Delta Variant • Hacker News Board

Re: Delta Variant

#291

Post by NeutralCrane » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

teataster wrote: post #143

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…

As far as I understand, and I don't understand much. Also I am not endorsing vanden Bossche because I don't understand much. Furthermore, just as everyone else, he is just trying to sell his vaccine over others'. The issue is selective pressure. Yes, the virus will mutate. But under an mRNA vaccine, only the spike protein needs to mutate for the vaccine to be render useless. In other words: mutating the spike protein…

> The issue is selective pressure. Yes, the virus will mutate. But under an mRNA vaccine, only the spike protein needs to mutate for the vaccine to be render useless. In other words: mutating the spike protein will give the virus access to very broad unimmunized population.

> Up to that it makes perfect sense to me and my limited evolutionary knowledge. I can't tell wether is right or wrong. But it makes sense.

The issue with this is that the spike protein has to mutate enough for vaccine induced immunity to fail to recognize it, but the spike protein is critical for the virus actually entering and infecting cells, and therefore there isn't a whole lot of mutating it can do while remaining functional.

On the other hand, there is some evidence that vaccines targeting more than just the spike protein (as well as natural immunity) may potentially be more at risk for the "antigenic sin" trap, in which the immune system fails to respond to mutated versions of a virus as well as it does to the original version it encountered.

Re: Delta Variant

#292

Post by deregulateMed » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #173

deregulateMed wrote: post #157

Not sure why science/math minded people are buying into any COVID Fears. The death rates are 1 percent, and it particularly targets old and obese people. I have no problem getting vaccinated and paying for n95 masks for old and obese people. But COVID reminds me of post 9-11 terrorist fears. Statistically insignificant and gets people glued to TVs. Instead of the military industrial complex winning tax dollars, big p…

A 1% death rate (10,000 micromorts) may not be Russian roulette but it’s scary high by modern standards. Compare with skydiving (8 per jump) or giving birth (120 or 170 micromorts, depending). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort

Can you re-run those numbers to eliminate obesity and old age? These groups can wear n95 masks and lockdown.

If they can't comply with those orders, it wouldn't help if the rest of the population complied either.

Re: Delta Variant

#293

Post by lamontcg » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #251

sokoloff wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vacci…

To be clearer: it makes no sense that delta would have higher transmissibility, that it would be due to spike protein mutatations and that its mechanism would be higher ACE2 binding and higher viral load (and faster time to symptoms) and yet it would be less virulent/deadly. Those statements are in conflict, so if all the preceeding facts are correct then its most likely that the low IFR is due to vaccination and natural immunity from last year.

> By far, the most widely studied trade-off involves transmission and virulence (Anderson and May, 1982; Frank, 1996; Alizon et al. 2009). Transmission and virulence are linked by within-host replication: increasing parasite abundance increases the likelihood of transmission, but also increases the likelihood of host death; mathematically, this assumption can be formalized by making transmission rate β an increasing function of parasite-induced mortality rate ν. Nearly all of the literature we summarize below assumes this trade-off.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/parasitology/article...

And also all of:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1420-9101....

The trade-off hypothesis should apply in this case specifically because the proposed mechanism is via improved spike binding to ACE2 and that it has been claimed that increased viral loads have been observed.

This wouldn't be a worry for anyone vaccinated, of course, but for still immunologically naive people (antivaxxers in the first world, and those without access to vaccination elsewhere) then Delta should be of greater concern.

Re: Delta Variant

#294

Post by OzyM » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #278

OzyM wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the major side effects I've heard of have been very small in scope, i.e. the chance of a healthy person developing one of the dangerous side effects is extremely small, and certainly orders of magnitude smaller than their chance of proportionally damaging side-effects from the disease itself. As every vaccine currently developed has a small side-effect risk, this seems reasonable, unless you have a major piece of…

You’re doing it again, just stop, it’s not your job to convince people :) “It’s ok to make a choice, but here’s the consequences asshole” It’s exactly what I’m opposed too. Don’t pretend before corona virus you isolated yourself from everyone incase you gave them the flu or norovirus either. Because it’s the same thing now. If an elderly person is vaccinated, and the vaccine is 95% effective, they’d have less chance…

> You’re doing it again, just stop, it’s not your job to convince people :)

> “It’s ok to make a choice, but here’s the consequences asshole”

> It’s exactly what I’m opposed too.

