94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows • Hacker News Board

Re: 94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows

#91

Post by AndrewBissell » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #88

AndrewBissell wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, at the rate we're going it feels like they'll require 5 year olds to have the Covid vaccines to attend public school after finishing a five month, phase I trial in 3,000 kids.

The real answer is that schools probably should not open at all. They are basically ideal breeding grounds for the virus - kids are gross and spread everything to begin with, plus you have 30 kids sitting in close proximity, communal lunch-halls, crowded hallways, overcrowded bus transportation... and in higher grades you shuffle the contact groups an additional 7x per day as people change classes. It is literally th…

> The reality is we're just throwing kids under the bus to die

What the hell are you talking about? The CDC has said children are at less risk of death from Covid-19 than they are from influenza. Were we "throwing them under the bus to die" when we opened schools in every year before 2020 without masks and "stay apart from your biohazard friends" social distancing?

Also, "Study shows schools do not spread Covid": https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/75136706-f171-11eb-8f01-2...

> we can't not reopen schools because a lot of people depend on it as daycare and because a lot of people have decided we're "back to normal" regardless of what happens with future variants

No, it's because an education is a fundamental human right which is being denied to children, and the policy of closing schools has caused immense damage to their learning and mental health for practically zero benefit in reducing the harm caused by the virus.

Re: 94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows

#92

Post by jMyles » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #26

rowland66 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is absolutely shooting for herd immunity now. Its just a question of how individual members of the herd want to achieve their immunity. They can take the easy way (vaccination) or the hard way (get Covid).

Not really. Officially and unofficially they are pushing everyone to the vaccine. People who have antibodies are still getting fired from their jobs because they didn't take the vaccine. There's even talk of requiring the vaccine for some schools, regardless of prior infection status. So the US is not shooting for herd immunity through either means, but only through vaccination. Even federal employees are being requi…

> People who have antibodies are still getting fired from their jobs because they didn't take the vaccine.

Can you cite a source for this? I see people saying it, but I haven't seen actual cases.

Has anyone, to your knowledge, explained why they might pursue such an insane misapplication of basic principles of public health?

Re: 94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows

#93

Post by paulmd » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

wusher wrote: post #11

SavantIdiot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesn't have a choice to shoot for herd immunity because the remaining willfully unvaccinated population is both anti-mask and anti-vax. EDIT: Guess I worded that badly. What I mean is: choosing herd immunity is inevitable, so there is no choice. It will happen. EDIT2: It didn't occur to me that there is a huge risk if more deadly mutations happen faster than herd immunity.

Herd immunity can also be achieved by the anti-vax people catching the virus. They can develop immunity by being sick instead of getting a shot.

You can reach herd immunity on any one strain - but as we've seen, the virus can mutate faster than we can reach herd immunity.

The arrival of delta (and the other four or five major strains) signal that that theory flat-out will not work, the virus is mutating faster than we are reaching herd immunity. By the time we actually reach full herd immunity, we will have strains that the vaccine only provides significantly diminished protection against - we are arguably already getting there with Delta.

Re: 94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows

#94

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #81

giantg2 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that the parent's comment about pushing for herd immunity through both means is not exactly true. We are moving towards herd immunity by both methods unintentionally, but the only method being pushed is vaccination. So much so, that antibodies derived from infection are not even being counted, but rather those persons are being told they need the vaccine anyways. It's a bit like measuring outputs rather th…

The vaccine results in more robust immunity.[1] That is an outcome. [1]: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2103825?query=TOC

What this shows is that a single dose administered to a previously infected person provides greater antibody production than a non infected person's recieving two doses. The study also says that they are unsure if those higher levels affect a patient's ability to get sick or transmit the virus.

What I would be looking for is a study showing that prior infection has x% effectiveness as measured against a vaccine on a similar timeline.

Re: 94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows

#95

Post by criticaltinker » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

mrhands69 wrote: post #22

sjg007 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along with an accompanying crush of ICU hospitalizations and deaths.

Why haven't we spent time bolstering healthcare then? Why have all the field hospitals been destroyed as fast as they were put up?

IMO an even more important question is, why aren't we pursuing early outpatient treatment with combinations of existing over the counter medicines?

Such techniques have proven to be very effective at preventing hospitalization and death for SARS-CoV-2 [1][2], yet you will rarely find anyone advocating for them.

The papers I've cited are some of the most highly cited in the literature, with world-wide support from experts at top institutions who are actually treating COVID-19 patients.

These alternatives to vaccination are likely more palatable for the anti-vax crowd, and can help prevent over-utilization of precious medical resources.

[1] Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30673-2/fulltex...

[2] Multifaceted highly targeted sequential multidrug treatment of early ambulatory high-risk SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) https://scholarlycommons.henryford.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...

