Cipla says close to committing $1 billion to Moderna for booster vaccine - Business Standard

The company has further requested for the government's assurance that no price capping would apply for imported vaccines to be provided through private hospitals

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Cipla | Coronavirus Vaccine

Seeking fast-track approvals to bring Moderna's single-dose Covid-19 booster vaccine in India expeditiously, Cipla has requested the government for indemnification and exemptions from price capping, bridging trials and basic customs duty, while stating that it is close to committing over $1-billion as advance to the US major, sources said on Monday.

Commending the government for its efforts to increase the vaccine availability in the country for achieving effective protection against Covid-19, the Indian pharma giant has said its discussions with Moderna on the Covid-19 booster vaccine are nearing finalisation and for that, they are seeking the "partnership and support of the government to make this programme successful".

Requesting the government to provide confirmation on four critical points --- exemption from price restriction, indemnification, bridging trial waiver and basic customs duty exemption, Cipla has said such an assurance will help make this significant financial commitment of more than $1 billion (over Rs 7,250 crore) advance to Moderna for its booster vaccine in India, sources privy to the development said.

Cipla's latest communication to the government, dated May 29, follows a high-level meeting held recently during which it was discussed that Moderna has proposed to launch a single-dose vaccine for the Indian market, for which, they were in discussion with Cipla and other Indian companies.

It was also discussed in that meeting that orders for supply of the vaccine in 2022 may be placed with Moderna expeditiously and that Cipla has evinced interest to procure 50 million doses from Moderna for 2022. It was also suggested that Cipla may be asked to submit their specific requests to the government on their request for a "confirmation from the Government of India in respect of stability in regulatory requirements/policy regime" and a decision on that can be taken thereafter expeditiously.

Taking the matter forward, Cipla has now written to the government, "It is imperative Cipla brings Moderna booster vaccines to India urgently, having immediately made available the largest portfolio of Covid-19 drugs amongst Indian pharmaceutical companies, including the state-of-the-art antibody cocktail of Casirivimab and Imdevimab."

Stating that Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine has been rated at the highest efficacy with least side effects and that the US company was also leading the development of boosters and vaccines for adolescents and paediatrics, Cipla has told the government that it needs assurance from the government to include Moderna booster vaccine under the Liberalised Pricing and Accelerated National Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy, announced in April and made effective from May 1.

The company has said it is a "need of the hour" to provide access to quality vaccine booster to bolster India's fight against Covid-19 and that it is looking forward to the government's assurance to help it expeditiously close its supply arrangement with Moderna.

Seeking exemption from price restriction, Cipla said, "Given the size of the population we need to immunize with boosters, it is our avid belief that the government and private players can work together to deliver the vaccination programme, best serving the public interest."

"Any restriction brought on pricing may dissuade the mRNA players from providing their vaccines in India, considering the serious competing demand by other countries chasing the limited supply of vaccines," a source quoted Cipla as having communicated to the Indian government.

The company has further requested for the government's assurance that no price capping would apply for imported vaccines to be provided through private hospitals and that the booster vaccine can be covered under the liberalised pricing policy and kept exempt from any price capping.

Cipla has also sought indemnity in case of any adverse effects or complications caused by the Moderna vaccine and cited instances of the US Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) and similar programmes in the UK, Canada, EU, Singapore and even the WHO-led Covax, that protect vaccine manufacturers/distributors from claims and underwrite the compensation burden.

On basic custom duty exemption, Cipla said it appreciates the government's intent on exempting basic customs duty on import of Covid-19 vaccines and urged it to be extended to the whole of 2022.

It also lauded NITI Aayog's recent statement on "Myths and Facts on India's Vaccination Process" where it had said that bridging trial requirement for vaccines approved by the US FDA, EMA and others will be waived off altogether for well-established vaccines, manufactured in other countries.

The company has sought confirmation that the Moderna booster vaccine, having received the USFDA's Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) will not require a bridging trial in India. However, Cipla stated that as Moderna's India partner, it will comply with post-marketing surveillance requirements.

Similar requests for indemnity and exemption from bridging trials have been made by another US major Pfizer as well.

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First Published: Mon, May 31 2021. 23:25 IST

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June 01, 2021 at 12:55AM
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Cipla says close to committing $1 billion to Moderna for booster vaccine - Business Standard

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Will we need booster Covid-19 vaccines? - The Irish Times

With the successful rollout of Covid-19 vaccines to a significant proportion of the population and the promise of everyone in the State being vaccinated by the end of September, the next issue on the immunisation front is the need for booster vaccines.

What is a booster dose? Some vaccines, such as tetanus, are recommended every 10 years. Boosters are a reminder to our immune system; if we become exposed to a toxin, it will remember and respond quickly.

Here are some of the many questions that experts in the National Immunisation Office (NIO) and the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) will be looking at: Will we all need a Covid-19 booster or will it be mandated only for certain groups? When might we need to boost our immune systems and how will this be decided? Would it be best to use the same brand of vaccine as a booster shot? Does the existence of variants mean modified versions of existing vaccines will be needed to offer ongoing protection against the novel virus?

One of the issues that has been addressed, in the context of a possible autumn booster campaign, is the co-administration of Covid-19 and influenza vaccines. Recently updated NIAC guidance says “Covid-19 vaccines and other vaccines may be administered at the same time or at any interval”.

This means that a possible autumn Covid-19 booster campaign could be helpfully “piggy-backed” on to the annual flu shot as one single visit.

While there is caution about the possibility of variants 'breaking through' the defence of our vaccines, the most recent data on the Indian variant is reassuring.

But back to more basic considerations: will there be a need for a Covid-19 booster? The short answer is that nobody can be sure. Revaccination hinges on two factors: the prevalence of vaccine-resistant variants and the issue of waning immunity. Speaking to Pulse magazine, vaccine expert Dr Peter English said “there is ‘minimal evidence’ that people’s immunity will have decreased by the autumn, even for those who were vaccinated earliest”.

Dr Anthony Fauci, respected medical advisor to the US president Joe Biden, told a recent Senate committee hearing that coronavirus booster shots will probably be needed for vaccinated Americans: “I don’t anticipate that the durability of the vaccine protection is going to be infinite – it’s just not. So I imagine we will need, at some time, a booster. What we’re figuring out right now is what that interval is going to be,” he said.

While there is caution about the possibility of variants “breaking through” the defence of our vaccines, the most recent data on the Indian variant (B.1.6172) is reassuring. A study by Public Health England, published on May 22nd, found both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccine offer high levels of protection against symptomatic disease from the Indian variant, following two doses. However, manufacturers Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are accelerating the development of tweaked boosters to combat the variants.

Autumn 2022

Will it be best for us to get the same brand of vaccine or a different type as a booster shot? The jury is out on this, with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) saying more data and evidence is needed to give a third dose – whether a booster dose of existing vaccines or one developed for variant strains.

