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SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

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Re: SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

#51

Does anyone know if their is a correlation between how contagious a variant is and how lethal it is? For example, MERS has a 35% CFR but wasn't a global health disaster because it wasn't highly contagious. Same goes for Ebola, which is even more fatal but even less contagious. My point/question - the more contagious a Covid-19 variant = lower CFR?

It is possible and even likely IMO (at least for respiratory viruses). Look up the “transmission-virulence tradeoff hypothesis” for more info:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30734920/

The “Russian flu” in 1890 may have been the first introduction of the common cold coronavirus OC43:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889–1890_pandemic

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC544107/

Also, keep in mind that stress and fear can be very bad for health:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09540261.2017.13...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447278/

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth noting that the bar for severe illness is set incredibly high. [1] All of the major symptoms including high fever, cough, severe fatigue, loss of taste/smell, and shortness of breath still count as mild under their definition. This is very much a disease you don’t want to get, even the so called mild version that happens in vaccinated people. 1. https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/overview/clin.…

> Severe Illness: Individuals who have SpO2 30 breaths/min, or lung infiltrates >50%. Isn't the point that levels below severe are not generally fatal and don't require hospitalization. Nobody thinks it's good to get sick, but it generally ceases to be a threat to public health with vaccination.

Whoa, I sometimes get SpO2 around 91 - 94 and I chalk it up to calibration error on cheap SpO2 devices (The ones that clip on to the hand, cost about 20 USD). Have been tested twice per employer requirements and was never positive though.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be but it’s not a particularly useful definition on an individual level. If I’m sick in bed for two weeks I can’t work or take care of my family so those mild symptoms very much would be a danger, not to mention the dangers from long COVID which hasn’t been ruled out in vaccinated folks and the dangers of exposing people who can’t be vaccinated.

It’s very useful on the individual level. All that sounds bad but not as bad as dying.

There could still be Lewy bodies (dementia) for all I know.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Severe Illness: Individuals who have SpO2 30 breaths/min, or lung infiltrates >50%. Isn't the point that levels below severe are not generally fatal and don't require hospitalization. Nobody thinks it's good to get sick, but it generally ceases to be a threat to public health with vaccination.

That may be but it’s not a particularly useful definition on an individual level. If I’m sick in bed for two weeks I can’t work or take care of my family so those mild symptoms very much would be a danger, not to mention the dangers from long COVID which hasn’t been ruled out in vaccinated folks and the dangers of exposing people who can’t be vaccinated.

[deleted]

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

#55
post #3

"No clinically severe COVID-19 (1) was observed, and no patient was hospitalized" In other words, this case study is a relatively ordinary result in line with what we know: that the major COVID-19 vaccines greatly reduce the chance of severe illness but leave nontrivial chance of infection and transmission.

What I wonder is the other symptoms like long covid. We’d hope the vaccines would diminish the incidence of that, but I’ve not heard it. Probably too early for the newer variants.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

#56
post #4

Fully vaccinated individuals getting infected shouldn't be all that surprising. The phase 3 trials of Pfizer and Moderna saw a 95% reduction in severe symptoms. No routine testing for infection was done, only testing if someone showed symptoms. Singapore's gov't is tracking all of their infections and 80% of the population has had 1 shot, 50% fully vaccinated (Pfizer and Moderna). They've had 1096 cases in the last 2…

I feel like a 60% attack rate among fully vaccinated people in one outbreak is pretty chilling, though. Like I'm glad they didn't have severe illness but this news is disappointing. Delta seems to heavily dominate in Singapore [0], and they don't seem to have Gamma at all. The outbreak in this article was Gamma. This study doesn't jive well with the in-vitro tests of vaccinated serum against gamma and the numbers we'…

One thing to keep in mind is that they were miners at a mining camp. They were in close contact with each other much of the time.

Vaccination lowers your chances of getting COVID when you get exposed, but even a low probability per exposure can be significant if you are getting exposed over and over and over again.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

#57
If someone can check my math, this seems like a perfect opportunity to do a statistical test. Sample sizes are too small to say that there is a difference between previous infection and no previous infection.

Given the contingency table:

      No prior inf.   Prior inf.  
  Infected   3             0

  Uninfect   4             6
A Fisher Exact Test yields a p value of 0.1923. So there is not evidence that previously infected people are safe. Similarly, if we compare the attack rate in previous infections vs Pfizer, the p value is about 0.15, so there’s not evidence one is better than the other.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

#58
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like a 60% attack rate among fully vaccinated people in one outbreak is pretty chilling, though. Like I'm glad they didn't have severe illness but this news is disappointing. Delta seems to heavily dominate in Singapore [0], and they don't seem to have Gamma at all. The outbreak in this article was Gamma. This study doesn't jive well with the in-vitro tests of vaccinated serum against gamma and the numbers we'…

One thing to keep in mind is that they were miners at a mining camp. They were in close contact with each other much of the time. Vaccination lowers your chances of getting COVID when you get exposed, but even a low probability per exposure can be significant if you are getting exposed over and over and over again.

At that point it’s probably best to move past talking about a vaccine as conveying a percentage of immunity in aggregate among the population and to discuss the biological processes more deeply. Ie it’s really making your immune system have some ability to abate an amount of viral load hopefully more than baseline prior to vaccination. But it seems clear that any biological system would have an upper limit to abatement. I wonder whether that’s much of a fleshed out area of study.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure if you don't think permanent social distancing and mask wearing is not a problem. I'm confused by this comment. I do think they are a problem, that's why I am encouraged by a vaccine that reduces covid to something that is not life threatening and that we can stop freaking out about.

It always was that for the vast majority of people.

3mn Indian souls would disagree

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners

#60
post #3

"No clinically severe COVID-19 (1) was observed, and no patient was hospitalized" In other words, this case study is a relatively ordinary result in line with what we know: that the major COVID-19 vaccines greatly reduce the chance of severe illness but leave nontrivial chance of infection and transmission.

It should become obvious by now: As long as you care about detected infections the only solution is infinite lockdowns.
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