While Omicron has yet to run rampant like its predecessor Delta has, It seems the vaccine industry has been quick to offer up some positive test results from their labs. Earlier today, American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech released a statement declaring their laboratory study results on the newest strain. They observed that the third dose, or "booster shot", of their vaccine (BNT162b2) practically neutralized the Omicron variant. Those with only two doses were found to exhibit a resistance to Omicron, however they advise that it may still be people's best interests to get boosted. Albert Bourla, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer, states that, "Ensuring as many people as possible are fully vaccinated with the first two dose series and a booster remains the best course of action to prevent the spread of COVID-19". Of course these findings are all based on initial lab results and datasets. Development of a new, Omicron-specific, vaccine is to be signaled should the strain prove out of the control of the current procedures. If need be, Pfizer and BioNTech promise a shipping of March 2022.
Buisnesswire: Pfizer/BioNTech Update
New York Times: Pfizer's Booster
Discussion:
The constant evolution of the vaccine(biotech + pharmaceutical) industry and their products alongside the virus. What that means for less developed countries.
The global mass-distribution of vaccines developed in extremely short periods of time. Can they be trusted?
16 comments:
I think that these lab results, although only initial results, is an overwhelming relief. If the COVID mutations were resistant to vaccines, even somewhat, the development of new vaccines or extensions to the current ones would have to resume and might lead to an "arms race" between vaccine and virus.
We are very lucky Omicron is susceptible to vaccines, but the next mutation may not. The International community ought to take this as a lesson to work to vaccinate other countries and themselves so that there will be no next mutation. I think that it is a losing strategy for industrialized countries to horde vaccines amongst themselves. Cases will amass in the third world and that will increase the number of mutations. One could argue this is already the case in South Africa - their vaccination rate is 22.7% double dose for the whole population*. If we had mobilized ourselves and provided vaccines to the third world en masse there would be no Omicron. However, domestic factors like reducing the national debt and protecting liberties take the forefront for public opinion (interesting connection to Sophomore history and the theme of domestic politics influencing international ones - and as we can see with these variants, vice versa).
*https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/south-africa/
I agree with Julien that having vaccines that are almost able to neutralize the virus is key. If they were not very effective then it would cause worldwide panic. In just the first couple of days of finding the Omicron variant, the stock market shot down over fear of more shut downs. Luckily this fear in the economy has gone away and can give confidence to the world that we don't have to quarantine again. Still with lots of people resisting to take the vaccine it lowers total immunity and we may not get to herd immunity which is one of the most important stages to beating the virus. If we aren't able to get to this level then the virus will just find new ways to beat the antibodies and cause more variants which in turn will lower the effectiveness of the vaccines. While it is important to be skeptical of what we do to our bodies, we should be able to trust the scientists who have dedicated their life to working on this kind of thing. If we are always skeptical of new vaccines then it may cause people to not trust it and could die because of this irrational fear. This is a huge issue in the media by causing people to be scared just so they can get publicity.
It’s great news that the booster shot was found to neutralize the Omicron variant, and hopefully this means the variant won’t trigger another wave. The COVID-19 virus does seem to be mutating a lot, and it is very possible that in the near or distant future that a new, deadlier, more contagious, vaccine-resistant variant will emerge. For now, all we can do is try to vaccinate as many people as possible, so at least we’ll have a base level of immunity against the original virus and some of the variants.
That being said, this is pretty concerning for less developed countries, as their vaccination rates are already not great. Because variants are popping up and new vaccines are being developed so quickly, these countries are not going to be able to access them for a while. In the meantime, new variants could wreak havoc on their populations. I think the international community needs to work harder to vaccinate everyone, although I’m sure extensive efforts are already being made.
In regards to the extremely fast global mass-distribution of vaccines and whether or not they can be trusted, I don’t really have a clear answer. We don’t know what the long-term effects of these vaccines are, but we also don’t know what the long-term effects of the COVID-19 virus are. Both could cause some messed up conditions years down the line, who knows? It’s kind of a pick your poison situation, and the way I see it, you may as well pick the poison that was developed by scientists, approved by the government, and allows you to travel and go places you otherwise couldn’t. Also, if the vaccine does screw people up in the future, at least it’ll be a “we’re all in this together” type of situation, and you can find comfort and solidarity in the universality of your predicament. And you’ll have another excuse to be mad at the government, which is always a plus.
