Pfizer said Wednesday that a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine may offer important protection against the new omicron variant even though the initial two doses appear significantly less effective.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said that while two doses may not be protective enough to prevent infection, lab tests showed a booster increased by 25-fold people’s levels of virus-fighting antibodies.
Blood samples taken a month after a booster showed people harbored levels of omicron-neutralizing antibodies that were similar to amounts proven protective against earlier variants after two doses.
Scientists don’t yet know how big a threat the omicron variant really is. Currently the extra-contagious delta variant is responsible for most of the COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and other countries.
But the omicron variant, discovered late last month, carries an unusually large number of mutations and scientists are racing to learn how easily it spreads, whether it causes illness that is more serious or milder than other coronavirus types — and how much it might evade the protection of prior vaccinations.
Pfizer’s findings, announced in a press release, are preliminary and haven’t yet undergone scientific review. But they’re the first from a vaccine maker examining whether the booster doses that health authorities are urging people to get may indeed make an important difference.
Scientists have speculated that the high jump in antibodies that comes with a third dose of COVID-19 vaccines might be enough to counter any decrease in effectiveness.
Pfizer and BioNTech already are working to create an omicron-specific vaccine in case it’s needed.
Antibody levels predict how well a vaccine may prevent infection with the coronavirus but they are just one layer of the immune system’s defenses. Pfizer said two doses of the vaccine should still protect against severe disease, because the mutations in omicron don’t appear to hamper one of those other defenses, T cells that fight the virus after infection sets in.
“Although two doses of the vaccine may still offer protection against severe disease caused by the Omicron strain, it’s clear from these preliminary data that protection is maximized with a third dose of our vaccine,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement.
Pfizer’s announcement had an immediate impact on U.S. markets. Futures that had pointed to a lower open reversed course in seconds and swung solidly to the positive with the Dow jumping almost 200 points.
(AP)
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14 Responses
It “hasn’t undergone scientific review” but Pfizer assures u it’s gonna work- go get boosted!! In six months, when omicron is long gone, the study might appear in fine print in the back page of some forgotten journal that says it didn’t work. Oops. But in the meantime, there’s a nice island the CEO of Pfizer has his eye on… go get booster!!!
Sariray— no offense but you went to Harvard or Yale ?
Or YWGC school of medicine
( yente WhatsApp group chat med school )
Easy on your recommendations when dealing in life / death medical issues
I know plenty of people -very close friends – who didn’t make it the last two years
hymish, YOU need a Harvard or Yale degree to know not to believe Pfizer’s own findings?!
Btw, Yale and Harvard make you more dumb today “teaching” about gender identity and race so I don’t see a degree from those institutions making you smarter in any case.
how convenient…
There’s a nice sugiya in avodah zarah about not taking drugs from an akum. Glad I have the Torah.
Ph—
Let’s take a look at the facts- For two years now the community sariray is coming from has been dead wrong every step of the way. In the end it turned out the vaccines did not fully prevent infection ( as was noted by Pharma early on ) however based on comprehensive data it’s been wildly successful vis-à-vis hospitalization and death. Those are facts based on global statistics.
I actually care about hundreds of dead Chassdim — many hundreds in the frum community alone —- from Brooklyn who are no longer with us— far greater than any personal ego or armchair medical advisor complex we’ve seen time and again among us .
Do I believe Pfizer? Of course not —until it’s reviewed and analyzed by medical experts— but I keep my mouth shut and let it play out .
Furthermore, without a doubt sariray , yourself and everyone from the peanut gallery know a heckuva a lot more than Rav Chaim Kanievsky and Rav Edelstein who have been very clear about the need to vaccinate from the outset .
Clearly — everyone knows more than gedolai Yisroel when it comes to this — but every custom and movement involving the rest of their lives is closely adhered to.
Get this straight— It’s complete hypocrisy to not listen to the gedolei Torah here — while at the same time following word for word the mishna brura in every other aspect of your life. The Mishnah brurah and the shulchan orech and our current day gedolim are all the same if your a Torah yid
u relize every shot you take they get more $$$$$$$.