There are lots of “known unknowns” when it comes to the why, when, where and what of booster Covid-19 vaccines. If readers will allow me a guesstimate, I predict the following: we will require boosters for Covid-19, probably on an annual basis. A booster campaign in the autumn of 2021 will be limited to priority groups, such as older people and those who are immunocompromised.

As for the rest of us, I predict the average person will not require a booster vaccine until autumn 2022.

mhouston@irishtimes.com, muirishouston.com

The Link Lonk


May 31, 2021 at 12:00PM
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Will we need booster Covid-19 vaccines? - The Irish Times

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Will We Need a COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Shot? - Healthline

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Experts say it’s too early to know if we’ll need booster shots for the COVID-19 vaccines. Jacob Lund/Getty Images

• The CEOs of some pharmaceutical companies say COVID-19 vaccination booster shots may be needed as early as this fall to bolster immunity against the disease.
• Experts say it’s too early to tell if and when those booster shots will be needed.
• Booster shots are not uncommon. They’re used for the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccine, among others.

The vaccines being used in the United States and other parts of the world are safe and effective in preventing severe cases of COVID-19.

How long that protection lasts is still not fully understood — both the virus and the vaccines against it are relatively new.

Breakthrough infections — those occurring in people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 — are happening. So far, though, they are largely occurring without major problems. Most people are asymptomatic, and their cases are discovered only during routine testing.

As variants of the novel coronavirus continue to spread and mutate, researchers are monitoring how the vaccines perform and whether booster shots will be needed to maintain meaningful immunity.

Right now, experts say it’s too early to speculate whether we’ll need booster shots like some routine vaccines.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, says it’s premature to predict whether COVID-19 boosters will be needed and, if so, at what intervals.

“To me, the threshold for boosters would be to see fully vaccinated individuals getting breakthrough infection severe enough to land them in the hospital,” Adalja told Healthline. “We have not crossed that threshold.”

However, the CEO of the companies whose COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed in the United States say their shots may need to be given annually, like a flu shot. They told Axios those boosters could come as early as September.

Data shows Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, which both use the same mRNA technology to create immunity against the novel coronavirus, remain effective after 6 months. Still, Pfizer officials in February said they are testing a booster shot up to a year after a person receives their first two doses.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine — which hasn’t received approval to be used in the United States — has been tested with a booster or a second shot after 12 weeks. Still, it doesn’t appear to offer any more meaningful protection than doses given closer together.

An international team of researchers published a paper in the journal Nature Medicine in January that looked at what was next for COVID-19 vaccinations beyond their phase 3 trials.

“Additional booster doses might be necessary to extend the duration of protection,” they wrote. “We do not know whether primary series and booster doses can or should be different.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ leading voice on infectious diseases, told a Senate subcommittee last week that he doesn’t anticipate that the durability of the COVID-19 vaccine protection “is going to be infinite.”

“It’s just not,” he said. “So I would imagine we will need, at some time, a booster.”

When that booster is needed, Fauci said, remains to be seen. Researchers are continuing to see when the current vaccines’ protections begin to fade.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends boosters for other common vaccines.

For example, a booster for the vaccine that protects against tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, or Tdap, is recommended every 10 years. People who travel in countries with high levels of hepatitis A are advised to get a booster shot 12 months after their first doses.

A team of Australian researchers published research in March that used predictive modeling to see how well COVID-19 vaccine protection lasted by examining titer or the concentration of protective antibodies. They found the decay of protection 250 days after immunization predicted a “significant loss” in protection, “although protection from severe disease should be largely retained.”

And that’s the whole point of vaccines: To protect from serious infection that could result in hospitalization or even death.

Dr. Stephen Russell, CEO and co-founder of Imanis Life Sciences — a Rochester, Minnesota, company that makes COVID-19 antibody tests — says it’s possible a fully vaccinated person could remain protected for more than a year. That protection could also drop off as quickly as 3 months.

“The appropriate timing of booster shots is therefore very difficult to determine without specific information about the peak neutralizing antibody titer and its rate of fall in a given individual,” he said.

Russell also says the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines appear to generate the highest neutralizing antibody titers, followed by the AstraZeneca and the Johnson & Johnson vaccines. But, he said, different vaccines work differently, and it’s still possible that a vaccine might be developed for COVID-19 that gives lasting immunity.

“The common childhood vaccines such as measles, mumps, and rubella that most of us have had typically result in lifelong immunity,” Russell said, “but they use live replicating viruses, which may persist much longer than mRNA vaccines and are therefore able to drive a better, more lasting immune response.”

For now, there’s not enough evidence to suggest that the current vaccines can’t keep up with the current versions of the novel coronavirus.

The Link Lonk


May 30, 2021 at 07:09PM
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Will We Need a COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Shot? - Healthline

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VACCINE Q&A: Will I need a booster if I got the J&J shot? - WMTV - NBC15

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - The NBC15 Vaccine Team is answering your questions about needing a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot. You can find a full list of NBC15 Vaccine Team Q&A’s HERE.

CLICK HERE to submit your own question.

QUESTION:

You keep mentioning the need for possible booster shots for Pfizer & Moderna COVID vaccines. You NEVER mention anything about possible booster shots for the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine. Some of us received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and would like to know.

ANSWER:

Dr. Nasia Safdar, the Medical Director for Infection Prevention at UW Health, said no matter which brand of vaccine you got, needing a booster in the future is likely.

“It’s all in evolution at the moment. There’s no official guidance that’s come out that says you need a booster and if so for which one, but I think the likelihood when we look at other sort of respiratory viruses and the way the vaccines work is that it may be that a booster is required and if so it would be the case probably for all the vaccines,” said Dr. Safdar.

Dr. Safdar also said you probably will not have to get the same brand of the vaccine for your booster, as you did when you originally got vaccinated. Although, getting the same brand may end up being recommended, if possible.

Copyright 2021 WMTV. All rights reserved.

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May 28, 2021 at 08:51PM
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VACCINE Q&A: Will I need a booster if I got the J&J shot? - WMTV - NBC15

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Relax: If you’re vaccinated, you won’t need a booster any time soon - The Washington Post

Finally, despite the fact that there have been some variants of concern, coronaviruses don’t mutate as quickly as influenza, which requires annual booster shots. That means that, if we do end up needing booster shots, it won’t be in a matter of months or even a year or two. It will be more like pertussis, or the whooping cough, which we get inoculated for when we are babies and again in adolescence, and then again for women during pregnancy. Or covid-19 may end up looking like tetanus vaccines, with shots administered once every 10 years at most.

