[top_post]

I can't for the life of me understand why your last statement isn't what the world is driving for at the moment. mRNA vaccines are easily(-ish) updated, so punch out an Omicron specific dose and get on with the regular single/dual (if needed) regime.

It seems strange we'd opt for 3-4-5 shots given the benefit of mRNA was its ease of creation and modification.

[danhor]

Biontech (and probably all other vaccine manufacturers) are working on it and expect to have it available in march: https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-det...

The omicron surge is happening now so health authorities are looking at solutions and a third shot worked great, so a fourth one is an obvious (short term) solution. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work.

[usrusr]

But the fourth dose did work, just not significantly better than the third. So for people who might have had their third too long in the past to still be confident about their imminent encounter with omicron, it is exactly the obvious short term solution you describe.

[ImaCake]

I think they are making these strain specific boosters. But it seems “they”* want to keep it quiet until they are ready to release them. My first through on this is that there is over-supply of the OG vaccine and it takes time to switch production and the booster story is designed to give some hope and confidence to the masses (which is good I think). There is also some paperwork involved which takes time, but as we saw with the OG vaccines that can be done pretty damn fast.

Best guess would be the strain specific boosters will come out of nowhere and suddenly saturate news coverage. But don’t quote me on that.

* presumably the pharma companies and national governments funding them. So a conspiracy, but not a QANON conspiracy.

[culturestate]

> I think they are making these strain specific boosters. But it seems “they” want to keep it quiet until they are ready to release them.

There's nothing quiet about it - Moderna has already publicly announced[1] that they're nearly ready to take their Omicron booster to clinical trials.

1. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

[ImaCake]

Oh, maybe it is context specific then. No one I know in Australia is really talking about variant vaccines yet so maybe our media is being a bit quiet about it. Late March is a long time away considering we are dealing with peak COVID now.

[GekkePrutser]

Over-supply? A lot of third world countries would be happy to take it. We're still far from offering the entire world even their first shot

[bagacrap]

yes but these are for-profit companies and the developing world can't pay for those doses so what's the point to Pfizer?

That's a cynical take, but tbf don't the vaccines require logistical infrastructure that those parts of the world don't have? Other vaccines like j&j are perhaps more appropriate for that reason.

[dnadler]

They are working on Omicron-specific vaccines. Here's an article about Pfizer, not sure about anyone else, though.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-pfizer-omicron-va...

[ummonk]

Given what happened with delta, it seems likely that by the time a variant-specific booster is ready (i.e. gone through safety trials and bureaucratic approval and have manufacturing lines switched over), the variant will already have come and gone.

[lamontcg]

It should be pretty clear at this point that we're not going to vaccinate our way out of transmission.

I doubt there's a lot of utility to boosting a 4th time with anything unless you're immunocompromised in some way.

And by the time we start vaccinating for Omicron it'll likely be too late and we'll be onto the next variant which the Omicron booster will only partially cross react with.

But the vaccines have largely done their job, the boosted mature T-cell response is what is going to be saving lives and keeping people out of the hospitals. And the virus probably can't mutate enough to ever escape from T-cells.

[loyukfai]

Both Pfizer and Moderna, at the minimum, have been developing, or already developed, a version of COVID vaccine targeting Omicron.

[CyberDildonics]

A third shot showed large antibody increases. I haven't seen a fourth shot being suggested. Here it was being studied. Omicron specific vaccines are being worked on and expected to arrive in a few months.

[nradov]

Antibody levels are transient and not very important. What matters over the long term is cellular immunity. We're just chasing our tails by focusing on antibody levels.

https://youtu.be/GklHGYY8vN8