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Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

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Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#301

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

loveistheanswer wrote: post #299
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's what I've been told by numerous people who live in China. It's what I see on Chinese social media, and it's what Westerners who live in China are saying on Western social media. I'm sure there are many on HN who live in China - they can also tell you what things are like there. If there were a major ongoing epidemic in China, it would be impossible to hide. Hospitals would be under the same sort of pressure that…

>It's what I've been told by numerous people who live in China. It's what I see on Chinese social media, and it's what Westerners who live in China are saying on Western social media. Yep, that's how censorship works. I'm sure you won't see too many people talking about Tiananmen Square on Chinese social media either, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Are we really going to pretend that the Chinese government h…

> Yep, that's how censorship works.

China doesn't have the power to censor Western expats on Twitter, or the millions of live conversations going on at any given moment between people inside China and people outside. This view of China, that it's a black box that information can't escape out of, is simply not reality.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#302

Post by helloworld11 »

girvo wrote: post #287
makomk wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of weeks is basically the bare minimum. New Zealand seem to have gotten a little lucky with their latest outbreak; one or two people not noticing their symptoms, or going for a walk with someone different, or interacting for a little longer at a restaurant and they could easily have ended up having to lock down for months like Guernsey or the Isle of Man. (Arguably, it's still a little too soon to be sure th…

We did a 3 day lockdown in Brisbane to give our contact tracers time to track down a single case. It worked, too, which was neat.

So the population of a whole city is normalized on lock down as if they were inmates of some large prison camp, while the government uses all sorts of surveillance mechanisms to track whoever they please freely for some very marginal public health benefit, and this whole situation is considered "great". What kinds of things have been normalized in the supposedly free countries by this pandemic.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#303

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

makomk wrote: post #298
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that difficult to know what's going on in China. There are many millions of Chinese people who call friends and family outside the country regularly. You can go read Chinese social media. There are Westerners in China who post to Western social media. There are even many people on HN who live in China. > if you believe their reporting the mass testing generally didn't find any cases at all That's not true. T…

> There's good evidence from contact-tracing that some of the subsequent outbreaks originated in people who work in the cold chain. Well, that's technically true. It just probably didn't come from the goods being handled like China claimed. In particular, formites and surface contamination of any kind don't seem to be a major source of transmission, and the Beijing outbreak they originally used this to explain seems…

> formites and surface contamination of any kind don't seem to be a major source of transmission

When there are millions of infected people walking around breathing and coughing, then fomite transmission is not a major source of transmission. But it is a source of transmission, and it could become the dominant source of new introductions of the virus into the country if quarantine of travelers is good enough (to go to China, you generally have to get a negative PCR test before your flight, then quarantine for two weeks in a special hotel on arrival, and finally get another negative PCR test). That's not to say that cold chain was actually the source of the Beijing or the Qingdao outbreaks, but there's evidence that points in that direction. In other words, this isn't simply propaganda.

But the larger issue that we were originally discussing is the overall situation in China. There clearly has not been significant community transmission over the past year, showing that the strategy (sharp lockdowns followed by strict border quarantines and mass testing during localized outbreaks) has been effective.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#304

Post by 8ytecoder »

baxtr wrote: post #250
walterbell wrote: post #43

> the immune system has an array of other defenses... including antibodies that attack other parts of the virus, and, importantly, T-cells that attack the infected cells the virus hijacks in order to replicate. “What we’re seeing is that these variants don’t seem to affect T-cell immunity all that much and they [the T-cells] seem to be as effective in recognizing these variants as they do the original virus” People w…

I have done my PhD on T cell activation. The persistent focus of the media and even some of the science community on Antibody induced immunity was completely beyond me. T cells were largely simply ignored even though they play such a crucial role in the body’s immune response. Antibodies seem to be a concept much easier to grasp. Maybe we should call T cells "Police Cells or "Anti-Cells" instead. You know, some marke…

Are vaccines necessary for someone who has had covid? If it was absolutely necessary to prioritise those who don’t have any immunity at all, is there a test that can help identify with that?