The Link Lonk


May 28, 2021 at 12:37AM
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Relax: If you’re vaccinated, you won’t need a booster any time soon - The Washington Post

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When will I need to get a COVID booster shot? - WTNH.com

Conn. (WTNH) — We now have a possible timeline for COVID-19 booster shots.

In Governor Ned Lamont’s final COVID-19 briefing (at least for a while) on Thursday, our state’s health leaders gave a possible timeline as to when folks may expect to roll up their sleeves once again.

With variants and the older population getting their first round of shots back in January, former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottleib believes we could hear about booster shots come autumn.

“As they get into this fall, they’re going to be a sufficient time out from the completion of their original series, that I think there will be an impetus to give boosters at least to that population,” Dr. Gottleib explained.

He says that’s because they expect COVID to circulate at higher levels come winter and they want folks to be protected.

The Link Lonk


May 28, 2021 at 09:11AM
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When will I need to get a COVID booster shot? - WTNH.com

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Yes, we’ll probably need coronavirus booster shots. But which one? - The Washington Post

“As we know, covid is not going to go away anytime soon, and we know that the antibodies decrease over time, so that a boost will be needed at some juncture. I can’t predict when,” said John Beigel, associate director for clinical research in the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The Link Lonk


May 27, 2021 at 08:00PM
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Yes, we’ll probably need coronavirus booster shots. But which one? - The Washington Post

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Trials on Covaxin booster underway: Govt - The Tribune India

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 27

The government on Thursday said people do not need to get antibody tests done after taking their Covid 19 shots to determine the level of protection they have acquired against the virus.

The Ministry of Health further said that trials for a booster dose of Covaxin, India’s indigenous Covid vaccine were underway and once the need and the duration of booster shots for available Covid vaccines worldwide are known, related protocols on booster doses will also be made available.

Read also: Foreign vaccines not in free supply, working for imports soon, says Centre

Speaking at a time when some people have questioned the level of antibody generation Covid vaccines produce, Member, Health, NITI Aayog VK Paul said, “You do not need any antibody test after vaccine doses. Antibody is just one measure of immunity but not the only one. The more important measure is the cell mediated immune response. That is more critical and that cannot be tested easily as the test is highly sophisticated.”

Read also: Punjab extends Covid-19 restrictions till June 10

Paul said the cell mediated response levels tell whether a person’s cells recognise the pathogen and can ward it off when it strikes. “Antibody presence is one measure and antibodies decline by time and come up not just specific to vaccines but also based on individual predelictions. When we administered vaccines in mass as a large public health response, there is a situation where we are trying to raise herd immunity. So we will have collective immunity after the vaccines and also individual immunity but some individuals may have lower immunity than the others but we are still protected as a community and as individuals,” the expert explained.

He asked people to go by current protocols – take two doses of Covid vaccines and booster dose trials are underway for Covaxin.

“When to get a booster will be known after worldwide studies conclude on the issue. Follow vaccine guidelines. You are safe after two shots and you do not get severe disease. The need and timing of boosters in relation to different vaccines will be known in time and when these are known, the protocols will be made available,” said Paul, Chairman of the National Taskforce on Covid 19 Vaccine Administration.

The Link Lonk


May 27, 2021 at 06:55PM
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Trials on Covaxin booster underway: Govt - The Tribune India

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Brazil's Butantan lab sees need for annual COVID-19 booster shots - Reuters

Brazilians should prepare for annual COVID-19 immunizations to reinforce vaccines currently available, the head of public-sector laboratory Butantan said on Thursday.

Annual boosters would add to the burden for Brazil's shaky national vaccination program, which has struggled to speed up immunizations to confront the world's most deadly coronavirus outbreak outside the United States.

Just a quarter of adults in Brazil have received their first shot against COVID-19 — and only one in eight have had a second.

Dimas Covas, director of the Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo, which has partnered on production of a coronavirus vaccine developed by China's Sinovac Biotech (SVA.O), told lawmakers the center is already looking into booster shots.

"Everything indicates that there will be a need for annual reinforcement doses against COVID-19," he told a Senate committee on Thursday. "The vaccines we have today would require annual vaccination... Butantan is already working on that."

His comments run counter to more than a dozen infectious disease and vaccine development experts who told Reuters earlier this month that yearly boosters may not be needed. The Sinovac shot, branded CoronaVac and produced by Butantan with active ingredients from China, has shown lower efficacy data than vaccines produced by Pfizer (PFE.N)and Moderna (MRNA.O).

CoronaVac accounted for roughly five in six coronavirus shots administered in Brazil through April.

The AstraZeneca (AZN.L) vaccine, finished at federally funded lab Fiocruz in Rio de Janeiro with imported ingredients, accounted for the rest. The first doses of imported Pfizer (PFE.N) vaccines began to arrive a month ago.

Pressed by senators investigating Brazil's slow progress in acquiring vaccines last year, Covas said Butantan first offered to sell the Health Ministry its production of CoronaVac in July, but got no immediate response from the federal government.

Once talks were underway, Covas said the negotiations were derailed by President Jair Bolsonaro's public comments ruling out a federal purchase of the Chinese vaccine.

The governor of Sao Paulo state, which runs Butantan, is a vocal critic of Bolsonaro and repeatedly confronted the president over his skepticism about CoronaVac.

Covas said Butantan had also reached out to the government about federal financing, which it did not receive, to expand its production capacity and run vaccine trials.

Butantan and Fiocruz have repeatedly missed vaccine delivery targets this year, due in part to delayed shipments of active ingredients from China. Covas said uncertainty about imports could undermine its goal of delivering 100 million CoronaVac doses by the end of September.

In addition to that production line, the institute is developing its own low-cost COVID-19 vaccine, called Butanvac, with an initial target of producing at least 40 million doses in the fourth quarter of this year.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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May 27, 2021 at 11:25PM
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Brazil's Butantan lab sees need for annual COVID-19 booster shots - Reuters

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Will COVID-19 Vaccines Need a Booster? CDC Will Meet to Decide - BioSpace

Pavel Metluk/Shutterstock

The data is still not in on whether booster shots against COVID-19 will be necessary. The disease has only been around for slightly over a year, and the vaccines for five or six months. Drug companies have been suggesting that booster shots will be necessary, particularly with the rise of more infectious variants, such as those originating in South Africa and the U.K. 

Clinical studies of booster shots are already ongoing. Nonetheless, it’s still not known just how long the protection from vaccines lasts. But drug companies are not the decision-makers for this.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Processes plans to meet and make a recommendation to the CDC on booster shots. Those conversations, however, have not yet begun.

William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, told ABC News, “The ACIP is dealing with a whole lot of other issues at the present time, and has not begun really a serious discussion of boosters.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is also involved in that analysis and decision. It has already updated its COVID-19 emergency use authorization (EUA) guidance for vaccine developers that want to address new variants.

