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No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

sciencemag.org

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Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#281

Post by subungual »

dnhz wrote: post #113
orblivion wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what those rare cases are.

Viruses! RNA viruses like SARS-cov-2. They make the cell reverse transcribe their RNA cargo into DNA, and then the cell produces more viruses.

Most RNA viruses are not incorporated into DNA. SARS-CoV-2 is what's called a "positive sense" RNA virus, which means that it is directly translated by cellular machinery to produce more virus copies. It should have no interaction with cellular DNA.

Retroviruses are a subset of RNA viruses that utilize the strategy you're referring to. This requires additional machinery be coded for to allow reverse transcription to DNA and then subsequent integration into host DNA. The vast majority of RNA viruses are not retroviruses.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#282

Post by raducu »

shabda wrote: post #118
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think (from my parents and in-laws) that immunosuppression is normally associated with current cancer treatment. So, for example, it looks like this protocol would exclude people getting chemotherapy. Happy to be proven wrong on this by someone with more information.

Also, Anybody who has received an organ transplant is immunosuppressed. They take immunosuppressive drugs so that the transplanted organ is not rejected.

It would be so nice if those people could have access to a coctail of synthetic antibodies that gave some protection to covid-19, the flu and others. Or perhaps a generic antibody that protects against most viruses(unlikely, given such an atibody does not exist in nature).

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#283

Post by kingnothing »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #241
coffeefirst wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is irresponsible fearmongering, and says more about how lackadaisical software engineering is towards quality control than anything else. On the other hand, if you want to read about how software works when it actually matters, "space shuttle coding style" is fascinating.

What's irresponsible about healthy, low risk individuals waiting until all of the high risk people get the vaccines first? If there's autoimmune issues that pop up when the scale goes from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions, I'll know about it ahead of time and be able to take the appropriate action, such as choosing a non-mRNA vaccine such as the adenovirus type from Astrazeneca.

The risk of a vaccine having negative effects is basically nil. The biggest issues historically have been around cross-contamination, not anything to do with the vaccine itself.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history....

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#284

Post by nradov »

estebank wrote: post #234
totony wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll admit I'm not super well informed on covid, so my opinion on this is weakly held, but isnt that an insanely small percentage of people? I was under the impression that vaccine + immunity will just lead to herd immunity and the disease to go away on its own.

US population: ~330 million people Confirmed cases: 13.4 million people Confirmed deaths: 267 thousand people deaths / confirmed: ~2% 2% of the US dead (assumes homogeneous 2% death rate, which is incorrect but an upper bound): 6.6 million people Distribution of deaths by age bracket, including population distribution: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm About half the population is over ~45 yea…

You appear to have confused case fatality rate with infection fatality rate. There have been far more infections than confirmed cases because most never get tested or formally diagnosed. The actual IFR is under 1%.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#285

Post by subungual »

nobleach wrote: post #82
orblivion wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My recent absolute favorite is Lupe Fiasco explaining it to Hotep Jesus (some NSFW language): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0MA48bfshw#t=2h14m3s The overall video is a about vaccines in general (Hotep Jesus is rather skeptical of them), but Lupe explaining how mRNA vaccines work starts at this timestamp. There's also a place where the audio cuts out. It's only a minute or so, but they go back and finish where they…

I get that that's probably Lupe's shtick, but I think half (or more) of the things he's describing to Hotep Jesus are things that your average person doesn't know!

It's such a refreshing contrast to status quo anti-intellectualism the way he hams up the shame of Hotep's not knowing.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#286

Post by totony »

estebank wrote: post #234
totony wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll admit I'm not super well informed on covid, so my opinion on this is weakly held, but isnt that an insanely small percentage of people? I was under the impression that vaccine + immunity will just lead to herd immunity and the disease to go away on its own.

US population: ~330 million people Confirmed cases: 13.4 million people Confirmed deaths: 267 thousand people deaths / confirmed: ~2% 2% of the US dead (assumes homogeneous 2% death rate, which is incorrect but an upper bound): 6.6 million people Distribution of deaths by age bracket, including population distribution: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm About half the population is over ~45 yea…

That comment was meant to answer two people at once, my bad.

I was referring to the proportion of population that was not at risk. That population has an insanely small chance of having long term side effects from data I've seen. Which was the reason I'm not sure why we would force them to get these vaccines.

EDIT: To be more precise; Of course we want a vaccine and vulnerable people to get it. You'd rather risk getting whatever potential side effects of that vaccine than get covid. I'm more torn about why healthy young people should get it.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#287

Post by mulmen »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #241
coffeefirst wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is irresponsible fearmongering, and says more about how lackadaisical software engineering is towards quality control than anything else. On the other hand, if you want to read about how software works when it actually matters, "space shuttle coding style" is fascinating.

What's irresponsible about healthy, low risk individuals waiting until all of the high risk people get the vaccines first? If there's autoimmune issues that pop up when the scale goes from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions, I'll know about it ahead of time and be able to take the appropriate action, such as choosing a non-mRNA vaccine such as the adenovirus type from Astrazeneca.

The irresponsible thing about healthy, low-risk people not taking vaccines is that it puts high risk individuals at higher risk of catching the virus because high risk people are the ones that can't take the vaccine.

Vaccines are not 100% effective but they don't have to be. The goal here is to reduce transmission in the population to a level where the virus can no longer spread. That is only possible if enough people take the vaccine and healthy people should absolutely be in the front of that line.

This is not a purely personal choice. You have to understand that by deciding not to immunize yourself you are making a decision for everyone else.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#288

Post by talentedcoin »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #217
orblivion wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an atheist more or less and I agree with this sentiment. I'm not fond of transhumanism. But I don't think the mRNA vaccine process fits this description.

Why aren't you fond of transhumanism? At some point medicine and technology will advance so much that we can save and improve many lives by replacing bits of ourselves with superior artificial variants. Is that so bad?

You first.

More seriously, this is one of those situations where the short-term pluses are plain to see, but the long-term risks are vague. Why not employ the precautionary principle here?

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#289

Post by DanBC »

totony wrote: post #286
estebank wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US population: ~330 million people Confirmed cases: 13.4 million people Confirmed deaths: 267 thousand people deaths / confirmed: ~2% 2% of the US dead (assumes homogeneous 2% death rate, which is incorrect but an upper bound): 6.6 million people Distribution of deaths by age bracket, including population distribution: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm About half the population is over ~45 yea…

That comment was meant to answer two people at once, my bad. I was referring to the proportion of population that was not at risk. That population has an insanely small chance of having long term side effects from data I've seen. Which was the reason I'm not sure why we would force them to get these vaccines. EDIT: To be more precise; Of course we want a vaccine and vulnerable people to get it. You'd rather risk gett…

> I'm more torn about why healthy young people should get it.

So they don't infect and kill their older relatives.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#290

Post by ping_pong »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #59
blackmagicjs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be other ways to reduce risk if you belong to the at risk population, though. Those statistics all have to be taken with a grain of salt. Like if it says "x% of some population will die from some thing", it could mean "x% in the population tend to be reckless" (like "x% of people under 30 will die from base jumping", but it is easy to avoid by not doing base jumping). In the case of Covid, perhaps not livin…

There may be in general, but in this case I don't think it's a factor. Something like 40% of deaths have happened in nursing homes, where residents don't have much agency to reduce their individual risk.

At least in the UK, 75% of deaths from covid are from people 75 and older. I imagine that it's similar here in the US.
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