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#305

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

ern wrote: post #259
makomk wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Zealand and Australia have had cases outside of quarantine despite every single traveller who enters those island nations being kept in hotel quarantine, tested multiple times, and being released only after the quarantine period ends. Some of those cases are directly traceable to quarantined travellers, some aren't. In any case, even those measures which aren't practical except in an island nation aren't effectiv…

Some of those cases are directly traceable to quarantined travellers, some aren't One of those countries has been able to trace all cases in the last few months and makes extensive use of genomic sequencing. The leaks have all come out of hotel quarantine breaches. I believe that some Australian states that do not receive overseas travelers have not had a single case in months. It may (or may not) not be feasible for…

It worked in China as well, so geographical size and population are not barriers to implementing this strategy.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#306

Post by 8ytecoder »

bagacrap wrote: post #300
Angostura wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps unpopular opinion, but the US vaccination system is about the worst when it comes to preventing spread. Instead, it seems to be attempting to prevent death. This is by far the most common approach around the world - the same approach is taken in the UK, for example. It's in place for three reasons: 1. We worked out that about 90% of deaths in the first wave would have been prevented if we had been able to v…

I don't understand the relevance of #1, as we have no time machine. Regarding #2, I think no one seriously thinks the vaccine could fail to prevent spread (it surely is not 100% sterilizing, but everyone acts under the assumption it will vastly reduce spread). "There is no evidence for X" can be said for the vast majority of values of X, since most X are impossible and/or too time consuming to study. This includes, f…

Preventing deaths and reducing the load on the medical system is absolutely necessary to move forward. If we have vaccinated a good chunk of the elderly and have guaranteed vaccine availability for them, we could open up the economy without fear of the medical system being overloaded. The main reason we shutdown was to prevent the load on hospitals. It has a cascading effect on anyone seeking care.

(Personally know someone who’d have gotten a diagnosis and treatment earlier by at least a couple of months if not for Covid)

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#307

Post by 8ytecoder »

statstutor wrote: post #269
silisili wrote: post #140

Perhaps unpopular opinion, but the US vaccination system is about the worst when it comes to preventing spread. Instead, it seems to be attempting to prevent death. I've always argued that preventing spread would as a byproduct prevent death, but I'm obviously not studied in the field. Put shortly, I would have vaccinated college kids and working age folks first. They are not likely to die from it, but are far more l…

> Perhaps unpopular opinion If I was responsible for policy, I would ask (have asked) a scientist to model this rather than stating it as opinion. I suspect that any model would just show you to be extremely wrong, for a virus which is already circulating freely.

It’s not a scientific problem. The scientific solution to contain the pandemic would be a full 21 day absolute shutdown of everything with people surviving on rations. It becomes a political problem if you try to do that in any functioning democracy.

Decisions made about people must have a feedback loop to learn from how people react to it. For example, the lockdown became ineffective when it was extended too long. People were initially very compliant. We were told it’s only till we can prepare our hospitals and prepare a contact tracing strategy. It was convenient for politicians to extend the lockdown than solve those two problems. Net result was that people started ignoring the lockdown more and more. Police can enforce bans on outdoor gatherings; people simply gather at home.

It’s precisely because we ignore the human element that we keep dragging this.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#308

Post by brmgb »

Eliezer wrote: post #230
de6u99er wrote: post #112

A globally coordinated approach, similar to NZ's approach could have ended the oandemic already a year ago. Thanks to COVID-19 fatigue amongst the population, such an effort very close to impossible.

What could've ended the pandemic around 6 months ago was human challenge trials on vaccines, and paying much more for earlier supplies of vaccines including those donated to other countries. (What counts as an impossible supply challenge is very different at the $500 price point than at the $50 price point.)

> What counts as an impossible supply challenge is very different at the $500 price point than at the $50 price point.