An FDA spokesperson stated, “We want the American public to know that the FDA is using every tool in our toolbox to fight this pandemic, including pivoting as the virus adapts and we remain committed to getting these life-saving products to the frontlines.”

There is a reasonable amount of skepticism when vaccine manufacturers discuss booster shots, since they have raked in huge and unexpected amounts of money so far for the vaccines. In the first-quarter, Pfizer-BioNTech’s global vaccine sales were $5.833 billion and Moderna’s were $1.733 billion. Johnson & Johnson, late to the market and paused over safety issues, reported $100 million in U.S. sales for the quarter.

Stephane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna, told investors in early May, “Booster shots will be needed as we believe the virus is not going away.”

And Albert Bourla, chief executive officer of Pfizer, told Axios last week that a booster shot will probably be necessary “sooner than later. If they got their second shot eight months ago, they may need a third one.”

They may be correct, but it hasn’t been determined by facts yet.

Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, told ABC News, “In my view, it is not yet clear whether we will need a booster shot this fall, winter, and if so, what that booster shot would be.”

Barouch went on to say, “Clearly, the pharmaceutical companies have an economic incentive, particularly the ones who have vaccines that are for profit. We want the decision to be made based on public health solely and [not] on economic incentives of the companies.”

It will take time to make the decision. Anna Durbin, professor of international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says, “If we start to see breakthrough infections of clinical significance, then booster doses would likely be recommended.”

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security, said, “When you start to see an increased rate of breakthrough infections or maybe even worse, start to see an increased number of people with symptomatic disease or people who are actually getting sick and have to go to hospital … that’s going to be a pretty clear indication that it’s time for people to get a booster.”

Immune responses to disease and vaccines are complicated and involve numerous types of immune cells, not just antibodies. And there is also encouraging research. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that months after recovering from mild COVID-19, patients maintained antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And they believe that the specific cells that produce the antibodies should persist for a lifetime.

“Last fall, there were reports that antibodies wane quickly after infection with the virus that causes COVID-19, and mainstream media interpreted that to mean that immunity was not love-lived,” said senior author Ali Ellebedy, associate professor of pathology & immunology, of medicine and of molecular microbiology. 

“But that’s a misinterpretation of the data. It’s normal for antibody levels to go down after acute infection, but they don’t go down to zero; they plateau. Here, we found antibody-producing cells in people 11 months after first symptoms. These cells will live and produce antibodies for the rest of people’s lives. That’s strong evidence for long-lasting immunity.”

That’s promising. B-cells produce disease-fighting antibodies. T cells attack specific parts of pathogens and come in two types, helper T-cells (CD4) and cytotoxic T-cells (CD8). Both types of T-cells, one stimulated by infection or vaccine, create memories that come to life when the viruses attack and help protect you from getting sick again. So although antibody levels may wane, and usually do, T-cells are often very effective in providing long-term protection. 

In research studies, the mRNA vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech provided strong T-cell responses against the variants, including the Brazil (P.1), UK (B.1.1.7), South African (B.1.351) and California (CA.20.C). Memory B-cells are also formed and provide long-term protection.

Although it has not yet been determined, it’s also possible that the vaccines and previous infections will provide long-term protection against COVID-19 or will not require yearly boosters. Time and more study will tell.

Monica Gandhi, infectious disease doctor and professor of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco wrote May 25 in the San Francisco Chronicle, “Immunity from natural infection or vaccination to COVID-19 is likely to be durable, even against variants. … The best way to keep people safe now is to put the discussion of boosters aside and work hard on global vaccine distribution.”

The Link Lonk


May 27, 2021 at 09:32PM
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Will COVID-19 Vaccines Need a Booster? CDC Will Meet to Decide - BioSpace

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Will we need a COVID booster shot? It's an open question, but so far immunity appears 'durable.' Illinois providers say they are ready if necessary. - Chicago Tribune

“We have developed a robust vaccine delivery system to deliver the current COVID-19 vaccines, including doctors’ offices and smaller medical providers, and that will be the blue print if a booster dose needs to be administered,” Melaney Arnold, a spokeswoman for IDPH said in a statement.

The Link Lonk


May 27, 2021 at 05:00PM
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Will we need a COVID booster shot? It's an open question, but so far immunity appears 'durable.' Illinois providers say they are ready if necessary. - Chicago Tribune

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Long-term care advocates, worried about vulnerable residents, say plans for COVID-19 booster shots must start now - ABC News

Five months after the first COVID-19 vaccine doses made their way to the nation's nursing homes, long-term care advocates are sounding the alarm about the need for a plan for a potential booster shot, out of concern that elderly long-term care residents will be the first to see the effects of the coronavirus vaccine wear off.

Although vaccine companies have already begun clinical trials for booster shots, there is still not enough research to know if or when people will need them, experts tell ABC News.

"We don't have quite all the pieces yet," said Dr. Thaddeus Stappenbeck, chair of the Department of Inflammation and Immunity at Cleveland Clinic. "We don't know how long immunity lasts in any individual, because we just haven't had enough experience with this virus."

The challenge, Stappenbeck said, is that the part of the immune system that controls the production of antibodies declines as people get older. As a result, said Stappenbeck, vaccine companies and health officials need to get ahead of the curve before immunity wanes among the older people in nursing facilities who were among the first during the pandemic to be vaccinated.

The CEOs of vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna said last week that those who were among the first in the U.S. to receive a coronavirus vaccine could need a booster shot by this fall.

Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it is unclear when a COVID-19 booster shot will be needed -- but he suspects it will be.

"I don't anticipate that the durability of the vaccine protection is going to be infinite -- it's just not," Fauci said during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday. "So I imagine we will need, at some time, a booster. What we're figuring out right now is what that interval is going to be."

Some long-term care advocates are concerned that because the need for a booster shot will be based on evidence that the vaccine is no longer as effective to individuals, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities could see a resurgence in cases before a booster shot is approved by the FDA, recommended by the CDC, and then distributed. Before boosters are administered for specific variants or because of waning immunity, scientists will want to make sure the added vaccines are safe and necessary -- and it's not yet clear how prevalent COVID-19 cases will be in the future.

Resident Mary Perkins, gets her COVID-19 vaccine at Life Care of Acton, a skilled nursing and rehab center in Acton, Mass., Dec. 28, 2020.

"The shame of this is that when COVID-19 runs rampant in a nursing home, the mortality rate is significant," Dr. Mike Wasserman, the past president of the California Association for Long Term Care Medicine and a member of California's Vaccine Advisory Committee, told ABC News. "Hence, if and when the residents' immunity wanes, we must be on high alert, lest we relive the horrors of the past year."

