Thank you for this post. I will re-use and reference it—I have big plans for this topic.
I want to explore/expand the decision tree on the effect of multiple vaccinations (boosters). I feel multiple vaccinations will work like this: single vaccination shall work, and it’s low risk. Two vaccinations—probability of vaccine effectiveness decreases because they are no longer independent, but they are not entirely dependent on each other either. I have the equation in mind, but I am too far from medical professionals. More importantly, I think while the probability of vaccine effectiveness decreases with each booster, the probability of risk factors sums up—while initials risks are small, risks accumulates and by second booster, it’s not that small. Any thoughts? I am open to ideas and can be convinced one way or another.
Small note: Some diagrams are not visible iPad.
I finally got around to fixing the diagrams. It wasn’t an iPad-specific problem, just the way diagrams are “pasted” into the editor when copied directly from PlantUML… apparently, it’s not the image that gets pasted, but the URL to a diagram rendered server-side which has a limited lifetime.
The whole point of using a model is to explain and predict without the sometimes prohibitive costs of not modelling, but it comes at the price of losing “resolution of reality”. That loss is what leads to uncertainty. Understanding enough about the immune system to know how current vaccines operate in the body and how risks add up differently in different bodies (ecosystems, really) could take several generations of dedicated research… we’ve collectively been at it since before Pasteur, keep making amazing discoveries, and still can’t provide really good answers. So I feel you will only get half-baked guesses in this forum and slightly better ones if you ask COVID experts.
I think in order to quantify risk-vs-number-of-vaccinations, we need to understand the type of risk itself and how the vaccine might have unintended effects. If we assume all of the unintended effects are longer-than-expected presence of the mRNA (or otherwise vector) and its derivatives, then the risk of noticeable adverse consequences doesn’t really sum up because any accumulation effects will be negligible. I.e. the amount of substance is low − 1 ng/kg body mass is same as 2 ng/kg body mass. Relatively it’s a lot but it’s not a lot if consider the body a “resilient/tolerant” system.
Thank you for this post. I will re-use and reference it—I have big plans for this topic. I want to explore/expand the decision tree on the effect of multiple vaccinations (boosters). I feel multiple vaccinations will work like this: single vaccination shall work, and it’s low risk. Two vaccinations—probability of vaccine effectiveness decreases because they are no longer independent, but they are not entirely dependent on each other either. I have the equation in mind, but I am too far from medical professionals. More importantly, I think while the probability of vaccine effectiveness decreases with each booster, the probability of risk factors sums up—while initials risks are small, risks accumulates and by second booster, it’s not that small. Any thoughts? I am open to ideas and can be convinced one way or another. Small note: Some diagrams are not visible iPad.
I finally got around to fixing the diagrams. It wasn’t an iPad-specific problem, just the way diagrams are “pasted” into the editor when copied directly from PlantUML… apparently, it’s not the image that gets pasted, but the URL to a diagram rendered server-side which has a limited lifetime.
The whole point of using a model is to explain and predict without the sometimes prohibitive costs of not modelling, but it comes at the price of losing “resolution of reality”. That loss is what leads to uncertainty. Understanding enough about the immune system to know how current vaccines operate in the body and how risks add up differently in different bodies (ecosystems, really) could take several generations of dedicated research… we’ve collectively been at it since before Pasteur, keep making amazing discoveries, and still can’t provide really good answers. So I feel you will only get half-baked guesses in this forum and slightly better ones if you ask COVID experts.
I think in order to quantify risk-vs-number-of-vaccinations, we need to understand the type of risk itself and how the vaccine might have unintended effects. If we assume all of the unintended effects are longer-than-expected presence of the mRNA (or otherwise vector) and its derivatives, then the risk of noticeable adverse consequences doesn’t really sum up because any accumulation effects will be negligible. I.e. the amount of substance is low − 1 ng/kg body mass is same as 2 ng/kg body mass. Relatively it’s a lot but it’s not a lot if consider the body a “resilient/tolerant” system.