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Delta Variant

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: Delta Variant

#281

Post by timr »

skadamou wrote: post #218

Without debating the whole article, I found this one excerpt to be somewhat indicative of his writing more broadly: "Unfortunately, I turned out to be right. The short explanation is that the viruses that tend to win do so because they reproduce faster. Such a virus will grow faster inside a person, and will make that person more infectious, faster. It will also kill that person faster." This is a fairly vague statem…

> The short explanation is that the viruses that tend to win do so because they reproduce faster. Such a virus will grow faster inside a person, and will make that person more infectious, faster. It will also kill that person faster.

There is not a single part of this sentence that is actually true:

1) the Delta variant does not "reproduce faster", except perhaps in the broad sense that it (may) be more successful in a population than other strains.

2) the variant does not "grow faster inside a person". This is nonsense.

3) "will make that person more infectious, faster." Also nonsense. There's no evidence of this, nor any bioplausibility for the statement. There's limited evidence that viral loads are higher, but that isn't the same thing.

4) "it will also kill a person faster". There's no evidence of this, either.

This paragraph is exactly what's wrong with Pueyo, in a nutshell: he takes a tenable fact ("Delta is more fit in the population") and twists it in ways that sound plausible and scary to laymen, but that are absolutely not supported by science or evidence.

Re: Delta Variant

#282

Post by OzyM »

ElectronCharge wrote: post #264
OzyM wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the higher risk of major long-term damage incurred by letting yourself get sick when you could've been vaccinated, I don't understand how this thought process accounts for anyone else. What if my main reason for getting vaccinated is to lower my chance of infecting an immunocompromised person I care about? Even if I could somehow be 100% certain that if I were to be infected it'd be fully asymptomatic, the v…

[flagged]

I don't doubt that the vaccines come with risk. Every vaccine created to date has a small chance of side effects. But even as someone youngish, healthy, and with a strong immune system, any risk from the vaccine seems orders of magnitude less likely than comparable risks from the coronavirus.

That 6,000 figure you use is 0.0018% percent of people that got the vaccine, and that's only people that died after getting it, not people whose death was caused by the vaccine. [0]

Vaccination seems sensible from any concern for personal health (again, unless you have access to some data I've not seen). Even for very healthy individuals at low rist of death from COVID-19, you're taking on not only higher personal risk but also exposing other people to much larger risk, as well.

Also, I've gotten the flu shot every year I could since age 16 primarily to avoid infecting others. (There was no family or peer pressure to get the flu shot, at least where I'm from.) I'll grant that I'm a bit more invested in public health / disease spread than the average individual, but I doubt my motivations are that uncommon.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad...

Re: Delta Variant

#283

Post by matz1 »

alkonaut wrote: post #138
matz1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author mentioned the risk is 2x higher but what is the risk of the original variant itself ? The author didn't mention that.

The author spends a section on that, including a chart. Search for this passsage to see the chart: The IFR (Infected Fatality Rate4) for the original variant was about 0.01% for those in their 20s and 0.2% for those in their 40s. Direct link to the chart https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_p...

>The IFR (Infected Fatality Rate4) for the original variant was about 0.01% for those in their 20s and 0.2% for those in their 40

Thanks, so 2x of that is 0.02% and 0.4%, that was my point: 2x of a low rate is still low

Re: Delta Variant

#284

Post by ceejayoz »

bamboozled wrote: post #260
oezi wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

They're looking at a century's worth of other vaccines and noting that the side effects present early on, not years later.

The stuff in vaccines gets broken down or excreted by the body; it doesn't linger in your system for years. mRNA, for example, breaks down in minutes/hours.

Re: Delta Variant

#285

Post by NeutralCrane »

bvaldivielso wrote: post #54
pier25 wrote: post #41

These new variants were to be expected as the vaccines seem to be accelerating these mutations. My understanding is that the COVID vaccines train the body to recognize the outer protein layer of the virus. In consequence when that changes (because of mutations and natural selection) the body becomes less effective at recognizing the virus. Geert Vanden Bossche[1] has been warning about this for months now. He says it…

As far as I understand (I don't have any background in biology), mutations will happen regardless of whether people are vaccinated or not. There might be mutations that make the virus circumvent some vaccine protections, but those mutations would take place even if we weren't vaccinating people. Nothing about the vaccines "guides" the virus towards specific mutations. Mutations are random. If this is correct, why wou…

You are correct. Mutations are random. The only even remotely valid point made by those fearing vaccination effects is that vaccines may cause selective pressure where the random mutatations that escape vaccine-induced immunity become more dominant. But even that point doesn't mean vaccines shouldn't be employed because

1. The same selective pressure exists for natural immunity 2. The implication is that we shouldn't get vaccines, because we may get variants that get around our vaccines. This is like asking the fire department not to put our a raging house fire because it might cause water damage to the home.