Re: 94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows

#96

Post by nradov » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

bena wrote: post #42

loceng wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccine isn't necessarily easy for everyone, and catching COVID isn't necessarily hard for everyone; and underlying health condition seems to be primary determinant of that, not vaccination status. Edit to add: feel good about downvoting critical thinking, ideologues.

That seems like the stupidest lottery to enter into however. Even people without an "underlying health condition" have died. And even those who haven't died are experiencing long term complications from having had COVID. So you can either hope you don't have a hard time with COVID if you catch it. Or you can drastically reduce your chances of having a hard time and of catching it all by just taking a couple minutes o…

Vaccines are great and very effective at preventing bad outcomes, but let's be realistic about risks. Very few people without an underlying health condition have died.

94.9% of hospitalizations had an underlying health condition. Mainly high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.

https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2021/21_0123.htm

99% of deaths in Italy had an underlying health condition.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/99-of-those-who-died-fr...

Re: 94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows

#97

Post by jMyles » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #25

rowland66 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is absolutely shooting for herd immunity now. Its just a question of how individual members of the herd want to achieve their immunity. They can take the easy way (vaccination) or the hard way (get Covid).

Vaccine isn't necessarily easy for everyone, and catching COVID isn't necessarily hard for everyone; and underlying health condition seems to be primary determinant of that, not vaccination status. Edit to add: feel good about downvoting critical thinking, ideologues.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. Established, tenured experts from every single one of the world's top medical institutions have expressed agreement with this statement (and also some in apparent opposition).

Examples:

* https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/05/07/covid-vaccines-for-chil...

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbvO4sUg1eA (Gupta is a pioneer of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford and has broken ground on a new platform for generic influenza vaccination which is very exciting)

* https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/13716384856863580... (note: In addition to his decades at Harvard researching vaccine safety, Kulldorff served two terms on a CDC vaccine technical subgroup - he is certainly in the very top echelon of experts on the topic of your comment)

Re: 94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows

#98

Post by bena » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #64

bena wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like the stupidest lottery to enter into however. Even people without an "underlying health condition" have died. And even those who haven't died are experiencing long term complications from having had COVID. So you can either hope you don't have a hard time with COVID if you catch it. Or you can drastically reduce your chances of having a hard time and of catching it all by just taking a couple minutes o…

>Even people without an "underlying health condition" have died. This isn't a useful cohort. Age. Pre-existing conditions. Vitamin D deficiency. So many factors that narrow the funnel. You can narrow down your odds of complications with specificity - there's no need to discuss with these generalizations.

The fact is that contracting COVID is the worst possible way to achieve protection from COVID.

And at some point, you're just classifying everyone as having some sort of "factor". Which isn't useful either. If everyone has a factor, then factors don't matter. Especially if you have a factor that isn't obvious, like Vitamin D deficiency.

And like I implied, healthy, young people have been hospitalized with COVID and some of those have died. Just like some with "factors" have done ok.

But the one thing that reduces complications with a very, very high degree of success is the vaccine. It even reduces your chances of contracting the disease itself.

Not getting the vaccine is entering yourself in the stupidest lottery in history.

Re: 94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows

#99

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #92

giantg2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Officially and unofficially they are pushing everyone to the vaccine. People who have antibodies are still getting fired from their jobs because they didn't take the vaccine. There's even talk of requiring the vaccine for some schools, regardless of prior infection status. So the US is not shooting for herd immunity through either means, but only through vaccination. Even federal employees are being requi…

> People who have antibodies are still getting fired from their jobs because they didn't take the vaccine. Can you cite a source for this? I see people saying it, but I haven't seen actual cases. Has anyone, to your knowledge, explained why they might pursue such an insane misapplication of basic principles of public health?

I have a link to one below. My guess is corporate lawyers who want to limit liability without any understanding of the underlying issues.

Even my job has said that you have to be vaccinated to return (limited medical and religious exceptions). They also said it wouldn't make sense to keep the unvaccinated people working remotely, implying that they will fire people. They are not accepting antibody tests.

https://www.fox26houston.com/news/hospital-workers-prepare-t...

Re: 94% of English adults have Covid antibodies, ONS data shows

#100

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #65

giantg2 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that the parent's comment about pushing for herd immunity through both means is not exactly true. We are moving towards herd immunity by both methods unintentionally, but the only method being pushed is vaccination. So much so, that antibodies derived from infection are not even being counted, but rather those persons are being told they need the vaccine anyways. It's a bit like measuring outputs rather th…

I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Are you saying that we should be “pushing for herd immunity through both means” as in we should be pushing for vaccinations and pushing people to spread the disease as fast as possible?

I'm simply stating the claim that US is pushing for herd immunity through the choice of infection of vaccination is not true. That only vaccination is being pushed, and it is not exactly a free choice if you're going to lose your job or be denied service over it.