Long-term care facilities, in which elderly and often sick residents live in congregate settings, are among the most fertile environments for the spread of COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 183,000 nursing home residents and staff have died, according to an analysis by the American Association of Retired Persons. Approximately 1.4 million people live in nursing care in the U.S.

"We learned that nursing homes weren't prepared for the pandemic and there is a lot of work to do to improve the quality of care in nursing homes," said Wasserman. "We must start planning now."

For Toby Edelman, a senior policy attorney for the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a nonprofit that provides legal assistance for the elderly, the responsibility to prepare for booster shots lies with the facilities themselves.

"Nursing homes should absolutely be planning for booster shots, if those become medically necessary and appropriate," Edelman said. "The COVID-19 pandemic made clear the critical importance of facility leadership anticipating and planning for contingencies."

Residents are greeted at the dining room at Emerald Court senior living facility in Anaheim, Calif., March 8, 2021. Residents were able to come to the dining room for the first time since social distancing restrictions were put into place after the CDC revised their guidelines.

Some nursing home providers told ABC News that not knowing when residents will need booster shots means that they will need to continue to closely monitor cases and be prepared with the necessary protective equipment.

"We will absolutely continue to monitor vaccine effectiveness and are in contact with CDC, as well as state and local departments of health, regarding cases that occur among vaccinated residents," Dr. Richard Feifer, chief medical officer for Genesis HealthCare, said in a statement. "We agree that nursing homes may be the first place to see immunity wane, simply due to timing related to this population being among the very first to receive the vaccine."

A spokesperson for the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, which represents more than 14,000 long-term care facilities, told ABC News that it will continue to call on public health officials to prioritize the long-term care population in monitoring the effectiveness of the vaccines.

In the meantime, said Stappenbeck, it's critical that everyone get vaccinated to protect themselves and those around them.

"We have seen how effective the vaccines are in reducing the level of virus in the community," Stappenbeck said. "If we can keep this trajectory through the summer and keep getting people vaccinated, there will be much less risk for the elderly in long-term care facilities."

The Link Lonk


May 27, 2021 at 03:04PM
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Long-term care advocates, worried about vulnerable residents, say plans for COVID-19 booster shots must start now - ABC News

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When Will We Know If COVID Booster Shots Will Be Required? - Motley Fool

Millions of Americans have already received two COVID-19 vaccine shots. However, there's a possibility that a third booster dose will be needed. In this Motley Fool Live video recorded on May 17, 2021, Healthcare and Cannabis Bureau Chief Corinne Cardina and Motley Fool contributor Keith Speights discuss when we'll know if a booster shot will be required or not.

Corinne Cardina: Let's talk about the future of booster shots speaking of making a lot of money in the long run. What should investors know? What's the latest in terms of when are we going to know when we'll need more shots, whether it's a year out. Tell me about that.

Keith Speights: Dr. Fauci predicts that we'll know by the fall if a booster shot is going to be required. I think his projection is probably about right. I think sometime in the fall we will know whether or not we're going to need a booster shot or not.

Now, Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) CEO, Albert Bourla, has stated publicly that he thinks a booster shot will likely be required. There are some experts who are less certain about that. We'll see.

Pfizer and Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) are evaluating third booster doses. They are also evaluating in clinical studies variant-specific vaccines. Pfizer expects to have some data from its clinical studies in July, which is right around the corner. Moderna's already reported some positive results from a phase II study earlier this month, actually, for a booster dose and a variant-specific version of its vaccine so it's looking very promising for Moderna.

I wouldn't be surprised if Americans don't actually have to get the third booster shot. But I do expect we're going to require annual vaccinations with a single dose vaccine that targets variants, probably along the lines of what we see with the flu right now where we have annual vaccinations and the flu strains change from year-to-year and they modify the vaccines that are distributed each year.

Personally, I think that's probably what we're going to see. I'm not as confident that these companies are going to benefit from being able to sell third booster doses later this year or early next year.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the “official” recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. We’re motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

The Link Lonk


May 27, 2021 at 05:05PM
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When Will We Know If COVID Booster Shots Will Be Required? - Motley Fool

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Fauci: Coronavirus Vaccine Booster Shots Likely Needed - U.S. News & World Report

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Fauci: Coronavirus Vaccine Booster Shots Likely Needed  U.S. News & World Report The Link Lonk


May 27, 2021 at 12:33AM
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Fauci: Coronavirus Vaccine Booster Shots Likely Needed - U.S. News & World Report

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Booster's Proprietary Fleet Analytics Technology Delivers Energy Usage Data For Smarter Fleet Management - PRNewswire

Booster Insights provides fleets with data on energy and equipment usage, labor cost savings, and energy spend.

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According to Insights, on average, each Booster customer saved more than $19,000 in 2020. They also each saved approximately 750 labor hours (time not spent going to and from gas stations), 5,300 vehicle miles traveled, and 4,700 pounds of CO₂ emissions.

"More than ever, the world runs on vehicle fleets. Managing fleets has never been more complex given today's labor shortages, heightened customer expectations, and critical sustainability targets," said Frank Mycroft, CEO and co-founder, Booster. "Booster Insights provides fleet managers with the data and intelligence necessary to manage energy and energy-related labor costs, so that our clients can make better decisions, keep costs down, and advance their sustainability goals."

By quantifying the emissions impacts of switching to alternatives and renewables, Booster Insights is also equipped to track Booster's customers' transitions to cleaner energy sources. This capability comes at a time when more and more companies are making commitments to reduce their carbon footprints, in part by decarbonizing their fleets, which can be expensive for businesses.

"As more companies make the transition to hybrid and mixed energy fleets, we predict that data management will become even more essential, as well as complex, fragmented and expensive," Mycroft continued. "Insights allows Booster clients to transition their fleets without having to pay for additional analysis, saving them money."

"The data provided by Booster Insights has helped us quantify emissions savings to meet our corporate goals of reducing CO₂ emissions by 2030," said Dale See, president and owner, San Jose Stanley Steemer. "Already Booster's services have reduced our energy costs by $12,000 per year and added back 350 hours of annual productivity. As our energy efficiency goals continue to evolve across markets, we will rely on Booster Insights to bring transparency and ease in reporting and decision making."

Booster, which runs its own fleet of mini mobile refueling trucks, has been using Insights since the tool was developed in 2016. New and existing Booster customers interested in trialing Booster Insights can reach out to the company for consultation.

Video, images: LINK

About Booster
Six years ago, Booster launched its mobile energy technology platform with a mission to power the delivery of everything and everyone. Today, Booster is reinventing the way vehicles get that power through proprietary supply chain logistics and telematics that have transformed energy-as-a-service for fleets and consumers. Booster delivers energy that is better for businesses, communities, and the planet.