According to the New York Times, underfunded and understaffed healthcare systems are also a huge barrier to vaccine rollout. Even third world countries that may be stocked with a good amount of vaccines are having difficulty distributing them to their population, especially to those who live in more rural areas. Furthermore, distrust of the vaccine is a big problem that’s contributing to low vaccination rates. The NYT article mentions “the legacy of Western exploitation and medical abuses during and after colonialism” being a large factor in skepticism of the vaccine in third world countries. One example of a past medical injustice was meningitis testing in Nigeria in the 1990s. Pfizer tested a new meningitis drug, called Trovan, on children in Nigeria without getting ethical approval. Children died in the trial and others developed brain and sensory damage. Also, according to the NYT article, during the start of vaccinating people against smallpox in Africa and Asia, “some W.H.O. officials used physical force to vaccinate people, deepening distrust.” It seems as though events like this are some of the main factors leading to hesitancy and skepticism of the current COVID-19 vaccines. One of the doctors interviewed for the NYT article, Dr. Omer, suggests vaccine education and promotion to help combat vaccine hesitancy. I think this is a really good idea, but there needs to be doctors from multiple backgrounds and countries helping educate citizens to hopefully give people a familiar and already trustworthy doctor to listen to who is also being backed up by other international healthcare professionals. Also, these educational panels need to be held in multiple languages and in cities, suburbs, and rural areas so that the information is available to everyone. I think everyone needs to be involved in the conversation, people need to feel heard, and healthcare officials from a variety of backgrounds need to respond to people’s concerns. We’re all in this together and we need to start building more trust with each other.
Reference links:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/world/africa/coranavirus-vaccine-hesitancy-africa.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119465/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_experimentation_in_Africa
I think through this pandemic, these rapidly growing biotech companies have ended up saving thousands of lives. Through their quick development of the vaccine, the entire world has only benefitted. Although first-world countries were first to receive the vaccine and distribution definitely needs to be more equitable going forward, third-world countries certainly haven't been hurt by these advanced technologies. If anything, because they've been hit disproportionally hard by the pandemic, vaccine access is more crucial than ever. Especially with the most recent testing of the omicron variant, as Julien mentioned, we're fortunate that the vaccine and the booster can be extremely effective in combatting this mutation. Because the variant was first discovered in South Africa, it's even more critical that neighboring countries and impoverished nations as a whole receive access to vaccines and boosters to prevent more deaths and illnesses.
I also think Julien brings up an interesting point about domestic issues taking up the attention of first-world countries, leading them to ignore low vaccination rates and global health issues in other nations. I think it's a balance, as we're learning about the effects of public opinion and such. If a president were to spend too much time or resources helping other nations, constituents may feel as though their needs aren't being met. With a nation of over 300 million, there are always complaints and things that need to be done. I think because COVID is such an ongoing issue, a single piece of legislation (whether it be a bill or an executive order of some short) should be enacted to help such nations substantially with vaccine access via funds or even actual resources for a set period of time, such as the next two years even. Then Biden and our government can possibly balance helping other nations while focusing on problems within. However, obviously this only addresses the worldwide pandemic and not foreign policy in general.
Considering the current trend of vaccine production in the US compared to less developed countries, the constant of evolution seems to pose a problem. The idea of “survival of the fittest” applies in the case of the COVID-19 virus: new mutations and strains will occur. To combat these conflicts, the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry will continue producing more discoveries. Because of the lack of resources in less developed countries, it would only make sense for the world to work together to maintain production and distribution for all fronts. However, this is wishful thinking as it’s more likely for each nation to supply their own needs before others. This imbalance of resources and such is likely to cause less developed countries to continue having a lower vaccine turnout.
Personally, I believe that trusting the mass-distribution of vaccines produced in a short period of time is up for interpretation. Whether it be a first dose or the booster, it honestly comes down to the individual and their perception. Especially with people who have strong beliefs against vaccines (ie. cultural, religious, etc), it’s clear that they will not trust the vaccines. And even so, sometimes trust and actually receiving the vaccine is not related. For example, workers who are required to receive the vaccine for their job may not necessarily trust the vaccine, but are forced to do so.
Also, I just wanted to acknowledge how troubling it is to see that even with the booster, there’s already complications within our area. In fact, physicians for Kaiser Permanente who attended a Wisconsin wedding were revealed to have gotten COVID. Despite being fully vaccinated and receiving the booster, the outbreak still occurred. It’s especially essential for health care workers, who are exposed to ill patients everyday, to be protected. Because less developed countries are likely to have less opportunity of producing and distributing the booster, this serves to be problematic since even with the booster supplement, there are already outbreaks.The booster serves as an aid to combat the omicron variant, but precaution is necessary for the safety and health for all. When it comes down to it, there are going to be individuals who refuse to be vaccinated and those who are unable to receive the vaccine. All we can hope for is that everyone continues to be mindful of their actions and consequences.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/12/08/covid-east-bay-omicron-cases-were-vaccinated-kaiser-staff/
The constant evolution of the virus into these Delta and Omicron variants has made combating the pandemic complicated and difficult to combat with developing vaccines. Considering this, the news from BioNTech that the booster shot, and also the two vaccine doses, proved to have resistance to the Omicron variant is absolutely huge, especially from a biology standpoint with the complications in genetic codes and mutations.
