Lesson for all of us: There is waning immunity after two doses of vaccination, especially in the elderly. This is why boosters are recommended. The risk of transmission is still there which is why for now masks and other preventive measures are recommended.
IQVIA report: Good news is drug spending as % of healthcare spending is stable at ~15%.
Worrisome: While $ spent on cholesterol, antibiotics, & ulcer meds is lower, the ones rising are ones that will continue go up: oncology, immunology, diabetes. iqvia.com/Insights/The-I…
That's because cholesterol drugs and peptic ulcer drugs work chronically. Not just a few months and stop. So when you have a lot of generics, prices go down due to competition.
In contrast, oncology, immunology drugs are either ones that don't work for very long or are biologics
So there will continue to be newer and more expensive drugs each year and we are not seeing that effect yet. Every new cancer drug sold since 2017 has been >$100,000 per year. And that opening price has kept going up. These drugs also work only for a few months on average.
I'm not a virologist or vaccinologist. I'm addressing this issue as someone whose career has been focused on plasma cells, the cells that make antibodies, for over 20 years. 👇
1) When first exposed to an antigen, virus or vaccine, the immune system produces a primary immune response. On exposure to same antigen again, it produces a better, bigger, and more durable secondary response. Basic immunology. microbiologynotes.com/differences-be…
Sometimes the first infection gives a long enough exposure to the antigen to stimulate the secondary response. Sometimes it's not. Depends on the virus and duration of infection.
This time around a lot more people have immunity than in previous waves. So there is more reason to hope.
>215 million have received one dose of vaccine. >400 million doses administered. Probably a third to half the country has had COVID.
Worries that threaten hope: First worry is that 60-80 million are still very susceptible. A second worry is duration of immunity; but this should be quite good and long lived at least in terms of protection against severe disease. A third worry is potential rise of a new mutant.
This has been accomplished even though I think the extent of anti vaccine misinformation has been the highest in the US. Public health leaders have tried their best to convince the hesitant.
What proportion of the US has some immunity to COVID— where the immune system is not totally caught by surprise?
215 million have received at least 1 dose of vaccine.
40-60 million of the rest likely have had COVID.
That still leaves 60-80 million who are very susceptible.
The true number at risk of severe COVID is hard to estimate because some people who have been vaccinated or have had COVID may not have adequate protective immunity due to underlying comorbidities like cancer or other immunosuppressive disorder.
The unvaccinated include 50 million not yet eligible for vaccination. If a vaccine approval comes, this number will come down.
Bottomline is that some drop in efficacy against infections is seen over time, but protection against severe illness remains constant. Vaccines are working great in this study as in multiple others which have demonstrated the same thing.