The UK’s delta surge is collapsing • Hacker News Board

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#451

Post by lamontcg » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

sharken wrote: post #402

lamontcg wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But everything we know about existing respiratory viruses (and indications so far this year) suggest antibodies will wane. Not necessarily the case. Infections with HCoV-229E produces durable immunity and reinfection is due to antigenic drift: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.17.423313v1 That it at odds with prior studies that found ~12 month reinfections with coronaviruses, but it is with considerab…

Setting up two likely scenarios is a very reasonable way of approaching future development, both scenarios sound likely to me. We could look at the flu for clues, in that case every year will have one or more variants that are the most prominent. I'd argue that in the age category with the most infected (10-29 years old) in the UK, that these people are not killing themselves due to their young age. And the elderly h…

> We could look at the flu for clues

Like the 1918 H1N1 second wave mutation that caused ARDS in 20 year olds?

We still have no idea how that happened, but with this coronavirus evolving to be more transmissible/virulent that is still on the table. If it can evolve to become more transmissible but at the cost of triggering ARDS like that, then it will face evolutionary pressure to do so.

And hospitalization rates of 20-29 year olds aren't anywhere near as good as the fatality rates. While the death rate drops by a factor of 2 every 8 years, the hospitalization rate drops by a factor of 2 every ~15 years. And delta has 2x the hospitalization rate of alpha across age/sex/deprevation/comorbidity matched controls. It should still be about a 1-in-50 chance of hospitalization for 20-29 year olds. There's no proof that number can't continue to get worse.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#452

Post by aristophenes » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 12:26 AM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #429

aristophenes wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your first point, what does that have to do with the immune system getting geared up for an infection months or years later? The second point, your worst case scenario doesn't even address the worst concerns of people who don't want to take the vaccine. They don't trust that spike proteins are the only things in the vaccine. The worst case scenario is not that the vaccine acts like the virus but th…

> The worst case scenario is not that the vaccine acts like the virus but that it acts different than the virus. Worst-case scenarios should be constrained by your knowledge. I know what's in the Pfizer vaccine, so my worst-case scenarios have to be constrained by that. But sure: “Worst-case”, somebody's poisoning the vaccines. This leads to severe side-effects from some batches, which the statisticians take entire w…

I got the vaccine, and recommend others to do so. The reason I have this debate is because the people who are so offended by anti-vaxxers constantly straw-man them instead of being sympathetic and trying to understand them. Like you are straw-manning me, implying that some obvious poison that immediately makes people sick is what I am talking about. Telling people they are stupid is not going to win them over, and forcing them to vaccinate will entrench their opinions and convert more to their point of view.

Try to understand, they don't trust the government, they don't trust the CDC, they don't trust Pfizer and they don't trust you. Yes you have an official list of ingredients that someone with an appropriate degree can understand. But what's the stuff in the actual needle that you are so intent on making sure gets injected into them? Seems perfectly reasonable to them that some PhDs in some pharma companies are really worried about global warming and a coming Idiocracy. Why not put something in the vaccine that reduces fertility for the unwashed masses?

Maybe it sounds crazy to you and me, but a lot of people hear experts saying seemingly ridiculous things (like needing a vaccine for a disease you already got and recovered from), see how everyone falls in line with the narratives as they come and go, watch mainstream news and social media restrict all alternative points of view. And they don't trust the system. And its clear to them that this system they don't trust, also doesn't like them. From that perspective, of course they don't want the people who lie to them and hate them to have the authority to stick some chemicals and DNA (I know, mRNA) in their arm.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#453

Post by edmundsauto » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:17 AM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #286

edmundsauto wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Florida just set an all-time 1 day record for new case counts last week? These numbers might shift significantly in the next month or two.

Deaths in the US (like in the UK) are barely moving unlike during the other waves b/c of elderly vaccination rates. I really doubt this will budge the aggregate fatality rates much at all.

I agree if your denominator is infected to death rate. If you’re talking relative to state population, then 5k extra deaths moves the needle.

But, whatever. 5000 people dead - it’s just a number, right? Thank goodness we are all coping with the pandemic with statistics.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#454

Post by autoexec » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:40 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #392

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actions of my local government align with that. Keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed, but if you die because you didn’t get vaccinated, too bad so sad. Which seems the right way to handle it. Allow folks their individual freedom as much as possible, but don’t break the health care system.

> Allow folks their individual freedom as much as possible, but don’t break the health care system. Unfortunately, these two goals, when combined with an infectious agent with a good-sized R0, are really in opposition to each other.

I don't think they need to be. At least not within reasonable bounds.

