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SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

biorxiv.org

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Re: SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

#61
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/safety-report-21.asp This is based on voluntary reporting, which is known to have under reporting where even 10% events are not reported. Even then the risk is a serious AEFI is 1 in 5095.

VAERS reports are also correlative not causative, if you dig in, you can actually whittle down the reports pretty significantly. I was referring specifically to the incidence of blood clots, not necessarily any AEFI. I don't know enough about the NZ governments methodology to comment on your source.

>I was referring specifically to the incidence of blood clots, not necessarily any AEFI.

Most people are concerned about having any sort of serious AEFI, and not just blood-clots.

So comparing rate of incidence of blood clots to car accidents to imply vaccine safety is a bit misleading in my opinion.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve got one vaccine that’s been blacklisted due to high prevalence of blood clots. We’ve got another made by a company that’s been embroiled in a 4-decade long controversy over asbestos in baby talcum powder that only recently issued a recall, denying it all the way and claiming it’s safe. I assure you, Zuck isn’t needed for any negativity here. These companies are awful and they’re not to be trusted. Period.

> We’ve got one vaccine that’s been blacklisted due to high prevalence of blood clots. The risk of getting a blood clot from the J&J vaccine is 400,000:1. This is less likely than dying of COVID in any age category. 0.00025%. The risk of dying in a car accident in America is 0.01% every year. So you're 40X more likely to die in a car accident this year alone than get a serious blood clot from the J&J vaccine. The ris…

> This is less likely than dying of COVID in any age category. 0.00025%.

Is this not apples and oranges? The odds of a Covid patient dying from Covid is higher, is it not, than the odds of a person dying from Covid?

That is, one must take into account the chances of catching Covid in the first place.

If there is a nasty disease with 10% mortality, and a vaccine with only a 0.001% chance of mortality, there would not be sufficient information to decide whether to take the vaccine... instead, you would also need to know your chances of catching the nasty disease in the first place over some period of time.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When everyone vaccinates

Given that is never gonna happen, all you can do is get yours, accept the risks of covid like you accept every other risk in your life and return to 2019 normal. There is literally nothing more you can do. The vaccines we have are the end of the road. The goalposts cannot ethically or morally be moved any further no matter what all these politicians and health “experts” say.

That’s a rather fatalist point of view. Hopefully there are at least some anti-vaxxers whose minds can be changed.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah you’re putting your faith in a company whose talcum powder has been causing cancer for decades and saying “it doesn’t kill you it’s not that bad” No, I'm putting my faith in the CDC and VAERS, and an incredibly twitchy public willing to report absolutely anything and everything, in no small part because folks like you freak them out. > It’s an experimental vaccine that hasn’t even been out for a year mate. Use…

CDC is a political vehicle. It’s a tragedy what’s happened over the last year as they flip flop. VAERS and it’s predecessors did not track this kind of thing even though they were explicitly made with the intention to. Their own workforce was puzzled as to why they weren’t deployed early on to track vaccine side effects. Look, stick to the basics. If you’re going to appeal to authority find one with some backbone and…

> CDC is a political vehicle. It’s a tragedy what’s happened over the last year as they flip flop.

The CDC is an apolitical vehicle broadly speaking. It's not perfect, and it has become more politicized over time, sure. It's a sign of their doing their job to adjust their position in the face of a rapidly changing landscape. It's also their job to be pretty conservative.

> VAERS and it’s predecessors did not track this kind of thing even though they were explicitly made with the intention to. Their own workforce was puzzled as to why they weren’t deployed early on to track vaccine side effects.

VAERS has always been there to track Reports of Vaccine Adverse Events. It's by the way an HHS system, not CDC. Do you have any articles to back your assertions? I'm of course open to reading them.

> CDC didn’t make the vaccine. J&J did.

As is tradition.

> Neither knows what it will do over the next N years, and even if they did you’d be the last to know.

The vaccine platforms are decades old and well studied, we know broadly what they do, so we can project their effects.

> You’ve got all the evidence you need in how J&J handled the powder case.

Would you not say it's fair that they incurred liability over the talcum powder, but the government waived their liability over any vaccine adverse effects and so they would have far less interest in covering it up?

> So no, I’m not taking the vaccine or the aspirin.

You... won't take aspirin because of the Nazis? My dude (or m'lady, as appropriate), I'm Polish and I'm over it. lol.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, lambda doesn't seem to be growing vs. delta anywhere. It's so frustrating to watch the media fall into this trap, just google "lambda covid" and you'll find a flood of breathless headlines about this "new dangerous variant" and like no warnings from any experts at all.

