First results from any randomized, controlled COVID-19 vaccine booster trial demonstrate a relative vaccine efficacy of 95.6% against disease
By December 2021, there was already clear evidence a third vaccine dose was beneficial. Though the results were only available as a press release, a randomized-controlled trial (RCT) of 10,000 people showed that a booster was safe and 95% effective at preventing COVID. The results were published several months later, and it doesn’t take a genius to imagine a vaccine dose that lowered infection rates would also lessen severe disease.
The results from a large observational study were also available at that time. It found:
Vaccine effectiveness evaluated at least 7 days after receipt of the third dose, compared with receiving only two doses at least 5 months ago, was estimated to be 93% (231 events for two doses vs 29 events for three doses; 95% CI 88–97) for admission to hospital, 92% (157 vs 17 events; 82–97) for severe disease, and 81% (44 vs seven events; 59–97) for COVID-19-related death.
Not bad.
Well, I’m an unboosted male. That’s my preferred pronoun, by the way.
This “gold-standard science” didn’t matter to Drs. Vinay Prasad and Marty Makary, however. They ignored this evidence, and with their typical childishness, they gathered in the podcast booth to mock and shame anyone who wanted this first booster.
– [Marty] Are you guys boosted being that close or is this an unboosted contact?
– [Zubin] We’re unmasked, unboosted and unrepentant, Marty.
– [Marty] Well, I’m an unboosted male. That’s my preferred pronoun, by the way.
– [Zubin] Oh, is that your pronoun? An unboosted male? Yes, my pronouns are it, they, those and currently unboosted because I got Moderna, which apparently kicks ass….
– [Vinay] …I haven’t gotten my booster yet and-
– [Marty] You mean this week you haven’t gotten, ’cause you do weekly boosters, I’m sure.
– [Vinay] Well, eventually, we’re all gonna have to keep boosting.
– [Marty] Yeah, boosting.
– [Zubin] You know, my vaccine card looks like one of those like frequent flyer like coffee cards where they punch the hole, like I boosted here and boosted here and boosted here and when I get 10 boosters, Fauci sends me a Fauci bobblehead that says I am the science.
– [Marty] I’m getting my booster sent with the GNC nutrition vitamins.
– [Vinay] They had the same evidence, you know.
According to Dr. Prasad, a vaccine supported by an RCT and subsequent observational study was as useful as a random supplement.
During the Omicron Wave, Death Rates Soared for Older People
The Omicron wave peaked the next month. According to the article During the Omicron Wave, Death Rates Soared for Older People:
Despite strong levels of vaccination among older people, Covid killed them at vastly higher rates during this winter’s Omicron wave than it did last year, preying on long delays since their last shots and the variant’s ability to skirt immune defenses.
This winter’s wave of deaths in older people belied the Omicron variant’s relative mildness. Almost as many Americans 65 and older died in four months of the Omicron surge as did in six months of the Delta wave, even though the Delta variant, for any one person, tended to cause more severe illness.
While overall per capita Covid death rates have fallen, older people still account for an overwhelming share of them.
“This is not simply a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” said Andrew Stokes, an assistant professor in global health at Boston University who studies age patterns of Covid deaths. “There’s still exceptionally high risk among older adults, even those with primary vaccine series.”
A single shot could have prevented much of this.
FDA to limit COVID shot approval to 65+, those with medical conditions.
Instead of reflecting on whether any of their listeners might have suffered from having skipped important vaccine doses, today these juvenile doctors are in power, and the headlines read FDA to Limit COVID Shot Approval to 65+, Those With Medical Conditions. Drs. Prasad and Makary stated their case in a bizarre essay titled An Evidence-Based Approach to Covid-19 Vaccination. Thankfully they will approve vaccines for older, sicker people based on immunogenicity data alone. Dr. Prasad had previously rejected this standard and even asked people to sign a pledge to remain unvaccinated. In his article No More COVID-19 Boosters Without Evidence he said:
The issue with perpetual COVID-19 boosters is what evidence is needed to justify their push? The answer has to be randomized trials powered for reductions in severe disease, hospitalization and death. Yet the FDA seems to be moving in the opposite direction, thinking mouse antibody data is good enough. Now a number of doctors, researchers are swearing: no more boosters till RCT.
“RCT or STFU,” he concluded with his typical lack of professionalism.
Now that he has real-world responsibly, however, Dr. Prasad wisely does not want highly vulnerable people to be without the vaccine on his watch. He’s confident it works for their them, and now that their deaths would be on his hands, he decided that RCTs are suddenly no longer needed.
However, for everyone else, Drs. Prasad and Makary had to argue that the vaccine posed a greater threat than the virus. As such, their article was full of absurd tropes I’ve discussed many times before.
To discourage vaccinations, Drs. Prasad and Makary asked to use our imagination. They said:
We simply don’t know whether a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI who has had Covid-19 three times and has received six previous doses of a Covid-19 vaccine will benefit from the seventh dose.
In reality, there’s copious evidence that boosters have already helped limit severe disease. However, while we don’t know everything about the vaccine, the more important question is- what will the fourth, fifth, and six COVID infections do to our hypothetical healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI who has had Covid-19 three times already? While the vaccine will give her a sore arm, she might feel really unwell after repeat bouts of COVID, and they may injure her in important ways, especially if she is unvaccinated. Maybe her three prior infections have harmed her already. Drs. Prasad and Makary don’t care about that one bit, however. They both have a long history of ridiculing anyone who tries to avoid COVID, calling such people mentally ill “idiots” who are “living in fear“.
As has been the case for the past 4 years, their demand for evidence applies only to the vaccine, not the virus. They never needed “evidence” before making things up to glorify the virus, claiming that natural immunity was “probably lifelong” or that contracting it was “natural and healthy” for children. Ominous headlines from abroad – New COVID Wave in Hong Kong Is Causing Severe Infections in Children, Hong Kong Children Urged to Get COVID Jabs as ‘Whole Paediatric Ward Full‘- don’t concern them today.
I am under 65 and healthy, thankfully. If I want a COVID vaccine next fall, I will have to lie to receive one thanks to Drs. Prasad and Makary. They felt that I should not have the right to decide for myself. They made the choice for me and my family based on their personal standards of evidence, not mine. My medical freedom and bodily autonomy means nothing to them. Though they opposed vaccine mandates, they are now responsible for a policy that effectively amounts to a viral mandate. If I can’t access a vaccine in the future and get a nasty case of COVID, I’ll know where to point the finger and so will millions of others.