I think that this is great for the lack of vaccine situations in less developed countries, who are still fighting to get their vaccine doses, as we won't have to alter the current vaccine to respond to variants. But, statistics for vaccine inequity are concerning.
Only 15% of pledged vaccine donations have been delivered to date, 8 out of 10 countries on the IRC emergency watchlist are still less than 5% vaccinated.
Booster shots in countries like the US, UK, Germany, and Sweden have much higher rates of vaccination, and are starting to give booster shots. However, lower-income countries are remaining unprotected.
Not that we should stop giving out and encouraging booster shots, but I believe that we should consider more strongly combating vaccine inequity, as a part of our global response to these new variants.
mutation map: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/health/coronavirus-variant-tracker.html
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/omicron-spreads-globally-94-people-low-income-countries-remain-unvaccinated-and
Although I don't think the country is where it wanted to be with Covid-19 at this point and time, developments like the booster shots predict a better future. Obviously, with the first round of Covid-19 in the United States, there was little to no medical preparation that was capable of handling what was to come. Doctors and nurses were trying to find the best ways to keep their patients breathing while the quantity of patients outnumbered both the beds and the staff in many hospitals. With the development of vaccines, there has been a notable amount of increased manageability in terms of case load for hospitals.
Biotech companies have been working tirelessly for a long time to keep up with all the developments in the world of Covid-19. They produced a vaccine to fight a pandemic in basically a year's time. This fact caused many people to be fearful of the vaccine. They voiced that the vaccine couldn't possibly be safe if its production was rushed. But, I think a lot of people fail to realize that the vaccine didn't just materialize out of nowhere. Scientists were in possession of Covid-19 samples, it just wasn't at the top of their priority list. Due to the urgency of the situation, the Covid-19 vaccine attracted every bit of attention, hence why vaccines were produced so quickly.
The issue really comes with distribution. With so many people feeling afraid of the vaccine, the distribution of them was made challenging. Understandably, people were afraid of the long-term effects that we didn't yet know, and still may not know, but this hesitation turned into a practice of fear mongering by influential figures and within local communities.
Now, we've seen that vaccines work (although most of us already knew that). We've seen the hospitals go from having ten patients on ventilators to zero in vaccinated areas while numbers continue to rise in areas that are unvaccinated. At this point, we know how to help ourselves, and I would say that if people choose not to do that, it's there problem- but it affects more than just them. These biotech companies have produced effective vaccination against a disease that killed hundreds of thousands of people just in the U.S.. Now they're saying the new booster could neutralize the Omicron variant, and it's hard to see why theres still a portion of the country that's not jumping in line.
In terms of less developed countries, the previous paragraph says a lot. Everyone is frustrated with the reaction to the vaccine in the U.S., a well off country whose ignorance is getting more attention than the plea for health and safety in less developed countries. What Anusha said about American constituents feeling untended to if the federal government were to extend more of a helping hand to foreign countries, is very true. There's been a lot of selfish behavior going on, and although it might cause strife in the U.S. nation, I think the ultimate goal should be to fight the pandemic on a global scale, any way possible rather trying to hammer an idea into people's heads who don't want to understand (herd immunity). This may be a more sustainable goal in the coming years due to the recent rising of Omicron, but ultimately I think Biden extending more of a helping hand could only be positive by way of fighting the disease.
Many vaccine companies have patents on their products, which means they can control who can use their vaccines. As a result, many less developed 3rd world countries have difficulty getting the vaccines they need, because they must purchase the vaccination from those companies who own the vaccine who give priority to wealthier countries. Although vaccines appear plentiful to us, this isn’t true for countries in Africa, where only 7.5% of the population are actually vaccinated. According to the article, wealthy countries such as the US, UK and European Union have hoarded enough vaccines to vaccinate their population multiple times over at the expense of African countries who had to wait for weeks before receiving their dose shipments. Although efforts have been made to make vaccine rollout more fair and humane, such as COVAX, an organization created by pharmaceutical companies to spread vaccines equally throughout the world, companies are still extremely biased in providing vaccines to wealthier countries first since they can order the largest shipments. I think it is wonderful that another vaccine has been developed in such a short amount of time, however if COVID-19 continues to mutate and affect people in unvaccinated countries while wealthier countries hoard vaccines for themselves, then that is also another major problem.