Hymish, your friends didn’t make it because of medical malpractice, not covid. There are inexpensive, highly effective therapeutics (Ivermectin, zinc, vitamin D, vitamin C, monoclonal antibodies) that work almost immediately – and have been validated by multiple peer-reviewed, published studies – but hospitals refuse to give these treatments and patients are not allowed an advocate in the hospital.
Hospitals starved, intubated, isolated, and heavily medicated covid patients with questionable drugs that not only do not work against covid, but also cause multiple organ failure (Remdesivir). Proven therapeutics like Ivermectin that have been used by billions of people worldwide safely, effectively, and with near-zero side effects were banned in order to ensure that the vaccine would be the one and only covid remedy available to society, and therefore, could be given emergency use authorization.
It is a “remedy” that does not stop the infection with – or the transmission of – covid as a vaccine would; it only “prevents severe covid disease” but if that is true, why are emergency rooms filled with the fully-vaccinated who are not only getting covid, but are also suffering from clotting, miscarriage/infertility, and systemic inflammatory syndromes including myocarditis and Guillain-Barr Syndrome? The number of side effects and adverse events reported from this one “emergency remedy” have surpassed those reported for all vaccines combined over the past 30 years. Is this “safe and effective”? When treated with the therapeutics listed above, covid has a near-zero mortality rate. That is the true definition of “safe and effective” but your friends, unfortunately, were not allowed to utilize these treatments due to the ICU policies in federally-funded hospitals.
Symptoms of Omicron seem to be very mild. Would you get a booster every time that you came down with a cold? Big Pharma couldn’t care less about you. All they care about, at the end of the day, is the big bucks that they will reap, and as far as they are concerned, you can go to gehenom.
You have a full right to question self-serving statements by for profit companies. That is, for example, why Jews have hashgaha and do not trust the shechting company’s word. Business is a toeva. Luckily, there are multiple labs all over the world that are urgently, and independently, running tests against this new punishment the world got. So, soon there will be results of multiple experiments that will sort themselves out.
At the same time, there is a concept of gratitude that is ingrained in Jewish religion and, remind you, you are posting on a Jewish religious site. So, when you address companies (that is their scientists and other employees) that spend last 1.5 years working heroically to save millions of life, you should show more respect. Daven that you’ll see the backs of their heads in your line to be interviewed for Gan Eden.
Why are my comments “always awaiting moderation” until that article disappears from your website?
I have a degree in common sense. That Fauci you worship? He hasn’t been right yet on just about anything. All the stuff I’ve been saying for the past two years I’ve turned out right. I told everyone stop disinfecting items. Yup, didn’t need to. I told everyone masks didn’t work- studies show they don’t. I told everyone that after the lockdowns end we’ll be back at square one- yup right on that too.
Those scientists u worship? They defer to their superiors who pay their bills- namely big pharma.
Everything they recommend is mainly to increase profits. Nothing to see here about public health. Kids getting vaccine isn’t about public health. The vaccine doesn’t limit spread as anyone with two brain cells to run together should know by now. It also isn’t necessary for kids. And why are no headlines discussing the massive surges in covid in the most heavily vaccinated states and countries??
All those people who died? It’s because our health department flat out refused to recommend any drugs to treat covid. Until today!!
Right now u can google they only recommend remdesivir which is absolutely toxic and worldwide studies showed no benefit to covid patients. Fauci struggled to show any benefit at all even in his rigged trials. These people were murdered by corrupt health officials who decided to use the pandemic to advance their own agenda towards pushing patented drugs and developing new vaccine technology which has already been shown to be a complete failure but they’re hiding that failure behind a quiet media and promoting shot after shot after shot. Guess what? In six months from now they’re gonna insist on a fourth booster. I’ll put money down
I read through this whole “legality” of an article. No science here. At all.
Now from a business perspective, it is comprehensible.