Even Pfizer/Moderna Vaccines No Match for Covid Variant

 

They're the gold standard for Covid vaccines but that laurel may be fleeting. 

A laboratory study suggests that the South African variant of the coronavirus may reduce antibody protection from the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by two-thirds, and it is not clear if the shot will be effective against the mutation, the companies have said.

The study found the vaccine was still able to neutralise the virus and there is not yet evidence from trials in people that the variant reduces vaccine protection, the companies said.

Still, they are making investments and talking to regulators about developing an updated version of their mRNA vaccine, or a booster shot, if needed.


The two coronavirus vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna appear to be highly effective against the more transmissible variant of the virus first detected in Britain, according to newly published studies in the New England Journal of Medicine, in a potential boost to vaccination efforts around the globe.

Comments

  1. TroyFebruary 19, 2021 at 9:25 AM

    Hello! Long time, no see. Didn't know you moved address.

    Unless Western nations fully adopt a Covid-0 strategy, there'll probably be a game of cat and mouse with new variants for years to come. Near 100% mask compliance though does seem to have taken a big chunk out of Covid-19's numbers, which is fantastic, but it'll be at least another month before we get to acceptable levels of Covid-19 infections in the general population.

    Canada probably needs to take a harder line against non-compliance by ruling it criminal because it really is criminal for people to be parading about, spreading the virus simply because they feel it is a "hoax" or they're too "masculine" to wear a mask. These people will probably cry "freedom of" something or other but I want freedom from infection. Covid-0 is a sacrifice of three months to make; that's it. Sixty days to reduce the levels to something tolerable, and a further thirty just to make sure. I'd suggest the same for the USA, but their justice and prison system is batshit insane and utterly broken, and placing more people into its greedy clutches is the last thing they need. It's destroyed enough lives. No better than the Soviet gulag now.

    A good source for Covid-19 and health news I found is Dr John Campbell who has a YouTube channel. He notes a few things about the vaccines: there's been a 1,000 deaths after people have received it, but in a population of 40 million people vaccinated, that's just the usual numbers of deaths in that range. Also, people are behaving recklessly after getting vaccinated, usually within the first eight days; it takes three weeks for the vaccine to show "efficacy", so people need to follow social distancing/mask compliance afterwards. And there is correlation between Vit-D, and reduced Covid-19 symptoms so take Vit-D on the daily as another precaution.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibFebruary 19, 2021 at 11:45 AM

      Hi Troy. Good to hear from you again.

      I too am troubled with this spate of non-compliants, those who shout about their freedoms but have no concerns about how they endanger others, even their immediate and extended family members.

      Families, communities, entire societies are based on a suitable degree of voluntary compliance, small sacrifices for the greater good. Throw that unspoken rule out and sooner or later the fragile structure that bonds us together falls apart.

      I have long argued that there can be no freedom of religion without concomitant freedom from religion. Likewise, your ability to insist on your freedoms cannot be at the expense of the community's freedom not to be endangered. You can exercise your freedoms by either removing yourself from the community or being ostracized. The idea of being ostracized, excommunicated, sounds harsh, even radical but many family doctors have been doing it for years. They refuse to treat those who shun vaccinations and, in the result, potentially expose patients in their waiting rooms, staff and the doctors themselves to contagions. Is that radical, unduly harsh? Of course not.

      This is doubly true now that virologists are warning us that the nature of this fast mutating/evolving virus could make it nearly impossible to achieve the Holy Grail, herd immunity. Existing vaccines and therapeutics should, however, suppress severe cases/deaths and hospitalization rates.

      University of Alberta virologist and 2021 Nobel laureate, Michael Houghton, warns us that Covid may be one of those diseases that, like the flu, requires a seasonal vaccination. He does not see a magic bullet on the horizon.

