covid: does it make sense to give young people boosters??
A recent preprint, pre-peer reviewed article argues strongly that there is minimal benefit in giving vaccine boosters to young people against covid-19, and there are significant potentially serious complications (see covid not need to vaccinate young preprint2022 in dropbox, or SSRN-id4206070.pdf). thanks to my old buddy Paul Ash for bringing this to my attention Details: -- this article assessed specifically the risks and benefits of covid-19 boosters for adults in the 18-29yo group, those affected most by mandates for boosters at many US universities -- they used available data on the absolute risks and benefits of vaccines to develop a risk/benefit analysis, largely data of adverse event reactions from the CDC and drug companies Results : -- benefit: 22,000 to 30,000 previously vaccinated 18-29yo's must be boosted with an mRNA vaccine to prevent 1 covid hospitalization -- harms, per 1 person who would benefit: -- 18-98 serious adverse events: -- 1.7-3.0 booster