy and is even messier now than in 2020. Hence most studies stick to antibody neutralization studies.

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georgeBarkley12 t1_j5qxiku wrote

I meant more on a large scale. Is their any data of what % of Americans were boosted within the last 6 months.

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d0ctorzaius t1_j5qy2bs wrote

Oh CDC keeps tabs on that, so I'd expect they have that data. From what I've read the number is super low. Most people who want to get boosted mostly did so back in October/November, so they're (myself included) already on the downslope of waning antibody titers. And the overall number of people who even got their second booster is 4% lol.

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georgeBarkley12 t1_j5r0mws wrote

Why do you think it’s so low?

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d0ctorzaius t1_j5rijtg wrote

So it was reported 4% at the end of September, 8.5% at the end of October. We don't have good data on the total number of people who have received two doses at present (many states aren't tracking how many boosters patients have received, just using no vax, original series, and original series+booster categories). Unless a ton of folks got a booster over the holidays, it's unlikely we're that much higher than 8.5% (maybe 15? 20 max?)

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georgeBarkley12 t1_j5rkenq wrote

Seems odd how went went from like 60% gun hoe to so low

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d0ctorzaius t1_j5rs80r wrote

If I had to guess it's a mixture of fatigue, misinformation, as well as declining effectiveness. As an reference flu vaccine rates have fallen over time down to ~30% and that's only once a year vs every 6 months. The hope is either previous exposure to COVID or previous vaccination gives some level of lasting immunity so at least deaths/severe disease won't be as common, regardless of booster status.

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