1. The virus evolving so quickly with some variants being more infectious than prior ones is concerning as infection rates can accelerate even in vaccinated populations. It’s far more concerning in populations that don’t have access to the vaccines. The USA and developed countries need to help provide vaccines to underdeveloped countries or the fight with the Covid will not be won even in our own soils as the variants migrate from country to country via infected people traveling by airplane.
2. Billions of doses have been distributed with little negative effect. There are some things that happen, but are being studied, specifically blood clots and swelling of the heart in some adolescent boys. In the big picture the benefits seem to outweigh the risks for now. The odds of getting sick from the vaccines is lower than getting struck by lighting, yet, very few of us take any protective measures against lighting.
While many are skeptical of the new MRNA vaccines because of their “quick development time”, what I’ve actually read is that this MRNA technology has been in development for years. As far as I’m aware, COVID has been their first mass implementation, but as with any vaccine being given to the public, it is subject to intense regulatory screening and testing. Yes, the vaccines have some side effects, and that’s a bummer. You may not feel good for several days after getting the shot. But they are generally quite effective against COVID, which can make you feel bad for a lot longer than several days. I think the politicization of COVID vaccines, with some saying that it is un-American to get the vaccine, or other not getting the vaccine because they’re not worried about themselves getting COVID and they don’t like the government telling them what to do, has totally blown out of proportion. Government mandates to get vaccines for places like schools have been around for a long time, and for many different illnesses. Why should a mandated COVID vaccine be any different? Not only are mandated shots helpful for reducing the spread and mutation of COVID, this also protects those in other countries who may not have as good healthcare systems as vaccines limit the ability of COVID to mutate to be more deadly.
I think that we are very lucky to be able to get vaccinated and have the reassurance that we are better protected from the virus than without a vaccine. Unfortunately that is only true for a handful of countries. Less developed countries are not protected and more vulnerable to covid tragedies. Although the covid vaccines were produced quickly, I think they can be trusted because they have been approved by the FDA. A way to see the “truthfulness” of this vaccine is to remember that whatever serious side effects might come with the vaccine (which have been fairly rare so far) are probably not as bad as suffering and possibly dying from covid. As for the Omicron strain, it concerns me. I think I can speak for many others when I say I want life to go back to “normal”, but the reality is that it may take a while. Although its upsetting seeing all these new strains pop up, it’s actually a good thing. So far, people who are vaccinated and have gotten the Omicron variant haven't experienced too bad of symptoms. Of course not everyone who's had Omicron so far has had an “easy” time, but the fact that the disease is mutating but we are still able to fight it, is showing that it’s getting weaker and at some point it will become as “seasonal” as the flu, not killing millions.
I feel that the initial lab results make the vaccines somewhat trustworthy. The evidence of the omicron variant being less widespread than the delta makes it seem that the vaccines have been increasingly effective in preventing a further spread of infection. I do see that this could be a fluke though, in the sense that maybe just this variant is more susceptible to being neutralized to the vaccine. If more variants continue to emerge perhaps the truth of the matter on how effective vaccine countermeasures really are will come to light. I personally feel extremely privileged to live in the united states where vaccines are as easy to get as making an appointment. Third-world countries with people who are in perhaps greater need of these vaccines because of fewer restrictions being made are where the damage would be most catastrophic. I firmly believe that in time all of our questions regarding the long-term effects of covid and the effectiveness of vaccines will be answered.
The mutation rate of COVID-19 is a serious concern and must be dealt with as such. I agree with Julien that the initial lab results of Omicron's vaccine respondency are a relief; pharmaceuticals that are able to neutralize the spread of coronavirus are obviously essential to minimizing the suffering that the pandemic causes. The global mass-distribution of vaccines developed in a short amount of time are necessary in times of global suffering. The short time-frames that the booster and the initial vaccines were developed in, as well as the predictably short time-frames that future vaccines against variants will be developed in do fuel skepticism, especially in those already fearful of the government or of the negative effects of vaccinations. Personally, I trust our pharmaceutical industries. I believe that there are incredible people and reliable systems behind the development of COVID vaccines, and that they should be trusted.
As for less developed countries, of course variants will have a larger negative impact. Omicron is thought to have originated in South Africa, where distribution of vaccines was not fast enough. The development of Omicron indicates the need for more equality in vaccine distribution. Biotech firms as well as wealthy countries should be more supportive towards less wealthy nations, if not for the sake of altruism, then to prevent the development of dangerous variants that can negatively affect their people and economies.
Post a Comment