COVID-19 Outbreak Information Updates (Reboot) [over 150.000,000 US cases (est.), 6,422,520 US hospitilizations, 1,148,691 US deaths.]

Arathrael said
I don't think there was much difference in initial timing between the booster effort in the UK and the US. The UK started late September, and that was also when the US's booster dose recommendation was given according to the CDC data tracker (https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends). The US had been boosting before that, but at a relatively low rate, <100k per day.

The difference, I think, is in scale. In October, the UK was boosting around 200-300K per day, rising to around 350k per day (~0.5%) of the population through November. (https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations). The US was boosting around 400k per day in October, rising to 900k per day in November. But that's still only around half the rate per capita in November for the US compared to the UK.

So prior to Omicron showing up and really kicking in, both countries had started pushing boosters, but the UK had actually been boosting substantially more relative to population than the US already.

And then after Omicron had started making noise, in December, the UK had an additional push which took the levels substantially higher still, up to nearly 900k per day (~1.3% per day). The US only had a small increase over November levels (with a dip over Thanksgiving as well).

So both countries really started pushing boosters around the same time, but the UK has been boosting at a higher rate right from the start of official recommendations in late September, and had an additional really big push in December. The US has just been consistently boosting at a lower rate. At this point the UK has given out over 36 million booster or third doses, which represents 62.9% of over 12 year olds. In the US, it's over 78 million, but that's only 40.6% of over 18 year olds (UK dashboard is giving those percentages in terms of over 12 year olds, and I'm not trying to convert that right now, but you can see it's a substantial difference even without that).

So while it's true to say a higher proportion of boosters in the US were given in the earlier part of the period compared to the UK, that's not because of an earlier big push in the US; rates have risen as time has gone on, they just haven't risen that much, relative to the UK. With the UK consistently boosting at a higher rate, I'd suggest the more significant difference is likely to be the relative absence of boosters, rather than the relative timing.

I have seen some discussion about timing boosters with waves, but I think the problem is in predicting them. So far, Covid hasn't as seasonal as flu, for example.

Really had a good chance to look through the UK data at length.

First, it's a lot better data set than I had thought. I didn't realize they were doing sequencing to parse out Delta.

While there is no denying the booster decreases infection risk vs 2 shots, that increase is quite small, 10-15% increase. That increase holds true as immunity wanes on a sliding scale through week 10 and does so with such a similar pattern that it's pretty safe to assume that continues on beyond week 10. After 5 months preventing contagion is approaching zero again.

It's really consistent across different vaccines, with or without past infection, etc. There are differences. People with past infection tend to do about as well as people with 2 shots. The people fully vaccinated with booster with a past infection do the best but it's not a huge difference.

For me, I basically had 0 protection agianst infection from Omicron despite being fully vaccinated and boosted since I am more than 5 months removed from booster. I kind of already knew this but shame on the Government for leaving that window open for the most susceptible groups of people. They should have been promoting a 4th or even 5th shot for some people by now if the goal is to prevent infection. My wife should have had a coin flip chance of not getting infected 6 weeks past her booster shot. My kids should have had a coin flip chance as well. Unfortunately all three lost their coin flip. Same goes for the rest of my family and most friends regardless of vaccine status, prior infection, etc. So far, in my large circle of friends and family if you get exposed at any decent level your are getting sick.

Also worth considering there is nothing in the way of causation for that data. Does the person who is getting double vaxxed and boosted take more precautions than the person that is unvaxxed? I think we all can agree that is probably the case with a relatively high degree of certainty but we don't know how much that accounts for the differences in the data. So in the real world, the vaccine is likely even less effective at preventing infection but it is impossible to say by how much. It's almost certainly what explains the difference in my group as well. We've quit trying to not get infected and it shows. I say quit, I still don't go into crowded places, still wear masks on airplanes and at airports. Rarely go out to eat. Haven't been to a sporting event, concert, convention, etc. I did have dinner with my family. I have eaten out 3 times in the last 3 months but only in relatively empty places. So even then, I can't say I haven't completely given in. I will now though.

So from the time of booster to having a less than 50% chance of preventing infection, the window is only about 10-11 weeks and that is under the assumption that people getting vaccinated and boosted are taking similar precautions to those that aren't getting vaccinated.

I really think this is strong evidence that suggests if we are going to do booster shots we need to greatly increase capacity to roll shots out and focus on booster drives at the appropriate time. While the waves aren't exact with seasonal change they have been consistently been within a few weeks. Then again, that window of preventing contagion is so small that it may just delay the inevitable and spread the wave out over a longer period. If our goal is to reduce infection then we need to come up with a booster schedule that includes boosters 5 times a year for everyone to reduce infections by 50% with the understanding that 50% probably also involves some mitigation efforts to reach that level of effectiveness.

Let me know when this starts to sound silly.

The good news, the data also shows that Omicron is indeed much less severe across the board on magnitudes of a sheet ton and vaccines tend to hold up for longer against severe disease than they do to prevent infection.