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Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

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

#141

Post by iso1631 »

bdamm wrote: post #41
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…

The mutations are far more likely if you give Regeneron to cancer patients and other immuno-compromised people. What an ethical problem... give a therapy knowing that the therapy will kill off the virus identified by the therapy but with a higher chance that mutations in the patient become free to propagate, or don't administer the immuno-therapy to the most vulnerable people in an attempt to stem early mutation? Sin…

In a world where we pump antibiotics into cattle, ethics don't really apply

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

#142

Post by maxerickson »

aclimatt wrote: post #108

Since we're on the topic, shouldn't this (hospital admissions) be the almost singular criterion to influence public policy / restrictive measures? The line I've heard repeatedly is we're waiting for "total" herd immunity, as in ensuring almost all of a population is potentially protected from the virus. Frequently quoting fall / end of 2021, potentially into 2022. Shouldn't the only benchmark be those with medium-to-…

It's preferable to have very low infection numbers, to reduce the likelihood of mutations taking hold.

Doesn't mean you go on forever waiting for 0 infections, you just wait a bit longer than the minimum number of vaccinations to go back to activities with highest risks of transmission.

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

#143

Post by ufo »

djrogers wrote: post #112
ufo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. For example, some of the more recent SARS-CoV-2 variants spread more easily because the virus causes a more severe infection, which is transmissable for a longer period of time. It's also not a guarantee that the virus will evolve into something weaker. There are serious diseases like measles and smallpox that have circulated for thousands of years while remaining as deadly as they ever were. Sometim…

> For example, some of the more recent SARS-CoV-2 variants spread more easily because the virus causes a more severe infection, which is transmissable for a longer period of time. That's purely speculation at this point, while epidemiology shows us that viruses which are more fatal tend to be less transmissible and vice-versa.

It can be more complicated than that, because in some circumstances increased virulence might also provide an evolutionary advantage for the pathogen. This article from snopes.com has a nice summary of the competing views: https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/02/01/will-coronavirus-real...

"""The trade-off model recognises that pathogen virulence will not necessarily limit the ease by which a pathogen can transmit from one host to another. It might even enhance it. Without the assumed evolutionary cost to virulence, there is no reason to believe that disease severity will decrease over time. Instead, May and Anderson proposed that the optimal level of virulence for any given pathogen will be determined by a range of factors, such as the availability of susceptible hosts, and the length of time between infection and symptom onset.

There is little or no direct evidence that virulence decreases over time. While newly emerged pathogens, such as HIV and Mers, are often highly virulent, the converse is not true. There are plenty of ancient diseases, such as tuberculosis and gonorrhoea, that are probably just as virulent today as they ever were."""

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

#144

Post by garmaine »

aclimatt wrote: post #108

Since we're on the topic, shouldn't this (hospital admissions) be the almost singular criterion to influence public policy / restrictive measures? The line I've heard repeatedly is we're waiting for "total" herd immunity, as in ensuring almost all of a population is potentially protected from the virus. Frequently quoting fall / end of 2021, potentially into 2022. Shouldn't the only benchmark be those with medium-to-…

> Since we're on the topic, shouldn't this (hospital admissions) be the almost singular criterion to influence public policy / restrictive measures?

No. This is the "flatten the curve" logic which was a horrible misjudgment. Having the disease in circulation in the community is not only doing tremendous damage to many, many people (even if the hospitals aren't full), but is also allowing the virus to mutate and potentially escape immunity protections or become more deadly. If you re-open as soon as the hospitals start to free up again, you just start moving the pendulum back in the direction of crisis.

Countries like Australia and New Zealand have shown that if you keep up lockdown measures for just a month or two after the hospitals free up (AND if you institute and keep real travel quarantine restrictions), you can get the virus to effectively ZERO community spread and keep it there. We can achieve this, and we ought to be aiming for it.

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

#145

Post by malandrew »

bluGill wrote: post #140
malandrew wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there also a confounding factor that the vaccinations were largely introduced following the thanksgiving and christmas infection events. Even without a vaccine, I would have expected hospitalizations to fall approximately 1 to 1.5 months after the Christmas holiday. Basically, we had many clusters of fresh unburnt tinder (the household covid pod) and the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday was a perfect event fo…

Depends on where you live, in the Midwest the peak was more around Halloween in October. You can hardly find Thanksgiving in any data (and then you probably have to squint and ignore proper statistics) By Chirstmas/new year things were clearly in decline. Other areas of course have different results.

