[opendoor]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

My sister went to the ER on Monday after having trouble taking deep breaths- she’s an otherwise healthy, 27, she’s had 4 shots, and the only thing her doctor seemed concerned about was blood clots caused by COVID vaccines.

I have three shots. I don’t believe I’ll be getting a fourth. Someone needs to explain how your immune system just forgets what a spike protein looks like within 18 months after 3 doses.

It doesn't forget it, but circulating antibodies to coronaviruses tend to wane over time, from both vaccination and infection. And when you couple that with the fact that we need significantly higher levels of antibodies to protect against variants that are dissimilar from what we were vaccinated/infected with, then it explains why protection against infection from newer variants doesn't last very long.

But your body still recognizes the virus and can use a combination of newly produced antibodies and cellular immunity to fight it off, which is what helps prevent severe disease. Each time you're vaccinated/infected your body improves its response (up to a point at least), but even after 2-3 doses you have a significant level of medium-term protection against severe disease, at least with the current variants.

Especially if there’s a reasonable chance you’ve come in contact with the virus over the last year and a half, and your boosted immune system disposed of COVID like Uncle Phil tossing Jazz onto the lawn. My dog gets a rabies vaccine every three years, Bortadella every year, presumably because she’s not constantly beset by rabid or bortadellish pathogens.

Fighting off a few viral particles after exposure doesn't really test your immune system, whereas a full on infection with billions of virions does. So there isn't really an improved antibody response from an exposure like there is from an infection. So that is to say, you could encounter the virus all the time and your antibodies would still tend to wane unless those encounters developed into an infection.

I understand the concept of variants, but are these vaccines tailored to them? I don’t see how they could be.

So no. Three is enough. I’m not going to the hospital and I’m not dying with three.

Call me irresponsible.

The current vaccines are still targeting the original virus. For some reason (likely financial), they developed and tested multi-valent vaccines in 2021 and they proved to be superior against all variants, but because they weren't a complete game changer they never went into production. So we're still using the 2.5 year old formulation.

In terms of a 4th dose, it kind depends on someone's circumstances. If you're older (probably 40 or 50+), have comorbidities, or regularly interact with vulnerable people, then the benefits likely significantly outweigh any risks. On the other hand, if you're young and healthy then your chances of being hospitalized after 3 doses is quite small; I think it's basically on par with the flu at this point (though that could change over time).

And of course there is the option of seeking out a dose of Novavax. There's less data on it than the mRNA vaccines, but it's likely better tolerated and is a more traditional technology that has been in use for about 40 years.