Live data from Hacker News

Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

jamanetwork.com

51–60 of 267 posts

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#51
post #43
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And had mandatory lockdowns

Mandatory lockdowns are like cancer surgery. They can be very effective if everything is still localized, but if the cancer has already metastasized, it really doesn't solve the problem.

I’m not saying it would actually solve anything in the US, only that you can’t just say “look NZ resumed business as usual — the US should too!” because the situations are not at all similar.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#52
post #13
post #7

A January 2021 study in the annals of internal medicine estimating the death rates of non institutionalized patients of .26 percent with age breakdowns . https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-5352?utm_source=...

For every person that dies (an agonizing death akin to medieval torture), a few more are in intensive care fighting for their lives. For every one of those, others end up in the hospital, spread the disease to others, suffer from “long covid”, or merely suffer greatly. Every person that gets covid adds to the likelihood the disease will become uncontrollable in the long term and endemic. Keep wearing your masks and s…

> Keep wearing your masks and social distancing people. It’s hard, it’s a sacrifice, but together we can conquer this disease and return to life “as normal”.

This ghost is not going back into the bottle. It's way too widespread for that now. Even the WHO has determined that. Even if one country manages it, some tourist will bring it in.

The vaccines don't stop the spread enough either to kill it completely. People will still get sick and spread it, they just don't get as sick in large numbers. The simple fact that even a country that has the ability to rigidly control all outside sources like New Zealand is unable to avoid the occasional outbreak. However they do seem to reduce the risk of severe illness enough to bring it to a level comparable to other endemic diseases. PS: Don't get me wrong, I'm totally pro-vaccine and will get at as soon as I finally can.

I really hope that politics will deem the resulting levels sufficient to drop the other measures like the masks and distancing. Once the danger level is comparable to other endemic diseases I think we should.

And I really hope that SARS-CoV-2 mutates to a variant that isn't as deadly. Most diseases have, after all as evolution favours it (not as deadly means we won't fight it as hard). But I doubt we'll ever be COVID free. That point was passed once we didn't strictly quarantine China back in Feb 2020. But anyway that's water under the bridge.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Zealand’s results are largely due to it being a small, isolated nation. Hawaii similarly enjoys the fewest COVID cases per capita of the US.

Hawaii, the only state that requires a COVID test within 36 hours of flying there? I mean, of course they'd have the lowest cases per capita when they're the only ones actively refusing entry to those who have it.

How many entry points does Hawaii have compared to the average state? How do those points of entry compare in terms of staff and systems to operate those restrictions? Hawaii gets a lot more mileage out of its restrictions than Iowa is going to do. We can acknowledge these differences without conceding that restrictions aren’t worth the squeeze; it just means that New Zealand isn’t a good reference point.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Zealand’s results are largely due to it being a small, isolated nation. Hawaii similarly enjoys the fewest COVID cases per capita of the US.

Hawaii, the only state that requires a COVID test within 36 hours of flying there? I mean, of course they'd have the lowest cases per capita when they're the only ones actively refusing entry to those who have it.

Almost like having strong borders is useful.

Not a very compelling argument when the same people most in favor of Covid restrictions also spent five years calling Republicans the devil for wanting to reinforce our borders.

Also the US has open borders between states on the mainland. Any individual state besides Hawaii never had even the possibility of isolating themselves.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#56
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every person that dies (an agonizing death akin to medieval torture), a few more are in intensive care fighting for their lives. For every one of those, others end up in the hospital, spread the disease to others, suffer from “long covid”, or merely suffer greatly. Every person that gets covid adds to the likelihood the disease will become uncontrollable in the long term and endemic. Keep wearing your masks and s…

> Keep wearing your masks and social distancing people. It’s hard, it’s a sacrifice, but together we can conquer this disease and return to life “as normal”. This ghost is not going back into the bottle. It's way too widespread for that now. Even the WHO has determined that. Even if one country manages it, some tourist will bring it in. The vaccines don't stop the spread enough either to kill it completely. People wi…

The vaccines appear to be plenty effective enough to stop the spread, if enough people get them.

We don't have great information about the variants, but the big improvements in Israel and England are encouraging, even with vaccination still ongoing.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wearing masks have benefits beyond covid. Think about how many lives per year we could save from the flu let alone other airborne respiratory viruses if mask wearing was normalized.

Wearing foam rubber padding all the time has benefits, but that doesn't mean everyone should do it. There are other considerations beyond mere safety.

Or at least bike helmets all the time. Lots of people get seriously injured or killed because of falling and hitting their head.

I expect mask wearing will be more common in cultures where it was almost unheard of like western Europe and the US. But even in a country like Japan where it wasn't unusual, it certainly wasn't anything like the norm.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#58
post #14

This is good news. Now maybe Fauci should rethink his idea that people need to wear their masks for another year even after getting vaccinated. One of his reasons was because of worry about the variants.

Wearing masks have benefits beyond covid. Think about how many lives per year we could save from the flu let alone other airborne respiratory viruses if mask wearing was normalized.

Just think of how many lives will be saved if people never leave their homes.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep wearing your masks and social distancing people. It’s hard, it’s a sacrifice, but together we can conquer this disease and return to life “as normal”. This ghost is not going back into the bottle. It's way too widespread for that now. Even the WHO has determined that. Even if one country manages it, some tourist will bring it in. The vaccines don't stop the spread enough either to kill it completely. People wi…

The vaccines appear to be plenty effective enough to stop the spread, if enough people get them. We don't have great information about the variants, but the big improvements in Israel and England are encouraging, even with vaccination still ongoing.

Not sure why the GP is being downvoted. SARS-CoV-2 will most likely become endemic.

[1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6516/527.full

Post reply on HN