[joshuamorton]

> Hone your own advice and be precise in your claims.

I was. The claims I made are backed by strong randomized controlled trials.

> There is good evidence that two doses of the vaccine were protective for at least three months, against the variants dominating 2021.

And also good RCT based evidence that a third dose (or perhaps just a more recent dose) provides robust protection against delta and omicron variants. The precise level of protection is different because the variants are all a little different, but the conclusion of "boosters provide robust immunity against variants" is strongly supported.

So yes, there is good evidence that boosters provide protection. There is not good evidence that ivermectin does anything.

> It's 2022, there is a new escape variant about and we endorsed teenagers to get a booster shot to "protect" themselves from this new variant - based on what evidence exactly?

To be clear, there are two reasons you run studies

1. To validate effectiveness

2. To validate safety

There's not really a reason to believe that the boosters will be less effective in teens. In fact, there's strong reason to believe that they'll be just as effective as in everyone else. You really don't need a study for this.

What you might need a study for is validating safety, which is why we break out pregnant people, teens, young kids, and adults. Those groups can have different safety impacts (kids and teens weigh less, so doses might need to be smaller to be safe!).

Except that we already know that the exact substance we're sticking in teens is safe in teens, because its half of the exact same thing as in the initial doses. So if your concern is safety, its fine, and if your concern is efficacy, well we have strong RCT evidence of efficacy. We also generally speaking know that ivermectin is safe. But, we have no evidence to its efficacy.

So I apply precisely the same standard.

[incrudible]

Please provide a link to the RCT measuring efficacy against Omikron.

> Except that we already know that the exact substance we're sticking in teens is safe in teens, because its half of the exact same thing as in the initial doses. So if your concern is safety, its fine, and if your concern is efficacy, well we have strong RCT evidence of efficacy.

My concern would be risk/benefit. As far as I'm aware, not everyone gets a half dose for the booster, but even then there's a risk for Myocarditis with the third dose, among other things. What is the additional risk reduction for an Omikron infection in a healthy young (male) teenager that has already been vaccinated with two doses? Is it really worth the risk of side-effects? There is no good data on this.

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

[ericb]

> Please provide a link to the RCT measuring efficacy against Omikron.

Even if that's the hill you've chosen to die on, Delta is still out there and at a high prevalence especially in North America and you've admitted that the vaccine is effective but wanes, so a booster makes sense in that cost benefit regardless.

[incrudible]

It was claimed that there exist RCTs that demonstrate boosters providing "robust protection against Delta and Omikron variants". Where are they, then?

These boosters are administered to teenagers, who are also at the highest risk for Myocarditis. What makes you so confident that the imputed benefit of a booster outweighs the risk? Where is the data?

If you want to administer boosters to everyone based on speculation and weak observational data, go right ahead. Just don't act as if you have "the science" backing you up.