SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant infected 16 fully Pfizer vaccinated Guiana gold miners • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by gibba999 » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 10:04 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #253

gibba999 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of this comes down to replication, effect size, and sample size. Yes, there are studies which show virtually everything, but in this case, we have: - >10% of mild cases reporting long COVID brain fog (without MRIs) - Visible correlations on MRIs with large n (cited study) - Lots of small-scale studies / looking at specific cases - Some understanding of a relevant mechanism-of-action (see: olfactory loss…

> >10% of mild cases reporting long COVID brain fog (without MRIs) "Brain fog" is not a diagnosis. It has no definition. It has no test. Literally anyone could say they have it, and not be wrong. It also overlaps substantially with "fatigue"...which we all know comes along with a lot of other common issues. Such as depression. > Visible correlations on MRIs with large n (cited study) The size of n doesn't matter if t…

My hypothesis is that COVID leads to a Gaussian distribution in reduction in general neurological function, and that we will see a bell curve distribution reduction in e.g. general IQ.

Can you please propose a "randomized, longitudinal, controlled trials" one might conduct to figure that out?

Preferably, one which would pass an IRB review. We can't randomly infect 10,000 ethnic minorities with COVID19 anymore, which I think what you're suggesting. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the Nuremberg Trials took care of that for us.

Short of something like that, we work from mixed methods evidence.

As a footnote, a year isn't a long time in the world of research. That's sometimes quite literally how long it takes from when you apply for a grant to when funding lands in your account. And you're asking about a phenomenon which often occurs months later.

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

#282

Post by pas » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #223

maxerickson wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Delta variant is a humanitarian crisis in less vaccinated India and a moderate public health concern in countries with higher rates of vaccination.

From this page: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/india India seems to be doing better than the UK on basically every metric (switch to "Map" view for comparison).

There are arguments that they seriously undercount/underreport:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/world/asia/india-covid-pa...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/in...

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

#283

Post by pas » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

lugged wrote: post #9

version_five wrote: post #7

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.

Sure if you don't think permanent social distancing and mask wearing is not a problem. The severity of mild covid is still potentially long lasting and I'm willing to guess elderly aren't going to handle it well. Letting covid become endemic could reduce our life expecty considerably.

> permanent social distancing and mask wearing is not a problem.

It's a problem, but we can manage it better than overflowing morgues. Frequent tests, rapid antigen testing (let's say at the entrance of restaurants, clubs, festivals), encouraging people who feel ill to stay the fuck away from others, and so on.

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

#284

Post by timr » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

gibba999 wrote: post #281

timr wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> >10% of mild cases reporting long COVID brain fog (without MRIs) "Brain fog" is not a diagnosis. It has no definition. It has no test. Literally anyone could say they have it, and not be wrong. It also overlaps substantially with "fatigue"...which we all know comes along with a lot of other common issues. Such as depression. > Visible correlations on MRIs with large n (cited study) The size of n doesn't matter if t…

My hypothesis is that COVID leads to a Gaussian distribution in reduction in general neurological function, and that we will see a bell curve distribution reduction in e.g. general IQ. Can you please propose a "randomized, longitudinal, controlled trials" one might conduct to figure that out? Preferably, one which would pass an IRB review. We can't randomly infect 10,000 ethnic minorities with COVID19 anymore, which…

> Can you please propose a "randomized, longitudinal, controlled trials" one might conduct to figure that out?

This is not a herculean problem. It's essentially the definition of any halfway decent medical study:

* pick a set of measurable endpoints from the pantheon of "long covid" symptoms that are likely to be real. Objectively measurable endpoints should be mixed in with subjective ones (e.g. "fatigue", "loss of smell", "reduced lung capacity", "heart inflammation").

* pre-register these endpoints, so that you can't go back on a fishing expedition later, when your first choices don't pan out.

* pick a set of participants at random (balancing for demographics of interest: age, co-morbidities, weight, gender, etc.)

* measure those endpoints at the start of the study so that you have a pre-trial baseline.

* follow those people over time for the endpoints of interest.

* some percentage will get infected with SARS-CoV2. verify this via testing.

* at the end of the study, compare the group that caught SARS-CoV2 with the ones who did not along the endpoints of interest. compare both groups with their own pre-trial baselines.

This is not the ONLY way of doing such a study, but it would be vastly better than any data currently reported. The biggest challenge is that it has to be done before the pandemic passes, and the number of cases drops too low to get a significant result in a reasonable period of time. The window on this is rapidly closing.

> As a footnote, a year isn't a long time in the world of research. That's sometimes quite literally how long it takes from when you apply for a grant to when funding lands in your account. And you're asking about a phenomenon which often occurs months later.

There have been multiple RCTs conducted during the pandemic, despite the bureaucratic inertia of the academy, and "long covid" is one of the biggest remaining controversies. There's no universe in which you couldn't get funding and approval for such a study in short order.

