Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

heraldscotland.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 361 posts

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#61

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

JCM9 wrote: post #19

Data is very encouraging. Presently this battle is essentially a race between the current vaccines (which data indicates are very effective against current strains) and eventual variants that will make the current vaccines less effective (or in the worst case ineffective). The mutations aren’t really a question of if just when. Vaccine data on some new strains is concerning and potentially an early warning of things…

Respectfully, I think the message you're presenting here is an endlessly shifting target that's going to seriously compromise vaccine takeup. The vaccine is highly effective and vaccinated people can safely resume normal life, although masks in public places will (and should) continue until anyone who wants a vaccine can get an appointment. Mutation risk is a legitimate concern, but not an overwhelming one that really needs to impact most people's personal decisions; Covid-19 mutating to escape vaccines is the same category of problem as the flu mutating to become more deadly.

If you wait to resume normal life until experts say Covid-19 isn't a problem at all, you're gonna be waiting somewhere between decades and forever, and you're gonna end up left behind by most of the world.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#62

Post by dboreham »

Lewton wrote: post #57
paganel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have expected even lower hospital admission numbers for the 60+ population, I mean taking into consideration that almost 80% of them have already been vaccinated.

Older people with COVID bad enough that they end up in the hospital usually stay there for 3-6 weeks

Data from personal friends contradicts this. 2-8 days in my sample.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#63

Post by DanBC »

loveistheanswer wrote: post #31

Until we have challenge trials, how do we know whether or not other variables, such as natural herd immunity and seasonality are not also significant contributing factors to the 'substantial reduction'?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phe-monitoring-of...

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#64

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

NovaJehovah wrote: post #14
matthewmacleod wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing severity is just as important as reducing transmission. I know what you're driving at and it's all pretty interesting - but counterintuitively I think it's way more effective overall to reduce transmission than it is to reduce severity. If you make the disease half as deadly, then pretty simply half as many people die. But if you make the disease half as transmissible, then the compound impact means that far…

True. But if you make the disease not deadly at all, then no one dies, regardless of how transmissible it is.

Not everyone can be vaccinated for a plethora of reasons. This would do nothing for that cohort.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#65

Post by hinkley »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #13
NovaJehovah wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that more interesting? Reducing severity is just as important as reducing transmission, if not more important. If we could sufficiently reduce (or eliminate) severe cases and deaths, it wouldn't matter how contagious it was. Common colds are highly transmissible, but no one worries about them much since they very rarely cause severe illness.

Reducing severity is just as important as reducing transmission. I know what you're driving at and it's all pretty interesting - but counterintuitively I think it's way more effective overall to reduce transmission than it is to reduce severity. If you make the disease half as deadly, then pretty simply half as many people die. But if you make the disease half as transmissible, then the compound impact means that far…

> If you make the disease half as deadly,

I think you undercut your own point for no reason.

Less deadly diseases get less reverence, leading to more risk taking. The percentage of people who die goes down, but the number of cases goes way up, resulting in potentially greater loss of life overall. Look at how cavalier we are about influenza, and then we set policy based on whether things are worse than the flu.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#67

Post by unanswered »

loveistheanswer wrote: post #31

Until we have challenge trials, how do we know whether or not other variables, such as natural herd immunity and seasonality are not also significant contributing factors to the 'substantial reduction'?

The government will tell us of course! Are you one of those lolbertarians who thinks covid is a myth and doesn't trust government?

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#68

Post by LeCow »

ufo wrote: post #34
rcpt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's no race. If this virus can mutate into something that renders the vaccine ineffective it will. Brazil and Mexico and the rest of the developing world will give it ample opportunity no matter how quickly we roll out the current drugs. It took decades to hunt down smallpox.

There is a race because the more people that are infected with the current strains, the more chances that the virus will have to evolve into newer strains. It is also believed that new strains are more likely to appear in places where the pandemic is out of control, with a large number of people currently infected and also a large number of people that already have some immunity to previous versions of the disease. T…

that just means it might evolve slightly slower, not that it won't ever happen. it 100% will evolve and 100% will evade the vaccine. we've understood about evolution for a very long time, but everyone's in denial atm.

even wearing masks did fuck all because it just evolved anyway. it ain't gonna matter when you aren't wearing them.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#69

Post by munk-a »

NovaJehovah wrote: post #14
matthewmacleod wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing severity is just as important as reducing transmission. I know what you're driving at and it's all pretty interesting - but counterintuitively I think it's way more effective overall to reduce transmission than it is to reduce severity. If you make the disease half as deadly, then pretty simply half as many people die. But if you make the disease half as transmissible, then the compound impact means that far…

True. But if you make the disease not deadly at all, then no one dies, regardless of how transmissible it is.

That is not the case - it is for that specific variant of the disease but diseases spread through the entire population have a huge area to mutate in and one of those mutations could be quite deadly.

One of the reason there's a lot of gas behind rolling this vaccine out quickly is that we want to avoid allowing the virus enough time to mutate up some different strains that this vaccine isn't effective in preparing us for since that makes the vaccine far less effective overall.

Post reply on HN