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Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

sciencemag.org

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Re: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#151

Post by tinus_hn »

jollybean wrote: post #96
legerdemain wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans learned to live with the bubonic plague, which has never been eradicated, and Native Americans, over time, overcame the smallpox that was introduced among them. The people of today can do the same with Covid. It is the only way.

"The people of today can do the same with Covid."? The plague wiped out 1/2 of Europeans and Smallpox maybe the majority of Aboriginals. Or something like that. Yes, 'we can survive' I don't think anyone doubts that. The question is, is it going to kill several million Americans or more during it's run. Hopefully not but I'm also someone can show us what the light at the end of this tunnel looks like.

Covid has a below 1% case fatality rate. It is not going to ‘kill several million Americans’.

Re: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#152

Post by dragonwriter »

zpeti wrote: post #149
tkzed49 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm tired of hearing "living in fear" equated with taking basic precautions to prevent the spread of disease, on HN of all places. It's just a dog whistle.

I'm tired of hearing that masks don't have consequences and are just basic precautions. I for one feel it massively reduces the quality of my interactions and trust in people. I find it much harder to communicate properly. The long term consequences of this are not taken into account. And I'm vaccinated, everyone in my country who wants to be vaccinated is. Why should I reduce the quality of my life for people who ma…

> And I'm vaccinated, everyone in my country who wants to be vaccinated is. Why should I reduce the quality of my life for people who made a choice and took a risk?

Vaccination isn’t a magic talisman against infection, or against illness if infected, or against transmitting the disease if infected. It reduces the likelihood of each, all other things being equal, but it isn't a guarantee against any of them (and is less so against Delta, “Delta Plus", and apparently Lambda than other strains so far.

Masking further reduces both inbound and outbound transmission, and is just a basic precaution.

Re: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#153

Post by tinus_hn »

ModernMech wrote: post #50
pizza wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are still dying from breakthrough cases. Children (w/o vaccine) are dying of delta. Not to go full scaremonger but we don't know that much about long covid at this point. Plus the CDC admits that there is likely an undercount of people who got COVID post-vaccination https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/bre... It's an "ounce of prevention, pound of cure" type of situation

> Not to go full scaremonger but we don't know that much about long covid at this point. My sister had a very mild case of Covid last year after lockdowns started lifting and she went to the hairdresser (masked, obviously not vaccinated). She had the telltale loss of taste, but really no other symptom, and she recovered. I saw her yesterday in person for the first time in a number of months and she looked so skinny I…

Well, that proves it! Infinite quarantine it is!

Re: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#154

Post by dragonwriter »

tinus_hn wrote: post #151
jollybean wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The people of today can do the same with Covid."? The plague wiped out 1/2 of Europeans and Smallpox maybe the majority of Aboriginals. Or something like that. Yes, 'we can survive' I don't think anyone doubts that. The question is, is it going to kill several million Americans or more during it's run. Hopefully not but I'm also someone can show us what the light at the end of this tunnel looks like.

Covid has a below 1% case fatality rate. It is not going to ‘kill several million Americans’.

> Covid has a below 1% case fatality rate.

The US has 622K fatalities on 37M cases, which is a 1.68% CFR (and is an undercount, because some current cases that will be fatalities aren't yet.) Of course, CFR isn't a constant, it varies with current healthcare overload and the lethality of different strains, among other factors.

Re: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#155

Post by smt88 »

yz1ruhzh wrote: post #140
smt88 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and the reason it caused bad side effects was the strong immune response[1], which is a short term effect. That is exactly what has been extensively tested for the Covid vaccines. 1. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/07/why-pandemic-flu-sho...

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by short term effect , the first sentence in the article you linked mentions it's an incurable disease and it took them years to admit it was linked to Pandemrix. English is not my native language so maybe I didn't understand what you meant by that.

I understand the confusion. I meant that the long-term narcolepsy was caused by something that happened in the short-term while the immune system was still reacting to the vaccine.

