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

Delta Variant

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 442 posts

Re: Delta Variant

#251

Post by timr »

sokoloff wrote: post #240
addicted wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except everywhere I see the media is reporting that 99% of infections are amongst the unvaccinated. So they are all clearly reporting this. And the reality is that there are tens of millions of people who are not vaccinated who are extremely susceptible to the Delta variant. It’s not clear to me what point you’re trying to make by insisting that it is significantly less dangerous to the vaccinated that isn’t being ma…

When I listen to or read a media report on Delta “sweeping through country XYZ”, it seems to me that the media is breathlessly trying to generate clicks and views. The (apparent) reality that Delta appears to have a lower IFR and that hospitalization rate for vaccinated people for Alpha or Delta is extremely low do not seem to get the same level of coverage as context for the click/view-generating reporting.

> The (apparent) reality that Delta appears to have a lower IFR and that hospitalization rate for vaccinated people for Alpha or Delta is extremely low do not seem to get the same level of coverage as context for the click/view-generating reporting.

Let's be clear: the good data so far is coming from a country with a high vaccination rate. I'm not willing to extrapolate from the UK data to countries who haven't vaccinated their vulnerable populations.

Re: Delta Variant

#252

Post by addicted »

timr wrote: post #222
shoto_io wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still love to share the UK report about the Delta variant from mid of June. Bottom-line: If you’re 2x vaccinated, hospitalization is highly unlikely for Alpha and Delta variants. See this report, page 44 bottom: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

The latest data is even more dramatic: across the UK, the IFR for Delta is ~1/10th that of Alpha, and the "infectiousness" is about the same. https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1413537810296950786 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... It is quite clear that for a vaccinated population, it isn't a threat. These are facts that simply aren't being reported by the news media. It's unfortunatel…

Your claim that the media is simply not reporting that vaccinated people are much better protected to the point of it basically not being a threat is not “a fact”.

Most media (except, of course, certain anti vaccine organs, which unfortunately seem to have infected an entire section of the mainstream US media) is reporting the significantly better outcomes for the vaccinated.

That being said, considering how small a percentage of people are vaccinated, it’s still a massive threat we cannot simply ignore.

We need to double down on vaccination even more. Delta only underscores that need that already existed.

Re: Delta Variant

#253

Post by bamboozled »

OzyM wrote: post #224
bamboozled wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, so if everyone else takes it, I won't really need to and I'll likely be safe? Everyone seems absolutely hell bent on taking it immediately, so if that's the case, it's pretty good news for those who'd like some more time to evaluate.

You're right, if everyone around you is vaccinated to the point of virtual herd immunity (afaik not currently true anywhere, but perhaps given more time / incentives / information that may change), you being the only unvaccinated person wouldn't be a major concern (except insofar as it indicates less concern for other people in other contexts). The main issue is that there are still plenty of people with your same mi…

More than happy to wear a mask, less than happy to take emergency vaccines.

Re: Delta Variant

#254

Post by bigcorp-slave »

bamboozled wrote: post #172
aeternum wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many reasons people choose not to get the vaccine. What evidence do you have that the main issue is a distrust of authority? The main authority on this, the FDA has not even officially approved the vaccine and likely won't for quite awhile. For some people it is logical to ask why other vaccines require 10year+ trials and for this a few months was sufficient. While personally, I think the risk of the virus…

Thanks for writing this, I'm still on the fence about taking it for this reason, it was rushed and the longer term implications are certainly still not fully understood. Edit: Again with the downvotes, it's a fact . No one has had this vaccine for 3,5 or 10 years. The long term effects cannot be fully understood until such time has lapsed and studies have been completed. Here, the creator of mRNA vaccines discusses t…

This guy is not the creator of mRNA vaccines, he’s just a guy who did something slightly related with mRNA forty years ago, and is now trying to ride the wave to money. I think it’s fair to say the vaccine was rushed, but that’s because we have been having the second largest pandemic of the century. More Americans are dead from this than died in WW2.

