Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant • Hacker News Board

Re: Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

#21

Post by gregwebs » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #13

School-Cotton wrote: post #3

Buried the lede: > At the same time, protection against hospitalization and serious illness remained strong. I.e., Delta is more likely to get you sick, but you’ll still turn out fine.

Isn't this exactly what we would expect? It's more or less similar to what probably happened with the flu in 1920. New flu variants were still popping up, but they weren't like the 1918-1919 type, and the mortality rate was much lower. Plus, I recall being told before the vaccines showed up that they would be better at reducing mortality than at eliminating getting sick at all. Now, if you thought you were going to j…

yep, it may be that these new variants are not attempting any kind of immune escape against vaccines. They might just replicate faster or may be more transmissive and we are seeing the inevitable outcome of a non-sterilizing vaccine: you still get an infection, it just usually isn't a bad one.

Re: Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

#22

Post by SuoDuanDao » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #3

Buried the lede: > At the same time, protection against hospitalization and serious illness remained strong. I.e., Delta is more likely to get you sick, but you’ll still turn out fine.

Would that mean there's an increased likelihood I'll be out and about while contagious if I get the vaccine?

It would be hilarious if the same finger-waggers who want everyone vaccinated or quarantined would eventually want to reserve the vaccine for a privileged few.

Re: Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

#23

Post by cm2187 » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #3

Buried the lede: > At the same time, protection against hospitalization and serious illness remained strong. I.e., Delta is more likely to get you sick, but you’ll still turn out fine.

To catch it or to get sick from it?

Either way it would be fine. It basically reduces it to the level of a common cold, ie we can stop worrying about this virus.

Re: Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

#24

Post by 0-_-0 » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #3

Buried the lede: > At the same time, protection against hospitalization and serious illness remained strong. I.e., Delta is more likely to get you sick, but you’ll still turn out fine.

The next sentence is:

From May 2 to June 5, the efficacy rate in preventing hospitalization was 98.2%, compared with 93% from June 6 to July 3

That's a 4x higher chance of hospitalisation.

Re: Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

#25

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 1:10 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #3

Buried the lede: > At the same time, protection against hospitalization and serious illness remained strong. I.e., Delta is more likely to get you sick, but you’ll still turn out fine.

[deleted]

Re: Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

#26

Post by hellomyguys » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 1:11 PM UTC

0-_-0 wrote: post #24

School-Cotton wrote: post #3

Buried the lede: > At the same time, protection against hospitalization and serious illness remained strong. I.e., Delta is more likely to get you sick, but you’ll still turn out fine.

The next sentence is: From May 2 to June 5, the efficacy rate in preventing hospitalization was 98.2%, compared with 93% from June 6 to July 3 That's a 4x higher chance of hospitalisation.

It could be worse. It could have gone from a 99.9% to 99.1% in preventing hospitalization. That would be an 9x higher chance of hospitalization!

Re: Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

#27

Post by vletal » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 1:13 PM UTC

0-_-0 wrote: post #24

School-Cotton wrote: post #3

Buried the lede: > At the same time, protection against hospitalization and serious illness remained strong. I.e., Delta is more likely to get you sick, but you’ll still turn out fine.

The next sentence is: From May 2 to June 5, the efficacy rate in preventing hospitalization was 98.2%, compared with 93% from June 6 to July 3 That's a 4x higher chance of hospitalisation.

Yeah, but it's still an astonishing result. Most of the non mRNA vaccines have efficacies below 90%, not taking into account the delta variant.

Re: Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

#28

Post by longtom » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

0-_-0 wrote: post #24

School-Cotton wrote: post #3

Buried the lede: > At the same time, protection against hospitalization and serious illness remained strong. I.e., Delta is more likely to get you sick, but you’ll still turn out fine.

The next sentence is: From May 2 to June 5, the efficacy rate in preventing hospitalization was 98.2%, compared with 93% from June 6 to July 3 That's a 4x higher chance of hospitalisation.

When you look at rare events, then it is easy to get a quadrupling (or more) due to tail effects.

Re: Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

#29

Post by makomk » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #4

cfcf14 wrote: post #2

I'm so exhausted and demoralised by this endless cascade of things-getting-worse. It's taking a really big toll on my mental health and there's no resources available in my country to offer support (and there's nothing to be done except try to learn to live with it, anyways). The future looks bleak.

Things are not getting worse. The world is going back to normal.

Yeah, this is just what respiratory pandemics look like. Honestly, vaccination has been astoundingly successful this time around compared to previous pandemics, and even this news just downgrades it from almost unbelievably effective. The trouble is that the media in many countries has mislead people about how much control it's actually possible to exercise over a disease like Covid-19 in the long term and how effective measures have been in other countries and past pandemics, often so they can blame politicians they disagree with for failing to achieve that level of control.

Re: Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

#30

Post by Tepix » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #16

The headline seems misleading. Isn’t the reduction possibly caused as much by easing of restrictions as by the Delta variant? > Israel has recorded a steep drop in the efficacy rate of the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE in preventing coronavirus infections, due to the spread of the delta variant and the easing of government restrictions.

Makes sense. If a vaccination protects you from catching the disease after being exposed to small amounts of the virus ... once you remove the mask mandate you will be exposed to larger viral loads and may get sick.