There are few "breathless headlines" about Lambda. Though notably it is the overwhelming dominant strain in Peru and other South American countries, having completely crowded out Delta and other variants. I'm not a medical expert. I'm not a statistical expert. I don't purport any expertise or useful knowledge in those areas. But after millions of deaths and a complete worldwide changing of how we work, play and so on…

The media has done a shit job of informing people without being wrong per se. The coverage usually goes like this:

Things are getting bad in [location]! Hospitals are overcrowding (no information on how many beds and how long until disaster). Here's some disconnected but scary stats. [x] people were admitted to the hospital this weekend in a sudden surge (no information on how many were admitted before, thus impossible to judge the magnitude of the "surge"). [y]% people tested positive this week (no information on how many tests were given, who was able to get tests, or anything about the methodology that would make this data useful). Now for an interview with some stupid person who wishes they listened to us earlier. If you ignore the restrictions, this will happen to you! Stay tuned.

All of it was factual but none of it was informative. The news is the noise!

It really got to a point where if you wanted to actually know anything about the severity of the situation, how long it would last, how much risk you are facing per trip outside etc then you had to download the data from the NIH/CDC and plot it yourself. The media should have been doing that for me. They were derelict in their duty.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah you’re putting your faith in a company whose talcum powder has been causing cancer for decades and saying “it doesn’t kill you it’s not that bad” It’s an experimental vaccine that hasn’t even been out for a year mate. Use some better judgement. “Oh but it prevents covid” - yeah and that powder helped with the rash too I’m sure.

> Yeah you’re putting your faith in a company whose talcum powder has been causing cancer for decades and saying “it doesn’t kill you it’s not that bad” No, I'm putting my faith in the CDC and VAERS, and an incredibly twitchy public willing to report absolutely anything and everything, in no small part because folks like you freak them out. > It’s an experimental vaccine that hasn’t even been out for a year mate. Use…

>No, I'm putting my faith in the CDC and VAERS

About VAERS this might be interesting...

https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/defining-away-vaccin...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IAzK4a58a7M4ajHKOpqe-9KD9Pd...

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, lambda doesn't seem to be growing vs. delta anywhere. It's so frustrating to watch the media fall into this trap, just google "lambda covid" and you'll find a flood of breathless headlines about this "new dangerous variant" and like no warnings from any experts at all.

There are few "breathless headlines" about Lambda. Though notably it is the overwhelming dominant strain in Peru and other South American countries, having completely crowded out Delta and other variants. I'm not a medical expert. I'm not a statistical expert. I don't purport any expertise or useful knowledge in those areas. But after millions of deaths and a complete worldwide changing of how we work, play and so on…

For some media organizations the fear mongering accusation is true, others much less. I agree it's tiresome to tar them all with the same brush. Of course everyone needs to treat sources of information with a bit of healthy scepticism.

On the COVID theme, it does remind me of an all hands call at my company with a quite senior person during the early days of the pandemic. At one point, we were confidently told that the 20,000 deaths Sky News were reporting as possible was "fake news" and the media was scaring everyone. Well, we know how that turned out (hint, the Sky News figure was around x6 too little).

I thought at the time it was a bold statement given no one really had any idea how the pandemic would progress.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

#68
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VAERS reports are also correlative not causative, if you dig in, you can actually whittle down the reports pretty significantly. I was referring specifically to the incidence of blood clots, not necessarily any AEFI. I don't know enough about the NZ governments methodology to comment on your source.

>I was referring specifically to the incidence of blood clots, not necessarily any AEFI. Most people are concerned about having any sort of serious AEFI, and not just blood-clots. So comparing rate of incidence of blood clots to car accidents to imply vaccine safety is a bit misleading in my opinion.

> So comparing rate of incidence of blood clots to car accidents to imply vaccine safety is a bit misleading in my opinion.

Hm, I was addressing the parent's specific point about blood clots rather than safety in general. I agree with you broadly, however. Worth calling out my wording. Thanks!

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

#69
There's a large-scale "clinical trial" going on in some of the most vaccinated countries. I am not aware of any scientific explanation of the effect.

https://www.google.com/search?q=israel+covid+cases&rlz=1C1CH...

https://www.google.com/search?q=iceland+covid+cases&rlz=1C1C...

Re: SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance

#70

Why the nomenclature jump from delta to lambda? not kidding: were there uninteresting variants in alphabetical order between them? (i.e, what of epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, and kappa?)

They all exist[1] to some degree, I couldn't tell you much about them though.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2

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