https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/novavax-is-here

When I say "available" I'm talking loosely. Availability may be scarce for a time. The link has details on finding it.

Yes, it's been fully tested, the same as any US-released vaccine. It's also believed to have fewer side effects, and it doesn't seem any less effective than mRNA vaccines, so if you didn't like the day-after effect of previous Covid vaccines, this might be the one for you. (I'm sticking with mRNA for now as it's never been a problem for me.)

I'm sure there will still be people who refuse to countenance any vaccine that hasn't been in wide use in ten years or whatever. If that's you, great, no real need to comment, we get it. Folk who start screaming about "it hasn't been tested enough!" and "it doesn't have 3 years of field use!" or "you'll grow moth wings in 2 years!" will assumed to be anti-vaccine trolls and that will be the last comment I see from you.

Addendum: Oh, look, I irritated some trolls. Again. Oh dear me.

I block people after skimming their comment history, when it becomes obvious to me that either they're simply trolls, or literally unwilling to provide cites and references when they make outrageous claims. I block because it saves me time; I don't want to run into the same trolls over and over and anyway, I'm not here to debate. On the topic of epidemiology, I lay out what I know from my training, I provide cites and references, and I move on. People who want to argue but don't provide cites? Of course that's a non-starter. Half the point of my posts is to refine my block list; if you aren't going to bother to learn the basics about something as important as vaccination and are fool enough to prove it publicly, I'm certainly not going to bother with your other prepping "info."

You want to engage with me, bring your peer reviewed studies or at least articles from established, mainstream epidemiologists. You have no interest in anything mainstream? Fine, I'm not interested in hearing your regurgitated opinions from Robert Kennedy Jr, Ron Johnson or your aunt sally's hairdresser.

If you have a problem with that, I'd say it's quite a problem you have there. And if you run to the defense of another obvious troll, I simply assume you're in the next cubical over, somewhere in Russia, and you're gone too.

Ever try arguing with a gas station owner about climate change? Arguing with an anti-vaccine troll is no different; they're either paid to troll outright (*waves to our Russian friends*) or have financial reasons to downplay masks, vaccinations, Covid itself, et al.. No one sensible bothers with them.

But by way of fair reply, to the people complaining that novavax can't possibly have been tested if it was formulated against a recent strain: bring it up with the FDA, who reviewed the data and issued the authorization under an EUA, as described in my cite, above. People who don't think that's good enough presumably don't get flu vaccines either, since they're also updated yearly and go through a similar process. If you are anti-vaccine enough to avoid flu vaccines because they reformulate the payload, you're too anti-vaccine for me to waste time on. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to people who are prepping against diseases.

Covid vaccines have been out for a few years now. We know the side effects of the mRNA vaccines, as well we should, after 3 years and 10 billion doses administered worldwide. Likewise, vaccines in the class of novavax are using even older technologies which are well understood and well tested, and people trying to convince you that swapping a payload protein for a related one is grounds for fear and loathing, do not have the data on their side or your best interest at heart. It's past time for even paid trolls to realize that the game is over.