Booster has raised more than $88 million in funding from firms such as Invus Opportunities, Conversion Capital, Enterprise Holdings Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, Maveron, Perot Jain, L.P., Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures and Vulcan Capital. Corporate clients have included Facebook, PayPal, eBay, and Cisco, among others. For more information, visit boosterusa.com.

Media Contact for Booster:
Erica Zeidenberg
[email protected]
925.518.8159

SOURCE Booster Fuels, Inc

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The Link Lonk


May 26, 2021 at 10:00PM
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Booster's Proprietary Fleet Analytics Technology Delivers Energy Usage Data For Smarter Fleet Management - PRNewswire

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Experts expect vaccinated individuals will need booster shot within a year - WXYZ

(WXYZ) — Last month, we told you about Sheri Houghland, a local healthcare worker who came down with COVID even though she was vaccinated.

RELATED: Why data around 'breakthrough' cases can show the vaccine works

"I broke the CDC rules and got a little overly confident and ended up spending some time with a friend who was unvaccinated indoors, without masks," Houghland said.

She had only mild symptoms and recovered quickly.

While breakthrough cases can happen, they are incredibly rare. And so, a bigger question looms around Houghland's incident. Had she lost immunity?

"As a nurse, I’ve been vaccinated, really one of the first people in the community that’s been vaccinated," Houghland said. "I’ve been vaccinated since about November."

As of Tuesday, 45% of people in Michigan age 12 and over are fully vaccinated. The news comes as our state sees its COVID numbers — and deaths — finally drop. But we all want to know – when will we lose our immunity?

"If a large proportion of vaccinated individuals have a significant drop in the neutralizing antibody fighters — or the amount of immunity — they’re going to probably start recommending boosters," said Dr. Joel Fishbain, an infectious disease specialist at Beaumont Health.

A booster is a second — or third, or fourth, or fifth — shot after the original introduction of an antigen.

"After the immune system sees an antigen — an antigen is anything foreign to our body, whether it’s a vaccine, a medication, or any foreign particle, like pollen, or a bee sting etc — upon re-exposure the immune system has a more significant response because its already seen it before," said Dr. Leonard Johnson, an infectious disease specialist at Ascension St. John in Detroit.

Currently, the FDA has only approved two shots for Moderna and Pfizer and one for Johnson & Johnson.

That means you can’t just show up at a CVS and demand a third shot because you’re concerned about immunity.

But right now – each of the pharmaceutical companies are in the midst of studying those additional booster shots. Pfizer began testing third-shot boosters in February. Moderna says they hope to have a booster available in the fall. None have put in an emergency authorization application with the FDA.

"I know everybody wants answers, it’s too early and it’s sort of day-by-day, we get more information and that’s what we’re stuck with," said Fishbain.

Researchers still don’t know how long our protection against the virus lasts once we’re fully vaccinated, that’s why experts continue to encourage social distancing and other precautions.

The Link Lonk


May 27, 2021 at 01:14AM
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Experts expect vaccinated individuals will need booster shot within a year - WXYZ

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Work underway locally on COVID vaccine booster shot - 13WHAM-TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Work underway locally on COVID vaccine booster shot  13WHAM-TV The Link Lonk


May 26, 2021 at 10:09AM
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Work underway locally on COVID vaccine booster shot - 13WHAM-TV

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Will we need COVID-19 booster shots? Increasingly, the expectation is yes - MarketWatch

It looks like Americans may need to roll up their sleeves for a COVID-19 booster shot, though vaccine makers and federal officials are still trying to detect how long immunity to the virus lasts. 

In the latest race to the regulatory finish line, Pfizer Inc. PFE, -1.22% is testing its experimental COVID-19 booster shot in combination with its 20-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in older adults, while Moderna Inc. MRNA, +2.61% told investors this month that a mid-stage clinical trial showed its investigational booster can help protect against the serious B.1.351 and P.1. variants.

Moderna and Pfizer both developed two-dose, mRNA vaccines with similar rates of real-world effectiveness.

The COVID-19 vaccines developed by these companies, as well as the Johnson & Johnson JNJ, -0.30% shot — the third vaccine to be authorized in the U.S. — are all considered very effective, especially when it comes to preventing hospitalization and death, but it’s still unknown how long they can protect people against the virus.

See also: Booster dose of COVID vaccines to be given to U.K. volunteers in new trial

“We do not have data on when to expect waning immunity leading to breakthrough infections,” Dr. Stephen Hoge, Moderna’s president, told investors, according to a FactSet transcript of a May 6 earnings call. “But we do know that there is a raging pandemic, that reinfections will happen at some point, and the best way to ensure that we do not have renewed outbreaks in well-vaccinated countries is to boost and maintain the highest possible levels of neutralizing antibodies.”

Moderna and Pfizer have recently said immunity can start to wane between six to eight months after getting the second shot of their vaccines. Dr. Peter Marks, a Food and Drug Administration official, estimates that vaccine-induced immunity is around one year, according to public remarks reported by CNBC. 

“I would project that it’s actually going to be longer than that,” Dr. Mark Mulligan, director of NYU Langone Health’s Vaccine Center, said in a May 3 interview. “It might be a year or even more. But in all likelihood, for boosting of the magnitude of the antibody levels and other immune responses, boosters will be needed.”

If SARS-CoV-2 becomes an endemic virus, as some medical experts have predicted, boosters are one way to keep people protected and also address gaps in immunity caused by powerful variants like B.1.351, first detected in South Africa, and the P.1 first identified in Brazil that are thought to lessen the effectiveness of these vaccines.

However, at this point, it’s all speculation. There is no medical consensus about whether booster shots are necessary to ensure continued protection against this virus or even what the durability of immunity to this virus is. 

“There’s absolutely no evidence that we need a booster shot of anything,” Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious-disease physician and executive associate dean of the Emory University School of Medicine, said April 28. “The most important thing to do is to get vaccinated right now. Whether you’re going to need a booster shot, we’ll worry about that later.”

The case for-or-against booster shots 

The only data about the length of vaccine-induced immunity, which likely takes into account antibody titer levels and T-cell response, is limited at this time.

One study found that the Pfizer vaccine, which was developed with BioNTech SE BNTX, +1.25%, has a 91.3% efficacy rate among clinical-trial participants six months after they got the second dose. Other research indicates that people who are enrolled in the Phase 1 clinical study for Moderna’s vaccine still had antibodies six months after getting the second shot. 

“It’s likely that it’s not just a single booster but that this would be a repeated event over the next several years,” Mulligan said. “If we achieve broad enough vaccination to shut down virus transmission and have the pandemic die out, great. But we’re so far [from] that right now.”

About 39% of people in the U.S. are fully vaccinated, as of Tuesday, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though vaccination rates in the U.S. have been slowing for weeks.

Other experts disagree with the push for boosters, citing a lack of data. 