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

#285

Post by xpe » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 2:50 AM UTC

kaczordon wrote: post #278

xpe wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point ... is making is it relieves pressure on the healthcare system, but the pressure was only there because of old people. Specifically: > but the pressure was only there because of old people. Here is a definition of the world "only" from the Apple dictionary: "and no one or nothing more besides; solely or exclusively". With this definition in mind, on what basis can you make the claim above? Provide a citat…

I just assumed most people weren’t living under a rock and were aware of the basic facts of COVID. Study from Italy shows almost 90% of hospitalizations are in the 65+ group: https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/75/9/1796... So just to sum it up again for you: 90% of 65+ are vaccinated in the US. This study shows an attack rate of 60% which means vaccinated individuals can both contract and spread the v…

> I just assumed most people weren’t living under a rock and were aware of the basic facts of COVID.

There is no need to indirectly insult me or other people on the thread.

I discussed with you in the hopes that I could learn something. You didn't reply to my specific comments in detail. If you were hoping to persuade or be kind, you missed an opportunity here.

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

#286

Post by xpe » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

kaczordon wrote: post #278

xpe wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point ... is making is it relieves pressure on the healthcare system, but the pressure was only there because of old people. Specifically: > but the pressure was only there because of old people. Here is a definition of the world "only" from the Apple dictionary: "and no one or nothing more besides; solely or exclusively". With this definition in mind, on what basis can you make the claim above? Provide a citat…

I just assumed most people weren’t living under a rock and were aware of the basic facts of COVID. Study from Italy shows almost 90% of hospitalizations are in the 65+ group: https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/75/9/1796... So just to sum it up again for you: 90% of 65+ are vaccinated in the US. This study shows an attack rate of 60% which means vaccinated individuals can both contract and spread the v…

> I just assumed most people weren’t living under a rock and were aware of the basic facts of COVID. Study from Italy shows almost 90% of hospitalizations are in the 65+ group: https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/75/9/1796...

> So just to sum it up again for you:

> 90% of 65+ are vaccinated in the US.

I don't appreciate your snark.

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

#287

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

kaczordon wrote: post #278

xpe wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point ... is making is it relieves pressure on the healthcare system, but the pressure was only there because of old people. Specifically: > but the pressure was only there because of old people. Here is a definition of the world "only" from the Apple dictionary: "and no one or nothing more besides; solely or exclusively". With this definition in mind, on what basis can you make the claim above? Provide a citat…

I just assumed most people weren’t living under a rock and were aware of the basic facts of COVID. Study from Italy shows almost 90% of hospitalizations are in the 65+ group: https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/75/9/1796... So just to sum it up again for you: 90% of 65+ are vaccinated in the US. This study shows an attack rate of 60% which means vaccinated individuals can both contract and spread the v…

[deleted]

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

#288

Post by bigcorp-slave » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

fooofw wrote: post #129

bigcorp-slave wrote: post #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…

I think the "4" should be changed to a "1" yielding p = 0.0333. 4 is the total number of unvaccinated miners without prior infection.

You are right, I misread the article and now it is too late to edit.

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

#289

Post by native_samples » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 10:37 AM UTC

samus wrote: post #263

native_samples wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not rated for children because they appear to be immune to COVID and thus basically no safety results can possibly make the risk/reward tradeoff make sense in that age group. "one would have to determine the percentage of viable virus particles. Hard to tell whether that's even feasible at scale ... It's not too bad though. At worst this causes a higher than expected false-positive rate." I'm not sure you're awa…

> There have been studies that correlated PCR test results with ability to do viral culturing and concluded about 60% of all positive test results did not imply infectiousness. My point was that the viral culturing might not be feasible for large-scale testing. In that case, we might have to stick to PCR.

Yes, governments use PCR because it's fast and mechanical.

The correct response to the PCR not detecting what people actually need to know is to shut down mass testing entirely. There is no point in mass testing if it creates chaos and doesn't help, which is what's happening (there is no correlation between testing levels and incidence levels, killing the theory that test test test = better results).

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

#290

Post by gibba999 » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 1:33 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #284

gibba999 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hypothesis is that COVID leads to a Gaussian distribution in reduction in general neurological function, and that we will see a bell curve distribution reduction in e.g. general IQ. Can you please propose a "randomized, longitudinal, controlled trials" one might conduct to figure that out? Preferably, one which would pass an IRB review. We can't randomly infect 10,000 ethnic minorities with COVID19 anymore, which…

> Can you please propose a "randomized, longitudinal, controlled trials" one might conduct to figure that out? This is not a herculean problem. It's essentially the definition of any halfway decent medical study: * pick a set of measurable endpoints from the pantheon of "long covid" symptoms that are likely to be real. Objectively measurable endpoints should be mixed in with subjective ones (e.g. "fatigue", "loss of…

>> Can you please propose a "randomized, longitudinal, controlled trials" one might conduct to figure that out?

> This is not a herculean problem. It's essentially the definition of any halfway decent medical study:

You're running in circles. That's not a randomized control trial. You'll get biases since the set of people infected with COVID19 isn't random.

This is not much better than existing studies. They're not preregistered, but that's the only upside of your methodology.

> There have been multiple RCTs conducted during the pandemic, despite the bureaucratic inertia of the academy, and "long covid" is one of the biggest remaining controversies. There's no universe in which you couldn't get funding and approval for such a study in short order.

IRBs are set up to prevent subject harm. An RCT, in this case, would involve randomly infecting people with COVID19 to eliminate the bias above. That will never fly.