You're opposed to... people pointing out the consequences of your actions? Social pressure to protect the well-being of others?

I got all vaccinations and took basic safety precautions (washing hands regularly during flu season, etc) pre-COVID. I have always balanced the health of others with pragmatic limitations on my ability to take precautions. Now is no different; there's just extra weight on the "caution" side of the scale while a novel and dangerous pathogen spread around. I will continue to take as many precautions as are practical and necessary given world events.

Nobody is forcing you to do anything. But I don't see how it's unfair to have a social standard of caring for others.

Re: Delta Variant

#295

Post by petre » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

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…

You are worried about the long term effects of a mRNA vaccine that has passed clinical trials and was already tested on >10M people, but not about viral RNA spreading in your community? I guess we'll se the effects of the vaccines in 3…10y. Until then I'm getting a third shot if I must, because I'd really want to be there maybe having this conversation in the next decade.

Re: Delta Variant

#296

Post by alkonaut » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #283

alkonaut wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don’t think anyone is arguing 20-somethings should be getting the vaccine for (their own) risk of ending up dead.

The risk is low but not even healthy 20 year olds should disregard a 2/10000 risk of preventable death.

Re: Delta Variant

#297

Post by petre » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

bigcorp-slave wrote: post #254

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…

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…

> the vaccine produces way fewer antibody targets than the actual virus

This is not necessarily true. It depends. People in my family who took the vaccine and had visible side efects (headaches, fever) for a day or two have more antibodies than other acquaintances who got hospitalized with the disease.

Re: Delta Variant

#298

Post by call_me_dana » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

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]

The VAERS deaths are now above 9000

Re: Delta Variant

#299

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

trts wrote: post #177

tpoacher wrote: post #145

I honestly don't know how to feel about Tomas Pueyo. He's very opinionated about what he writes, and has gained good readership and influencer status on this topic. It's clear in his writings that he fancies himself as an "amateur of expert insight". He may be 100% correct. He may also be 100% wrong. It's hard to tell (let alone without invoking the conditional fallacy). However, the most lasting impression I have of…

This is a lesson I don't see the general population learning very well over the past 5-7 years. Just because somebody throws a tantrum over their stance about a moral quandary does not make them better informed about its resolutions. And often there are no resolutions proposed anyway, which can be hard to notice beneath the sound and fury. It also seems to be often the most natural approach taken by people who make a…

The "solution" proposed is often "do what I want, and ignore that it doesn't solve the moral quandary".

Re: Delta Variant

#300

Post by lamontcg » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

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…

> it was rushed and the longer term implications are certainly still not fully understood.

It was not rushed.

We have 250 years of experience with vaccinations and when their side effects happen. And longer with viruses and their autoimmune effects.

After a day or three the vaccine is completely gone from your system, all that remains is the immune effects, the possible side effects are all autoimmune conditions. Those autoimmune conditions will either manifest in 90 days or they will not. There's nothing that hangs around in your body for 3 years and then randomly pops up. By running a trail for 6 months post-injection you will be guaranteed to capture all the side effects from a vaccine study. This is the same with virus triggered autoimmune effects which either pop up in 3 months or they don't (and I've actually had viral pericarditis that affected me about 4-6 weeks after I recovered from a bad cold).

Most of them will run longer, because they don't have a massive worldwide pandemic and they need to prove efficacy so they need enough people in the control group to get infected and that takes time. They were able to speed run the efficacy side of things because so many people were getting infected (we were worried at one point that the virus would largely disappear in Summer 2020 and negatively affect the vaccine trials).

https://www.uab.edu/reporter/resources/be-healthy/item/9544-...