Right. We are taking your questions
about the latest COVID trends and flu and
how you can get ahead of all of that.
As a reminder, that number is right
there on the bottom of your screen.
And our cone health expert is Doctor
Cynthia Snyder answering your questions.
All right. This first question is,
is either booster
more effective than the other?
I said we know that there's
probably some beneficial to um,
obviously all any of the boosters,
the M RNA boosters of Pfizer and Maderna
are considered bivalent and they they
include the some of the latest Omicron,
some variants including BA .4 and B 8.5.
So in theory that might be more
effective than the Novavax.
Correct. OK.
This next question is since the
timeline for kids is different,
should parents pick the shorter series?
Are they equally as good?
So should they do the novolac since
it's a shorter time span or does
it really matter and they can do
Moderna, Pfizer doesn't matter?
So, um, they the children's series are.
Yeah, there are some differences between
the various ones and I I would choose a
shorter one because we're heading into.
A very significant respiratory virus
season as well as right now there's a
very high RSV burden in our community. So
it might have been different if it was
like the start of summer or something
like that when you're going to be outside
and it's not as cold and
you're not inside as much.
OK. I understand that.
This next question is,
are the side effects different
for the boosters?
Like is the Novavax,
does it have different side effects than
the other M RNA?
I would imagine since they're all
the vaccines are really stimulating
your immune system to produce
antibodies and Rev up your T cells.
The the side effect profiles are
very much the same across the board.
OK, this next question is do you recommend
mixing and matching or
staying with one series? That
is a very good question.
You know, it's been debated among both
infectious disease dogs and different
immunologists and the thought about
changing your series up is that
your immune system may recognize
may create different antibodies.
Said, there are some theoretical
theoretical benefits to it.
OK, so it's kind of like
really what you want to do,
but you're laying it out there
if that's what the thinking is.
Correct. And I'm a fan of,
you know that that kind of makes sense.
But I'm not sure if the, the,
the data supports it yet.
And then also it's also about accessibility,
like if I'm ready to go get my booster
and there's only one available,
I'm sure I'm just going to get that.
So this next question is should
we be concerned about the
myocarditis in men after this
new booster? So that was talked about some.
Earlier on with some of the M RNA ones,
are we concerned about that with the Novavax?
So they they're seeing less of it and then
Novavax arm and and again it was really
seemed more out in adolescence. And um.
And if somebody has had, for instance,
that side effect with an M RNA vaccine
or some significant like allergies,
then the option would be to switch
over to the Novavax vaccine.
OK. And so this next question is,
does the new shot, the novax give you
a bigger dose or is it the same kind
of dose as the Pfizer or Moderna?
So I'm not exactly sure about the
dosing aspects of it, but again,
the way that a vaccine is created,
they are looking for an
optimal like immune response.
So that's how it gauges like
the micrograms component of it.
So it's a little bit challenging to
say like it's apples to apples or and
but the key thing to note is that you
know this is a the Novavax vaccine.
I think of it I thought I heard a
great analogy it's like you know it's
you get exposed to kind of the egg
shell without the egg you know and
the M RNA is kind of thought about
to be the egg and but your body
recognizes it as being foreign and so.
That you create those antibodies
against the spike protein it it was.
Developed to having like 90% effectiveness,
which is great and but we're not
sure how well it responds with the
latest changes with the sub variants.