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

> I understand where you're coming from in pointing out what seems to be inconsistencies. But we've been dealing with coronaviruses since the beginning, while mRNA vaccines were only deployed en masse in 2019/2020 (right?). I don't think this is so inconsistent, and I addressed this in my post. Such limited data is never ideal in making these kind of decisions, but I'd wager we know much more about COVID's risk than mRNA. As I understand it, the technology for mRNA is a few decades old, but this is the first time it's hit the market, is it not? If so, the risk is still in the process of being discovered.

mRNA vaccines were first published in 1989, so 32 years ago.

At this point we've vaccinated more people against COVID with mRNA vaccines than the number of people globally infected with COVID proper. At this point we know more about the risk profile of mRNA vaccines than COVID.

> Generally vaccines have a much longer trial and study period, this has been rushed due to emergency circumstances.

Yes, generally vaccines have a much longer trial period - with a tiny fraction of the participants.

The average vaccine phase II trial has 2,854 participants, and 29,844 in phase III [1]. So far, 4.62 billion doses of the COVID vaccine have been delivered. Since most are two-shot, we can generously round that down to 2,310,000,000 people in this 'trial.'

'Rushed' is the wrong way of looking at it. It went faster, yes, but there's a reason. Since you can't knowingly infect people with ebola to test the efficacy of an ebola vaccine, you get a few thousand people, immunize them and then you wait. And wait. And wait. During the massive outbreak in 2014-2016, only 28,000 people in the world caught it.

On the other hand, by mid-2021 17% of America had caught COVID.

Proving it worked was a much faster exercise.

That it went faster doesn't mean it's less safe, and it certainly doesn't mean isn't effective. It only went fast because it was possible to prove its efficacy so quickly.

The data is clear: hospitalization rates are 15-200X higher in the unvaccinated and death rates are 8-87X higher. Even with Delta. [2]

Why do you think getting it to market faster means its less safe?

> I still disagree that I'm exposing myself to more risk by inaction. My risk is already nearly 0, so I don't really care to minimize it further anyway, but by vaccinating I'm taking on a lot of uncertainty (in personal risk, effectiveness of the vaccine over time, transmission reduction, etc), so it's impossible to assess properly with these unknowns. I would much rather just get COVID. You don't see an issue with that, right?

Your risk of a negative outcome from a vaccine is lower than your risk from infection, and they're both very low. The negative outcome from a vaccine is very low for everyone, while the risk of a negative outcome from COVID is low for you.

> I would much rather just get COVID. You don't see an issue with that, right?

Of course I see an issue with it. The vaccine causes your body to produce a subset of proteins from the COVID genome. A controlled, inert subset. You would rather your body produce whole live viruses that mutate, evolve and want to kill you. That makes no sense.

I agree vaccines aren't a panacea for transmission, but I know they're less risky than whole live viruses shooting out of you lol.

I'd argue that's dark ages thinking but even they were pro-vaccine because they were anti getting sick. Shouldn't really be controversial in this the year of our lord 2021.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3551877/

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/10/us/covid-brea...

I'm confused which facts you think that I'm missing.

> No, but it does the mean the long term risk are not defined as well.

That's why we have 32 years of study on mRNA vaccines are almost 50 years of study on viral vector vaccines.

> What if, for example, this causes reproductive harm, or some harm to the offspring?

You have no basis for that. What if it causes some people to grow a third arm? A fourth testicle? Again, we've studied the vaccine and know that it does not affect the germ line.

> Or, what if the ADE risk is real, and vaccinated individuals aren't able to combat variants as effectively, perhaps even reacting worse to reinfection?

The data that I linked you shows otherwise?

> It's simply too early to evaluate so many risk here. On the other hand, I can be pretty sure COVID won't cause birth defects, given that no coronaviruses do.

No mRNA vaccine has caused that either lol, nor has any viral vector vaccine. So why would it start now? It's as likely to do that as it is to grow in a bonus nut. [1] Note that the CDC does not specifically cover my bonus nut theory, so who knows? I'll keep an eye out for it tho.

"There is currently no evidence that any vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, cause fertility problems in women or men." [1]

I mean why would they? A viral vector vaccine is a virus, just like COVID (well, more specifically, an adenovirus) which doesn't infect germ cells.

> Well, of course - there's a lot more unvaccinated people and cases, what else would you expect?

That's up to 200X higher per capita in the un-vaccinated population vs the vaccinated population.

> And I'm not at risk of being hospitalized anyway, so I still see no reason to try and mitigate that risk.

Everyone is, at different rates, and your rate is strictly higher than after vaccination.

> Regardless, taking the vaccine is pointless beyond self-preservation if it doesn't reduce spread, and at the moment that's unknown, and complicated by the fact that some 'variants' seem to side-step the vaccine. Sitting on the side lines and waiting for more data seems reasonable to me.

The infections from variants are still hundreds of times less severe in the vaccinated.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommend...

>That's why we have 32 years of study on mRNA vaccines

Yes, in which they were largely viewed as non-viable and a shelfed idea at least in part due to issues like ADE. The research here was not extremely active, nor was it done on humans to the extent it is now.

>You have no basis for that.

Correct, but I have no basis to believe that some unseen risk is not present too. Given that I'm not personally at risk for COVID, I think there's wisdom in waiting a couple years (at least) to see how it unfolds. And there is a basis for ADE fears, which you ignored in favor of joking about growing a spontaneous third testicle.

>do you not think anyone has had a child since they were vaccinated?

One child would not imply it's impossible for _some_ child to have a defect.

>The data that I linked you shows otherwise?

Can you point me to where this was? The 'data' is still very immature regardless. I'm sure I could source data that comes to the opposite conclusion. It's important to view these things in aggregate, not lean on the studies you agree with. Right now, I'm finding studies that disagree often, so I think waiting for the data to mature a bit is reasonable assuming I'm not harming anyone by doing so.

>The infections from variants are still hundreds of times less severe in the vaccinated

You missed my point here - the point is that they can still get infected, not that they aren't expressing symptoms as severely.

...

Birth defects were just an example, like I said I view it as unlikely. The point is that there's a potential for unseen risk here. You've devolved into being a bit rude now, and I found your lack of skepticism tiring anyway. The data is all over the map currently, yet you seem rigid in your position - that's bad practice. You keep making arguments about the vaccines being effective at symptom reduction, but that's never been the point I'm trying to engage, since I agree with that and there is pretty conclusive data there. I will say that you can find data to the contrary (see Israel's recent stats), but mostly I'm saying that a) as someone who's already _not_at_risk_, there's arguably no net benefit to society in me taking the vaccine, so long as transmission rate reduction is largely an unknown (and even in that case, I'd prefer natural immunity) and b) there's a possibility of unforeseen and unwanted side effects / repercussions due to the vaccine - this is true despite you belittling this idea.

I'm not at risk, so I don't care about minimizing it or how effective it is. There is a possibility I may be a host to transmit COVID to people at risk though, so I care about that. As of now, natural immunity looks much more enticing than vaccination for someone like me. Why are you so opposed to this? I won't be hospitalized, so you don't have to worry about me, and I presumably will spread it similarly to how vaccinated individuals will.

Apologies if you found the comments rude, I was just joking around :) tone doesn't always carry well. I do appreciate your thoughts, and thank you for a vigorous debate!