In those areas, has the rate of decline just been consistently downward? Has vaccine introduction had any measurable impact?

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

#146

Post by jedberg »

nickpp wrote: post #114
jedberg wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not blindly letting a single tragedy set policy. It's one example of many that the FDA has used to build up trust in their process over the last eight decades. And it's not like the AZ vax is the only option out there. The lives will still be saved with the other vaccines.

I don't know any of the other "many examples", the only one I keep hearing about is the thalidomide incident. Kind of like when people opposing nuclear power keep bringing up Chernobyl and Fukushima while ignoring their relative tiny victim count compared to the millions of people killed by our fossil energy production.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumiracoxib -- Approved in Europe, not the USA. Withdrawn from sales due to side effects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimelidine -- Same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolrestat -- Approved in Europe, failed stage 3 clinical in the USA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimonabant -- Approved in Europe, failed in the USA, withdrawn worldwide because the side effects were so bad.

Thalidomide is just the most famous because it was the most disastrous, but there are plenty of others. Like I said, the FDA has a strong many decades track record.

This is nothing like opposing nuclear plants.

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

#147

Post by garmaine »

maxerickson wrote: post #142
aclimatt wrote: post #108

Since we're on the topic, shouldn't this (hospital admissions) be the almost singular criterion to influence public policy / restrictive measures? The line I've heard repeatedly is we're waiting for "total" herd immunity, as in ensuring almost all of a population is potentially protected from the virus. Frequently quoting fall / end of 2021, potentially into 2022. Shouldn't the only benchmark be those with medium-to-…

It's preferable to have very low infection numbers, to reduce the likelihood of mutations taking hold. Doesn't mean you go on forever waiting for 0 infections, you just wait a bit longer than the minimum number of vaccinations to go back to activities with highest risks of transmission.

With both travel restrictions and lockdown, It takes about 6 weeks to get to (effectively) zero new cases. Not forever.

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

#148

Post by dboreham »

iso1631 wrote: post #130
dboreham wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's called an annectdote. https://www.kpcnews.com/covid-19/article_8ab408ad-8fb0-5f74-... Overall, the average hospital stay for COVID-19 for all ages is 22.4 days, just over three weeks. The length of stay is slightly longer, 23.5 days, for regular hospital admissions and shorter for ICU patients at 16 days, likely because ICU patients go on to die in the hospital. That's based over thousands of patients. > Patie…

> That's called an annectdote.

Oh look: this data matches my annecdote(sic):

https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291...

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

#149

Post by nickpp »

jedberg wrote: post #146
nickpp wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know any of the other "many examples", the only one I keep hearing about is the thalidomide incident. Kind of like when people opposing nuclear power keep bringing up Chernobyl and Fukushima while ignoring their relative tiny victim count compared to the millions of people killed by our fossil energy production.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumiracoxib -- Approved in Europe, not the USA. Withdrawn from sales due to side effects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimelidine -- Same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolrestat -- Approved in Europe, failed stage 3 clinical in the USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimonabant -- Approved in Europe, failed in the USA, withdrawn worldwide because the side effects were so bad. Thalidomide…

OK, but if any of those was actually saving lives I'd argue it should've been approved, side effects be damned.

Last time I looked, thousands of people were dying every day of Covid. Ignoring those just in case a vaccine is harmful is, IMHO, a bad tradeoff and I don't trust the people making it in my name. I prefer, in life-or-death situations, making my own (informed) decisions.

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

#150

Post by wpietri »

aclimatt wrote: post #108

Since we're on the topic, shouldn't this (hospital admissions) be the almost singular criterion to influence public policy / restrictive measures? The line I've heard repeatedly is we're waiting for "total" herd immunity, as in ensuring almost all of a population is potentially protected from the virus. Frequently quoting fall / end of 2021, potentially into 2022. Shouldn't the only benchmark be those with medium-to-…

I take it you haven't been following what's going on with "Long Covid". But even among people who aren't hospitalized, there's lasting harm: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/91270

I know somebody who's had this. Despite never being hospitalized, after getting sick they had to take a long medical leave from work in hopes of getting their strength back. That's worlds away from "sick for a few days".

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