Its also worth noting that none of the major variants observed so far came about after vaccines began being used on the population at large, and the above point about selective pressure at vaccine immunity is only an issue when large swaths of people aren't getting vaccinated, allowing the virus a large number of "shots on goal" to mutate in a way that eventually provides escape capabilities.

There is absolutely no logic to these arguments about vaccines causing mutations.

Re: Delta Variant

#286

Post by OzyM »

ElectronCharge wrote: post #279
simonh wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those deaths reported through VAERS are just the number of people who died after being vaccinated, not that died because of vaccination. Those are two different things, which if you've read the CDC source you cite I'm sure you're aware. The CDC investigates these report and say they have only established a causal link to a handful of blood clotting cases as a result of the J&J vaccine. All the other deaths were unrel…

[flagged]

You cited the CDC, but now that the figure you used has been cleared up, you no longer like the CDC as a source?

> Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem. A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records, has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines. However, recent reports indicate a plausible causal relationship between the J&J/Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine and TTS, a rare and serious adverse event—blood clots with low platelets—which has caused deaths.[0][emphasis mine]

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad...

Re: Delta Variant

#287

Post by shireboy »

cloverich wrote: post #125
specialp wrote: post #42

I'm not sure what the end game is here. The original plan was "flatten the curve", which meant keep hospitals from getting inundated. Then it became wait for the vaccine. COVID is not going to go away. The vaccine has dramatically decreased the amount of people dying from it. Cases going up without dramatic increases in death or hospitalization might not be a bad thing. The alternative is lockdowns that will never co…

> There are ever present dangers that we just live with like the chances of getting in a car accident and dying, but we decide that these risks are low enough that we carry on normal life. Because there are no other (tenable) options for car accidents. If there was a vaccine you could take that would prevent you from being harmed in a car accident, and it was cheap (free even) and available, the expectations around c…

I've actually wrestled with this exact analogy as a way to measure the risks myself. There are options for car accidents - a "vaccine" you can take as it were. Wear a seatbelt. I think it's a good analogy. Some people don't like to wear them, but in general those that do are at lower risk and accept the remaining risk that they hurt or maim themselves or others - even children and elderly. Those that don't are at higher risk. The question I wrestle with is if vaccines are the seatbelt or masks or both.

In the end, that's what all the drama is: how we measure risk vs reward (perceived or actual) and handle it as individuals or society. Since this is a new and evolving risk, we struggle to put it into place relative to other "known" risks like traffic accidents, smoking, unhealthy eating, etc.

Re: Delta Variant

#288

Post by NeutralCrane »

derbOac wrote: post #220
bvaldivielso wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand (I don't have any background in biology), mutations will happen regardless of whether people are vaccinated or not. There might be mutations that make the virus circumvent some vaccine protections, but those mutations would take place even if we weren't vaccinating people. Nothing about the vaccines "guides" the virus towards specific mutations. Mutations are random. If this is correct, why wou…

It's not so much that vaccination is iatrogenic, it's that when you have a sizable percent vaccinated, but a sizable percent not, you're kind of in this worst of all possible worlds from an evolutionary standpoint. If worldwide vaccination rates were very high, it would drive viral transmission down to negligible levels and effectively slow the rate of evolution by decreasing the viral population size to something ve…

> It's not so much that vaccination is iatrogenic, it's that when you have a sizable percent vaccinated, but a sizable percent not, you're kind of in this worst of all possible worlds from an evolutionary standpoint.

How is this any different from natural immunity? The immunity conferred by vaccines won't put any more selective pressure for escape mutations than natural immunity would. And the only alternative here is for no one to get vaccinated, and therefore letting the virus run rampant through the population indefinitely. You aren't wrong about a sizeable portion of the population not being immunized quick enough may possibly result in escape mutations. But the only possible alternative fixes none of those issues, while also leaving the entirety of the public at risk.

Re: Delta Variant

#289

Post by shireboy »

One question I hope some HNer can help me with, that I'm not seeing answered: How is _testing_ affected by these variants? This is relevant to me as I've had symptoms but tested negative with BinaxNow, and now have to decide on some activities.

Re: Delta Variant

#290

Post by ceejayoz »

throwitaway1235 wrote: post #280

Can we provide the data necessary for young men to take one of the mRNA vaccines for Covid-19? The question. What percentage of men under 40 have had a cardiovascular event, specifically myocarditis, after taking the Phizer or Moderns shot? Primary reason I haven't been vaccinated yet.

> What percentage of men under 40 have had a cardiovascular event, specifically myocarditis, after taking the Phizer or Moderns shot?

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/new-information-for-pare...

> Doing the math, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that for every million doses given, there have been 67 cases of heart inflammation in boys 12 to 17 (nine in girls of that age group), 56 in those aged 18 to 24 (six in girls), and 20 in males 25 to 29 (three in girls).

It's not exactly "under 40", but if you're in that 25-29 age group, it's 0.002%. If you're in that higher-risk 12-17s group, 0.0067%.

I'm fairly comfortable rounding that down to 0% for my personal risk evaluations, especially given "majority of cases have been mild".

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