I didn’t downvote you. I do wish we had a longer trial period, and I don’t like taking something that hasn’t been through the full duration trials. Here is what convinced me:

- we now have more than a billion vaccinations done globally, with no mass surge of negative side effects.

- virtually every politician in every party has gotten vaccinated. Including most of the people telling you not to get vaccinated.

- the vaccine produces way fewer antibody targets than the actual virus, so I would expect that if there was a long term negative effect from the spike produced by the vaccine, we would get that or worse from the virus.

- the virus is really contagious and seems to be mutating toward being more contagious over time.

- thus, you’re probably going to get it, which means one way or the other you’re probably going to make a lot of antibodies to spike protein no matter how you slice it.

Re: Delta Variant

#255

Post by davnn »

standardUser wrote: post #250
davnn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> full of "compatibility bugs" that barely achieves R0>1 Did I miss something? COVID-19 was highly contagious from the beginning, thus the drastic measures, or not?

It's the asymptomatic spread that has caused a lot of the problems and concern. People with ebola for example rarely spread it because they become so quickly and acutely ill. But with COVID, you're going about your normal life for days while spreading it unknowingly before symptoms hit (if they even hit at all).

> It's the asymptomatic spread that has caused a lot of the problems and concern.

Is there a lot of evidence of this? Last time I checked, asymptomatic spread was not well understood.

Re: Delta Variant

#256

Post by aeternum »

blindmute wrote: post #231
murgindrag wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, my experience is that the main reason is distrust of authority. It's usually warranted distrust too. Authorities aren't trustworthy. To answer your question: (1) Most vaccines don't have 10+ year trials. A year is not even the fastest; the flu on 1957-1958 has a vaccine developed in 4 months. (2) Most medical trials are slower since everything is done sequentially, since there is no rush. You can do an a…

I am unvaccinated and probably will remain so for this particular vaccination. I don't truly believe that the risk of the vaccine outweighs the risk of the virus to me. It's more that I weigh the risk of covid at around zero, and the risk of vaccine at a question mark. I cannot trust the institutions pushing this vaccine at all. At worst, I trust the opposite of what they say about anything politicized. But let's jus…

One amazing thing about this vaccine is that it is basically open-source. We can look at the genetic code so you know exactly what is going into your body if you choose to take it. This guy does an amazing job of breaking it down in detail: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/reverse-engineering-source...

I agree the CDC has done a terrible job of representing science and establishing trust, but the virus is less politicized in other countries. Look at what those health institutions with better track-records are recommending.

Re: Delta Variant

#257

Post by timr »

addicted wrote: post #252
timr wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest data is even more dramatic: across the UK, the IFR for Delta is ~1/10th that of Alpha, and the "infectiousness" is about the same. https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1413537810296950786 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... It is quite clear that for a vaccinated population, it isn't a threat. These are facts that simply aren't being reported by the news media. It's unfortunatel…

Your claim that the media is simply not reporting that vaccinated people are much better protected to the point of it basically not being a threat is not “a fact”. Most media (except, of course, certain anti vaccine organs, which unfortunately seem to have infected an entire section of the mainstream US media) is reporting the significantly better outcomes for the vaccinated. That being said, considering how small a…

> Your claim that the media is simply not reporting that vaccinated people are much better protected to the point of it basically not being a threat is not “a fact”.

> That being said, considering how small a percentage of people are vaccinated, it’s still a massive threat we cannot simply ignore.

OK, so your issue is that I've critiqued the media for sensationalism.

You think the media is not being sensational, because There Is a Major Threat. That's fine. We can disagree. The facts are still the facts, and people can interpret threats in light of those facts. You've now triple-responded to my comment with essentially the same thing. Maybe you're seeing this through an emotional lens?

(FWIW, I haven't seen any major news outlet report that the latest data for secondary transmission of "the Delta variant" indicates that it is not more contagious in the UK. That's a pretty big change, and it's new information. Even if you can find a single news source that has reported it, it's not widely known.)

