The Novavax news is mostly pitched in the media as "nice for antivax weirdos I guess" but a lot of people with, for instance, autoimmune diseases, have had a fairly terrible time with mRNA shots, so a trad vaccine is a huge thing for a lot of people.
@rye I hate all of that for you, and I hope that Nova is maybe a good fit. I'll post here about how it goes once I finally get the damn thing chased down, just as a single data point.
@kissane@nedraggett Will it be more effective for those who take immunosuppressants? I just had the latest mRNA vaccine, but it was the first time someone looked up the medications I take and warned me the vaccine might not help me. It was an awkward conversation. Felt like the pharmacist was trying to talk me out of getting vaccinated.
@soundclamp@nedraggett Honestly this is out of my area of even amateur knowledge, so talk to the doctor who prescribes those meds if you can, but I would expect any vaccine to be less effective when you’re on immunosuppressants. CDC recommends more frequent dosing for immunosuppresseurs people, so that might be worth a discussion.
@kissane My wife will not touch the mRNA vaccines after bad reactions (for me, it was merely a few hours of pain that quickly subsided). She worked on the Novavax clinical trials in Japan (it was approved some time ago), and the side effects are very minor in comparison to other coronavirus vaccines and offers similar protection levels.
@DrEvanGowan I was looking at the data out of Japan earlier today! The 6% of Novavax recipients reporting fever vs 75% for Moderna (second primary dose) is pretty great, I feel quite hopeful
@kissane IIRC (no source, sorry), mRNA tech ends up creating immune reactions for everyone after a high enough number of shots (high tens or low hundreds, I don't remember, but there's no reason to bellieve that this wouldn't be highly variable), such that it's known that it can't be used for ongoing treatments. I expect that Novavax will be more credible for annual boosters in the long term.
I wish I still had sources about that, sorry I've got to repeat vague memories.
@jbqueru It’s definitely been theorized—it came up a lot in discussions about approving the first booster, IIRC, but I’m not sure it has actually played out in the field. I would bet on that being true for a subset of people, though. But immunology verges on the unknowable, complexity wise, so I’d be guessing.
@kissane At the same time, we know that it's possible to develop some kind of immunity to almost anything, including foods and medications, so we should probably think in terms of "how commonly, how quickly, how badly" instead of wondering whether this'll be the case as all.
@kissane My lay understanding is that the protection from Novavax is speculated to be somewhat more durable than from the mRNA vaccines, and moreover there is theorized to be a benefit from having had both types. What is your perspective?
@donaldball The signals on durability aren’t super clear yet—too soon to really know. But I would myself pick Novavax just in case even if I could still do mRNAs, because I see no downside to that and the potential upside is quite good.
@kissane Same here. I'm hoping I can talk my way into getting the new Novovax when it's approved in Canada (I have another month or two to wait for my next booster anyway). The protection from a combo of Astra-Zenica and an mRNA vaccine was more robust than mRNA alone so it's not surprising that the Novovax confers some added protection for people who have already had an mRNA series. Even though I had AZ as my first shot, I'd still choose the Novovax (if I can make a choice). I'd love to see a side by side analysis of the AZ/mRNA results and the Novovax/mRNA ones because the AZ/mRNA studies showed that with the AZ/mRNA combo getting the AZ first was far more protective than mRNA then AZ (but the second sequence still gave more protection than mRNA/mRNA). Mixing vaccine types is known to be useful and is often done, despite how much drama it caused early on in the pandemic because people had been so thoroughly convinced mRNA is always superior (ahem, lobbying interests and government funding, etc). @donaldball
@kissane@donaldball The one silver lining to finally succumbing to Covid last month is that now I can get the Novavax booster in a couple months. I would have signed up for an mRNA earliest, had I been eligible.
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