Cornell University virologist John Moore recently told Axios “it’s not proven that we need boosters yet. Whereas it’s appropriate to plan for boosters, you’ve got to look at whether there’s a corporate agenda behind this.”

Del Rio instead predicts a future in which the U.S. will have the virus under control, and Americans may need a COVID-19 booster to travel to certain countries, much like how a yellow fever vaccine or booster is recommended or required for travel to certain Central and South American and African countries.

“I suspect that if there’s a variant in India, and you decide to travel to India, you will be told, as part of your travel, you’re going to have to take this,” he said. 

Are boosters another billion-dollar opportunity for vaccine makers?

COVID-19 vaccines are already a booming business for drug makers, and boosters are part of the corporate strategy going forward. (Moderna executives mentioned their booster shot dozens of times on their most recent earnings call.)

Pfizer and BioNTech expect their vaccine to generate $26 billion in revenue this year, while Moderna just reported its first-ever billion-dollar sales quarter.

While the U.S. government has not announced any purchases of COVID-19 booster shots, other countries have. Australia, Israel, and Switzerland have already inked deals with these drug makers to buy millions of booster doses for 2022.

Pfizer anticipates it will get data for its booster candidate in July, with plans to file for authorization that same month and then get a regulatory okay in the U.S. sometime in 2021.

The company is developing two types of shots: one functions like a third dose of its currently available vaccine, aiming to boost immunity among participants from its Phase 1 clinical trial in the U.S., and the other uses a modified mRNA sequence. It announced the booster/pneumococcal conjugate vaccine study this week. 

Moderna is testing three types of boosters:

• A booster that acts like a third dose to its original two-dose vaccine.
• A booster that specifically aims to address the B.1.351 and P.1 variants. (Both of these variants are of particular concern to Moderna and Pfizer because the companies ran their pivotal Phase 3 clinical trials at a time before those variants had been identified as concerning.)
• A booster that is made up of a 50/50 mix of its original vaccine and the booster targeting the B.1.351 variant.

What about other vaccine makers?

J&J has not yet shared any longer-term data about its vaccine’s immune response, though executives have noted that the company plans to assess whether there is a need to develop a booster.

However, some Wall Street analysts have said it’s easier to develop boosters for mRNA and protein-based vaccines than adenovirus-based vaccines like the J&J shot. (Novavax Inc. NVAX, +0.51% is an example of a company developing a protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate.)

Sanofi SNY, +0.20%, which has previously reported some delays moving its COVID-19 vaccine through development, recently hinted to investors that its still-investigational single-dose COVID-19 shot may have more value as a booster. The vaccine candidate is expected to move into Phase 3 clinical trials, and it will also be tested in a booster-specific study.

That said, boosters and vaccination in general doesn’t need to be a one-size-fits-all model for every single person.

The U.S. could test out a different approach for booster shots that evaluates an individual’s antibody levels to assess whether or not they need a booster shot at all, said Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This is because immunity shows up differently in different people, based on factors like age and overall health.

“It would be super easy to set up, and it could be voluntary,” Mina said. “Do you want a booster? Do you want to see if you need a booster? To get there, we would really want to start building correlates of protection, meaning: what is the antibody level that we feel good as a physician or as a public health agency saying, if you’re at this level, you’re probably still protected.”

The Link Lonk


May 25, 2021 at 10:27PM
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Will we need COVID-19 booster shots? Increasingly, the expectation is yes - MarketWatch

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No, you probably won't need a COVID vaccine booster shot, says UCSF's Monica Gandhi - San Francisco Chronicle

Pharmaceutical company executives have been hinting for months that booster shots will be necessary to maintain the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. A study of such boosters is already underway. But the companies that stand to profit from these shots shouldn’t get to unilaterally determine the need for a repeat mass vaccination campaign without scientific questioning. Moreover, focus groups among the vaccine-hesitant have shown that talk of boosters can decrease the likelihood of people getting a vaccine now.

Bodies of scientific research indicate that your immune system should offer you long-lived protection from reinfection if you’ve been vaccinated, even with the emergence of more infectious variants.

I’m going to take you through that science so you don’t have to worry. And so that you can help doctors like me advocate for industry and public officials to devote their efforts to more important pursuits, like making sure other countries have enough vaccines to end this pandemic.

In brief, there are two major arms of the immune system: B cells (which produce disease-fighting antibodies) and T cells, which attack specific parts (called “epitopes”) of a dangerous pathogen. T cells are divided into two types, specially CD4 cells (“helper” T cells) and CD8 cells (“cytotoxic” T cells). Each of these arms, once stimulated by infection or vaccine, makes “memory” banks which — when working properly — come roaring back to attack the virus and protect you from getting sick.

With that in mind, here are seven reasons why you shouldn’t have to worry about getting a booster.

COVID vaccines are highly effective and work against variants

COVID-19 vaccines work very well in the real world. And T cell responses from vaccination are robust against even the most potent variants. Antibody responses from vaccination may be slightly lower against certain COVID-19 variants, but T cell immunity has been shown to be unperturbed by the variants’ notorious mutations in the spike protein. T cell responses after mRNA vaccines (Moderna or Pfizer) maintained their strength against different variants, including P.1 Brazil variant, B.1.1.7 UK variant, B.1.351 South Africa variant and the CA.20.C California variant. A few mutations to the spike protein (even as many as 13) cannot knock out such a robust T cell response.

Vaccines help you form antibody-producing memory B cells

In one study, 12 volunteers who had never had COVID-19, and were fully vaccinated with two mRNA vaccine shots, underwent biopsies of their lymph nodes — where antibody-producing memory B cells are stored in places called “germinal centers.” These biopsies showed that memory B cells were formed in response to the vaccine. And they increased in concentration three, four, six and seven weeks after the first shot.

Natural infection also generates memory B cells.

Of course, antibody levels wane over time. That’s a normal adaption of the immune system, otherwise, antibodies from multiple infections seen in the past would clog up our blood. But with COVID-19, strong memory B cells were detected in individuals six and eight-months after infection.

Once memory B cells are formed, they last a long time

Memory B cells are extraordinary things. They can produce neutralizing antibodies even when facing an infection decades later. One amazing study (published in 2008) looked at 32 individuals aged 91-101 years who survived the 1918 influenza pandemic. Memory B cells against the 1918 strain were isolated from the subjects’ blood and then exposed to the 1918 virus in a test tube. They still generated high levels of neutralizing antibodies, which were strong enough to protect mice from lethal infection.

Immunity isn’t just about antibodies

Antibodies are only a small portion of assessing vaccination efficacy. But there continues to be an outsized emphasis on them because they were formerly the only facet of vaccine response science knew how to calculate. Pathogen-specific T cell response measurements, like we have now for COVID-19, take sophisticated technology. But they’re important. T cell responses in vaccinations for other pathogens have been shown to be long-lasting. In one study of 56 volunteers who were vaccinated for measles as kids, strong T cell responses to vaccination were measured up to 34 years later.

