DownUnder 🐭 (@ManDownUnder)

WHY DOES VACCINE EFFECTIVENESS DIMINISH MORE RAPIDLY WITH EACH NEW VARIANT? My attempt to walk my way through this question. A long babbling post, probably, from a guy who isn't a scientist and probably doesn't have a clue... NOTE 1: I am not a scientist. I am simply trying to logically come up with a layman's explanation for why vaccine effectiveness has increasingly reduced timelines for each new variant. NOTE 2: As a thought experiment, none of these numbers are real, they don't match up between pics/graphs, and they don't really relate to anything real to do with Delta/Omicron etc. It's all made up to help me visualise. That's all. I am simply trying to explain to myself why, for example, the vaccines appear to have about a month of effectiveness against Omicron infection and then they die in the arse (and go negative), but had, say, 6 months against Delta (or whatever). NOTE 3: The vaccines DO appear to have some initial effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2. This does NOT mean that they don't also do BAD things to you at the same time. Both of these can exist and they are not mutually exclusive. A) THE HEALTHY VACCINEE EFFECT OK, let me start by saying that I do not think the Healthy Vaccinee Effect is responsible for the negative turn in vaccine effectiveness over time. See Pic 1 - Infection rates Double Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated from UKHSA (NOTE: Unlike Pics 2 and 3, this is a REAL tracker based on REAL data from UKHSA): 1) We can see some age groups start below the line (positive effect) and move above the line (go negative). This could potentially be the Healthy Vaccinee Effect; 2) However, they all start to turn back downwards (trend more positively) when Boosters are administered; 3) These Boosted individuals were not moved into a new group, but were still being counted in the Double Vaccinated (now DV+) by UKHSA at the time; 4) The Healthy Vaccinee Effect requires a new group being started that the most healthy move into first (producing an initial beneficial result). They are then followed by the less healthy, which brings down the average result and turns the overall trend negative (or less positive...whatever); 5) Because a new group is not formed, the Healthy Vaccinee Effect cannot be in play here; 6) Thus, the administration of the Boosters produces a (temporary) benefit to the group. The Boosters are doing something positive (in regards to SARS-CoV-2 infection, at least...) 7) For the record, the big uplift in all age groups at the end is the introduction of Omicron. So, we've ruled the HVE out. Now, let's move to variations in the Spike Protein that occur with each new variant. See next post (comment) because I ran out of space.