      Delete
  2. TrailblazerFebruary 19, 2021 at 3:40 PM

    Just a thought, make of it what you will!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/16/russia-to-research-prehistoric-viruses-by-analysing-animal-remains

    May I add that I am seeing, through my work, huge non compliance within a range of industries and even government departments.

    I will be surprised if we contain the virus within the next few years; eradication is a pipe dream.

    Whilst Justin Trudeau's Canada has been negligent with it's responses it puzzles me that our death rates per million inhabitants is about one third of the so called success stories, of vaccinations, of the USA and UK??

    TB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibFebruary 20, 2021 at 1:17 PM

      A lot of concern for ancient viruses being released by the melting permafrost. Some speculate the next pandemic may come from the Arctic.

      The photo in that Guardian article, TB, was a bit unnerving. How could surgical masks be sufficient when trying to extract viruses from ancient remains?

      Delete
  3. Caillo Lisa June 26, 2021 at 10:24 AM

    This is another testimony on how Chief Dr Lucky cured my HIV disease. Do you need a cure for your HIV disease? Do you want to be cured from your cancer disease? Or you want to be free from any type of disease. Kindly visit his website https://chiefdrluckyherbaltherapy.wordpress.com/ . He just cured my HIV disease and I’m very grateful to him, he is the only herbalist that can cure you.
    WhatsApp number : +2348132777335
    Via Email : chiefdrlucky@gmail.com
    Thank you all for reading,
    God bless"

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Up in Smoke. 300 Sq. Mi. of Amazon Rainforest Lost Every Day.

Image
  The Amazon rainforest is disappearing at what should be an alarming rate. 312 sq. mi. or 808 sq. kms. every day. Over the past 30 years humans have destroyed a patch of the Amazon equal in area to the states of Texas and New Mexico . The Amazon – historically a great carbon absorber, since trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen – now releases more carbon than it stores, which adds to, rather helps to reduce, our global climate crisis. Deforestation rates decreased slightly from 2004 to 2012. But since then, they’re back on the rise, especially in the past couple of years, since Jair Bolsonaro became president of Brazil. In 2018, as Bolsonaro campaigned as a patriotic man of the people, scientists predicted that once the Amazon lost more than 25% of its tree cover, it would become a drier ecosystem, all because deforestation changes weather patterns (due to how trees respire), which in turn reduces rainfall. Furthermore, as the forest becomes fragmented, areas surrounded...
Read more

The Cognoscenti Syndrome

  There is a group of people I think of as the Cognoscenti, people who are well educated, very informed and of rapidly diminishing relevance. Their ranks include writers such as Chris Hedges and Glen Greenwald. These are people who have honed an almost Puritanical value system, readily finding fault in any direction. They are scathing in their attacks on Republicans and Democrats alike to the point where they become nihilists. They don't endorse. They prescribe. This is where they fail. They're unable to advocate for anything that might resonate with the public whose interests they argue are being trammeled. Donald Trump was bad but Joe Biden is scarcely better. This is where their elitism comes in.  74 million may have voted for Trump but, hey, they didn't know any better. The mob that stormed the Capitol. They were just victims of the system venting their frustrations. All the racism, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, white nationalism - inevitable side effects of their oppr...
Read more

Who Asks "Why?"

Every time there's a conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, all we hear is 'why?'  Why, as in, whose fault is this? It's easier to affix blame if you can truncate the event. Pick a convenient start date, something recent. In this case we'll make it either the Israeli eviction of Arabs from Jerusalem or the scuffle that took place outside the mosque in response. If those don't work, let's go for Hamas launching unguided rockets into Israel. That's even better because it tags Hamas with the blame. The nice thing about this approach is you can just keep using it. It goes on and on, just as it has for the past half-century since the '67 war. You can even date this whole mess to the beginning of the occupation of the Palestinian territories. The Israelis are said to have called these periodic wars, "mowing the lawn." The idea is that, every now and then, you have to take these Arabs to the woodshed. And then you keep your powder dry unt...
Read more