Vaccines and natural infection trigger strong memory T cell immunity

All trials of the major COVID-19 vaccines showed powerful T cell immunity following vaccination. A number of other studies demonstrate production of strong T cell immunity to COVID-19 after natural infection, even mild or asymptomatic infection. The half-lives of memory T cells formed after COVID-19 infection are long. One study found that eight months after the initial infection, memory T cells were comparable to those observed after yellow fever immunization (a vaccine usually given only once over a lifetime).

T cell immunity in other severe coronaviruses is long-lasting

SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is an outlier among coronaviruses in that it causes severe disease. Coronaviruses are usually no more dangerous than the common cold for which they are responsible. But there have been two other coronaviruses in the recent past that caused severe disease: Severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (SARS) in late 2003 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2011. A study performed in 2020 demonstrated that 23 recovered SARS patients possessed long-lasting memory T cells in their blood. And these cells were still reactive to SARS nearly two decades after the outbreak in 2003.

Coronaviruses don’t mutate quickly

Influenza requires annual booster shots because of the speed of its mutations. Coronaviruses are RNA viruses, like influenza and HIV (a retrovirus), but do not mutate as quickly as either. This is because their replicating mechanism (polymerase) has a strong proofreading mechanism. If the virus mutates it usually goes back and self-corrects. Mutations can and do arise when transmission is high, as we have seen in recent months. However, the COVID-19 virus will not mutate like this when we tamp down transmission with mass vaccination.

Immunity from natural infection or vaccination to COVID-19 is likely to be durable, even against variants. With a 77% one-shot vaccination rate, San Francisco is well on its way to ending its epidemic. The best way to keep people safe now is to put the discussion of boosters aside and work hard on global vaccine distribution.

Monica Gandhi is an infectious diseases doctor and Professor of Medicine at University of California San Francisco. She serves as the Director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research and medical director of the Ward 86 HIV Clinic. @MonicaGandhi9

The Link Lonk


May 25, 2021 at 06:03PM
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No, you probably won't need a COVID vaccine booster shot, says UCSF's Monica Gandhi - San Francisco Chronicle

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Pfizer begins testing COVID-19 booster shot - WJXT News4JAX

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Biopharmaceutical company Pfizer has administered its first COVID-19 booster shots.

It’s a third dose Americans could take yearly -- like the flu shot -- to prevent contracting new strains of the coronavirus.

Researchers are also testing how it works with other common vaccines

“That’s what we’ve been wondering about the booster shot, you know, if there’s going to be a booster every fall that we have to get, is it something we can combine with another vaccine?” said Dr. Sunil Joshi, the president of the Duval County Medical Society Foundation.

Pfizer announced Monday morning that it had started testing a COVID-19 booster shot -- a third dose the company’s CEO said fully vaccinated people will likely need in another 12 months.

The goal of the study is to see whether another vaccine can be taken along with a booster dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. In the study, participants will get both the booster shot and a pneumonia vaccine.

“To see if they’re able to tolerate it, see if that in any way adversely affects their development of antibodies against COVID-19 and see how the immune reaction is, you know, the side effect profile of the combination,” Joshi explained. “And if that looks good, maybe then consider combining it with seasonal flu vaccine as well.”

At the same time, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating several reports that teenagers and young adults may have developed a heart problem called myocarditis days after getting vaccinated. The agency has not yet determined there’s evidence that the shots actually caused the heart condition.

“This is very preliminary, and I would not get too concerned about it until the details are fleshed out,” said Dr. Michael Koren, a cardiologist and the director of research at the Jacksonville Center for Clinical Research. “There’s a good chance these will just be random cases that have absolutely nothing to do with the vaccine.”

Koren also pointed out the coronavirus itself has been shown to cause myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle.

“You should always consider the side effects of the vaccine against side effects of COVID-19,” Koren said. “You’re far more likely to get severe cardiac side effects from COVID-19 than from the vaccine, based on lots of information.”

According to the CDC, most of these cases appear to be mild, and more often than not, the cases are occurring in adolescent or young adult males.

The Link Lonk


May 25, 2021 at 01:57AM
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Pfizer begins testing COVID-19 booster shot - WJXT News4JAX

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When--and will--you need a booster vaccine? Popular epidemiologist weighs in - WTVC

[unable to retrieve full-text content]When--and will--you need a booster vaccine? Popular epidemiologist weighs in  WTVC The Link Lonk


May 24, 2021 at 11:04PM
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When--and will--you need a booster vaccine? Popular epidemiologist weighs in - WTVC

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State officials still waiting on clarity for COVID-19 booster shots - WFSB

HARTFORD, CT (WFSB) – Connecticut continues to make strides in the fight against the coronavirus.

The daily positivity rate is under one percent and more than 1.7 million residents are fully vaccinated.

Connecticut is in a good spot, one of the best states in the nation vaccination-wise, but officials are continuing to look forward. That’s because as experts have said all along, this doesn’t mean the coronavirus has disappeared.

In fact, for some in the vaccinated population, they have questions about their immediate futures.

The state is coming up on the six-month mark for those who were some of the first to be vaccinated and more people will hit that six month anniversary as the weeks go on.

However, there has been little clarity on booster shots.

“At least for some populations, that booster shot may be recommended, but we don’t have specifics yet and we don’t have a timeline, so we are prepared for the fact here may be a group or subgroup that might need a booster shot, so we shouldn’t be surprised by that, but we don’t know when or for whom exactly, yet,” said Dr. Dierdre Gifford, Acting Dept. of Public Health Commissioner.

The state has several plans to keep this momentum going.

The state has several plans to keep this momentum going.

Now that the vaccine is available for children 12 to 15-years-old, Governor Ned Lamont says the state saw a 22 percent jump in vaccinations over the last week. 

Many of the vaccinations are taking place at mass clinics and they were kept open partly for this very age group. 

As the rollout continues, it's only natural that the demand will subside. In fact, prior to last week's surge, the state went six straight weeks seeing a decline, so the clinics won't be available all summer long. 

The state has said the mobile vans will continue to roam, people will go door to door, but there are other options too. 

"Pharmacies are a huge part of the program, they are plentiful and numerous. Walk-in appointments are available there. We're also working more and more with our healthcare systems to start moving towards having more vaccines available in private physician's offices," Gifford said. 

While it will soon be as simple as going through your doctor, we're not there yet. The state is still working on those logisitics. 

The Link Lonk


May 25, 2021 at 03:44AM
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State officials still waiting on clarity for COVID-19 booster shots - WFSB

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