> We need to double down on vaccination even more

I'm not sure what "double down" means, but I never said that people should not get vaccinated.

Re: Delta Variant

#258

Post by ithkuil »

blindmute wrote: post #231
murgindrag wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, my experience is that the main reason is distrust of authority. It's usually warranted distrust too. Authorities aren't trustworthy. To answer your question: (1) Most vaccines don't have 10+ year trials. A year is not even the fastest; the flu on 1957-1958 has a vaccine developed in 4 months. (2) Most medical trials are slower since everything is done sequentially, since there is no rush. You can do an a…

I am unvaccinated and probably will remain so for this particular vaccination. I don't truly believe that the risk of the vaccine outweighs the risk of the virus to me. It's more that I weigh the risk of covid at around zero, and the risk of vaccine at a question mark. I cannot trust the institutions pushing this vaccine at all. At worst, I trust the opposite of what they say about anything politicized. But let's jus…

Thanks. Anecdotally I've noticed that most people around me who refuse the vaccine more or less follow your argument, but you articulated it very well.

We humans certainly suffer from omission bias, it was probably safer in our selection environment.

Our everyday life is full of cases where we do dangerous stuff which we don't feel as dangerous because, everybody is doing that, since forever, so yeah you know some things may be dangerous but c'mon, it's not that bad, you don't want to miss out on life by being the only crazy person who doesn't get in a car or something.

When something totally new happens like covid vaccines, it's hard to get the right intuitions, and probably each will have their own, using their own biases.

My personal rules of thumb are:

1. I don't trust authorities to pull off a major conspiracy (and hide the data of bad vaccine effects).

2. I don't trust governments ability to effectively coordinate among themselves to pull off a conspiracy

3. I don't trust journalists to obey to the conspiracy; money in media is about attention grabbing, if there were serious side effects they would have ridden the tide (and probably even inflated it)

4. I personally know a few people who died of covid; I don't know anybody that had serious side effects of vaccines. Even if the media is hiding the problem, I would expect it to be visible in my direct experience (as it was for covid)

Re: Delta Variant

#259

Post by effie »

bamboozled wrote: post #165

As a reader of HN for several years now, it blows my mind how polarized we all are on this issue. Something smells here, you're not allowed to question anything without being down voted to oblivion, one way or another. Why?

I've noticed this is not U.S. specific, so it is not a political polarization in the traditional sense.

The broader world-wide phenomenon, visible also here, is that most people got divided into two camps:

1) "COVID-19 is so dangerous that we must restrict freedoms", "the other camp is a harm to society's health"

2) "COVID-19 is not that dangerous, mortality below 2% (or even lower depending on how it is calculated) and young and healthy people are safe from it, so we must preserve the freedoms", "the other camp is destroying democracy and freedoms".

You can see this in U.S. and in Europe too.

Camp 1) was right at the start of the pandemic when we had little knowledge and people were dying in large numbers. But as time advances, treatments and vaccines are developed, the narrative naturally shifts. Eventually Camp 2) will be seen as the correct one.

Now we're somewhere in the middle it seems.

Re: Delta Variant

#260

Post by bamboozled »

oezi wrote: post #234
bamboozled wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for writing this, I'm still on the fence about taking it for this reason, it was rushed and the longer term implications are certainly still not fully understood. Edit: Again with the downvotes, it's a fact . No one has had this vaccine for 3,5 or 10 years. The long term effects cannot be fully understood until such time has lapsed and studies have been completed. Here, the creator of mRNA vaccines discusses t…

I listened to an interview with the head of the German regulatory body overseeing recommendations for vaccinations. He said that we have never seen side effects of all vaccinations beyond 2 to 3 months. Compare with sinuous venous trombosis risk which was uncovered despite being a 1 in 100,000 risk.

In the short amount of time people have been taking these vaccines, how much more data than a few months could they really be looking at, seriously ?
Post reply on HN