Considering the insane profits pharmaceutical companies are currently recording, the issue has more to do with these companies favoring their benefits to the detriment of the general population which should come as no surprise to anyone having experience dealing with a pharma company.

The issue is particularly prevalent in Europe because as usual, apart from some grand posturing in the media, Europe will do nothing to fight back.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#309

Post by 2-tpg »

alkonaut wrote: post #39
1996 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe you are getting downvoted! This is a real risk! Relevant quote: > Under normal conditions, highly virulent strains of the virus are not selected. A highly virulent strain would kill the host before the virus would have an opportunity to transmit to other potential hosts and replicate. Thus, less virulent strains are selected. These strains are virulent enough to induce symptoms but not enough to kill…

> This is a real risk! I never heard this discussed as a big "risk". As far as I know this was always more or less known to be the endgame and not even a dangerous outcome but the "good" scenario. Once it's an established coronavirus, it can be like the other known human coronaviruses we already have. The reason you don't die from OC43 at age 75 now is because you probably cought it a few times before that. It's not…

> I never heard this discussed as a big "risk". As far as I know this was always more or less known to be the endgame and not even a dangerous outcome but the "good" scenario.

The endgame is for the virus to turn into a community virus. This is not the big "risk". The big risk is in using leaky vaccines to combat the mortality and morbidity until we get there (or can reset economy). In chickens, use of leaky vaccines lead to the evolution of a disease which kills nearly all non-vaccinated. That's nothing like the seasonal flu (which would be a "good" outcome, indeed).

You'll find expert back-and-forth on leaky vaccines risk for humans here: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6247/461 "Risk of ‘leaky’ vaccines debated" (2015)

> Vaccines have saved millions of human lives, but according to evolutionary biologist Andrew Read they sometimes may also cause pathogens to turn deadlier. Read first put forward the theory 15 years ago. Now, in a new paper, he presents evidence that that is what happened with the virus causing Marek's disease, an infectious disease in chickens. Read acknowledges that the effect has never been seen with human vaccines, but he argues that future vaccines that prevent disease rather than infection could have the same effect. Other researchers say that no general conclusions should be drawn from the paper. Even if he turns out to be right, the study offers no support whatsoever for those who oppose vaccination, Read stresses. If "leaky" vaccines are proven safe and effective, they should be used, he says, but perhaps with closer monitoring and additional measures to reduce transmission, such as bed nets for malaria.

And for all the solid risk management in the West, China, a country where:

- SARS-1 leaked twice from a lab,

- which re-sentences Australian citizens to a death penalty as diplomatic punishment for Australia wanting joint investigation into the origin of a disease with still unknown zoonotic basis

- which would not allow WHO full access, and put information blackout its scientists

- informed the world way too late of an upcoming pandemic, pressuring the WHO to geopolitics and trade instead of world health.

That country will vaccinate a billion people with a leaky vaccine that skipped a trial with a poorly estimated 50.5% efficiency. Risky as all-living hell.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#310

Post by walterbell »

8ytecoder wrote: post #304
baxtr wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have done my PhD on T cell activation. The persistent focus of the media and even some of the science community on Antibody induced immunity was completely beyond me. T cells were largely simply ignored even though they play such a crucial role in the body’s immune response. Antibodies seem to be a concept much easier to grasp. Maybe we should call T cells "Police Cells or "Anti-Cells" instead. You know, some marke…

Are vaccines necessary for someone who has had covid? If it was absolutely necessary to prioritise those who don’t have any immunity at all, is there a test that can help identify with that?

The FDA recently approved the first test of T-cells to determine whether someone was previously infected by Covid, https://abcnews.go.com/Health/fda-authorizes-cell-test-game-...

>The test is administered via blood draw. T-cell DNA is then extracted and sequenced with Microsoft's artificial intelligence, mapping out the immune system's "massive black box" data into navigable science, researchers say.

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