There's certainly an interesting discussion to be had surrounding individual freedoms vs the common good in a pandemic, but I'm not sure as to what extent we can even have those discussions while an embarrassing number of people feel that just being asked to wear a covering over their face in public spaces is an intolerable violation of their personal freedoms. When even the smallest requirements intended to protect the public's health are treated as if they were the harshest forms of oppression imaginable there simply isn't any room left for debate.

Still, for the population that believes a degree of concession can be reasonable and appropriate under such extreme conditions as a global pandemic I think it is possible to strike a good balance between individual freedom and individual and collective responsibility. I think we can work to protect freedoms while also insisting on some measures to help reduce the spread of a virus.

It doesn't have to be an either-or situation at least.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#455

Post by michaelmrose » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

neilknowsbest wrote: post #353

michaelmrose wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting 100M confirmed infections?

I can't speak to what the parent comment might have been referencing, but the CDC estimates 120MM infections through May 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

Thank you

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#456

Post by infamouscow » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

dddddddan wrote: post #224

infamouscow wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an assumption, it's obvious to anyone that looks at data rather than of blindly listening to sensationalized media bullshit.

You haven't cited any data.

> Among the 469 cases in Massachusetts residents, 346 (74%) occurred in persons who were fully vaccinated

> Among five COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized, four were fully vaccinated

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#457

Post by michaelmrose » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #439

newacct583 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gah. Influenza kills more people in the US than any other infectious disease, and frankly it isn't even close. You aren't making any sense here. I cited that number, clearly, as an UPPER bound beyond which we couldn't possibly view an outbreak as acceptable. I don't view a statement that puts 100k deaths/year as within your "comfort zone" as a serious attempt to engage, sorry.

I dunno. I'm not gonna browbeat you with more arguments for my risk tolerance if you're not interested in them, but I think you're avoiding looking reality in the face here; there's a lot of people an order of magnitude more risk tolerant than me who wanted to open crowded bars in February or earlier. A policy that expects restrictions will remain in place as Covid deaths fall, but can't offer any explanation for why…

People aren't necessarily risk tolerant they largely are utterly incapable of grasping relative magnitude of risk and largely believe that gains in freedom will accrue to them and costs will accrue to other people.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#458

Post by silent_cal » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

avs733 wrote: post #360

qeternity wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deaths have absolutely plummeted, and correlations have very clearly broken from previous "waves". But in order to extract compliance from the population, there needs to be a call to action, so the goalposts were moved to infections, as opposed to hospitalizations/deaths.

This and similar arguments begin from an assumption of bad faith by scientists. It’s unbecoming. You should care about the number of cases because each case is a potential for a new mutation that could be the one that bypasses vaccines or becomes more deadly or …use your imagination. Nobody cares about controlling you, and if they did they wouldn’t use facts covid they would just use tanks.

After the past two years it'll be a long time before I ever trust a "scientist".

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#459

Post by silent_cal » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #379

sumedh wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's something actually happening here. because those people dont want to take the vaccines?

If somebody who refused to get vaccinated gets sick, you can say it's their fault. But some people can't get vaccinated, and for others who did get vaccinated the vaccine will have no effect - these will still be at risk until (if ever) herd immunity is reached...

And whose fault are vaccine injuries?

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#460

Post by wizzwizz4 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

aristophenes wrote: post #452

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The worst case scenario is not that the vaccine acts like the virus but that it acts different than the virus. Worst-case scenarios should be constrained by your knowledge. I know what's in the Pfizer vaccine, so my worst-case scenarios have to be constrained by that. But sure: “Worst-case”, somebody's poisoning the vaccines. This leads to severe side-effects from some batches, which the statisticians take entire w…

I got the vaccine, and recommend others to do so. The reason I have this debate is because the people who are so offended by anti-vaxxers constantly straw-man them instead of being sympathetic and trying to understand them. Like you are straw-manning me, implying that some obvious poison that immediately makes people sick is what I am talking about. Telling people they are stupid is not going to win them over, and fo…

The only thing that'll convince those people is for authority figures to become trustworthy.¹ I don't see that happening any time soon.

So who're left? The people who are concerned about vaccines because other people are, rather than because of (misplaced in this instance, but not in general) scepticism of the claims of untrustworthy, powerful people. Those people can be reassured by thought experiments, because they're assuming dangers due to incompetence moreso than malice.

¹: I suppose an argument from game theory might, but only if they think the vaccine-poisoning enemy is in it for the long run, so the threat of the truth coming out in (e.g.) 20 years would be enough to dissuade them from something like that. If they think the enemy's plans are shorter-term, or they can afford the loss of face, I don't think there's any way to convince them short of convincing them that the industry behind “non-addictive” heroin, thalidomide (developed by a Nazi war criminal!!) and the contaminated blood scandal is totally cool and in no way out to get you.