From that link:

> The flu vaccine is designed to trigger antibodies to influenza’s surface proteins, but if it elicits antibodies to the nucleoprotein as well, those might well latch on to the hypocretin receptor, and eventually lead to death of the cells, the researchers thought.

That couldn't just spontaneously happen a year after getting a vaccine.

Re: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#156

Post by smt88 »

bsaul wrote: post #147
smt88 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot say it has "no long-term side effects" What are the long-term side effects of the vaccine? Or are you saying that you expect us to discover some in the future?

when planning on injecting a new type of product to 100% of a (healthy) population you better be sure about what you're doing... Biology "certitude" is far from being as strong as a mathematical proof. Humans are different, and the complexity of interaction inside a single body are horribly complex. I'm very surprised decades of science fiction litterature isn't enough to make people think twice.

They only need to be certain that the risk of the vaccine for the individual is lower than the risk of Covid for that same person.

In what way do you think millions of doctors, disease experts, and drug researchers have gotten that wrong? They have evidence that Covid is worse, but where is evidence to the contrary?

> I'm very surprised decades of science fiction litterature isn't enough to make people think twice.

Isn't it arrogant to assume that all the experts on vaccines are less informed or less cautious than you are, just because you've read sci-fi?

They didn't just think twice. They've done decades of research and testing, and they've closely monitored safety at every stage of rollout.

Re: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#157

Post by dragonwriter »

oliv__ wrote: post #84

What I'm curious about is: what happens now? When everyone starts realizing that vaccines and masks can't fully contain a spread, what's the next logical step to take? Are people going to insist that you keep wearing your mask, take booster shots and live in fear for the next 50 years or are we going to collectively change our mindset from "Zero COVID" to accepting that COVID is just another risk factor in the world…

> Are people going to insist that you keep wearing your mask, take booster shots and live in fear

I get a flu shot every year and wear a seatbelt when I drive. Not living in fear of either. Taking reasonable precautions doesn't involve living in fear.

> or are we going to collectively change our mindset from "Zero COVID" to accepting that COVID is just another risk factor in the world and move on?

Look at the places (e.g., much of the US South) with high resistance to protective measures and the current status of the healthcare systems. Are we going to accept that being a permanent or at least frequently recurrent state worldwide and accept the COVID and non-COVID deaths from exhausting ICU space, and the high burnout we’ve seen in the healthcare field? Are we going to radically expand healthcare expenditures to expand capacity and attract/retain people in the field with that as the normal condition?

Re: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#158

Post by dragonwriter »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #45
brodouevencode wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pretense all along as far as I can tell from most countries has been one of "zero COVID". Meaning a total removal/extermination of the virus. Whether or not this was ever realistic is really the underlying debate that hasn't yet fully surfaced.

Of course it was realistic. China basically achieved it (I am not a China fan or defender), but the rest of the world failed. The whole world achieved it for the first SARS. However, that ship sailed a long time ago. Probably before the first surge in Italy of COVID-19.

> China basically achieved it

No, it didn't.

> (I am not a China fan or defender)

Then why are you making B.S. “rah rah China” claims that even Chinese state media doesn't?

Re: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#159

Post by yz1ruhzh »

smt88 wrote: post #155
yz1ruhzh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by short term effect , the first sentence in the article you linked mentions it's an incurable disease and it took them years to admit it was linked to Pandemrix. English is not my native language so maybe I didn't understand what you meant by that.

I understand the confusion. I meant that the long-term narcolepsy was caused by something that happened in the short-term while the immune system was still reacting to the vaccine. From that link: > The flu vaccine is designed to trigger antibodies to influenza’s surface proteins, but if it elicits antibodies to the nucleoprotein as well, those might well latch on to the hypocretin receptor, and eventually lead to de…

Thank you for the explanation.

Re: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#160

Post by GekkePrutser »

zpeti wrote: post #149
tkzed49 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm tired of hearing "living in fear" equated with taking basic precautions to prevent the spread of disease, on HN of all places. It's just a dog whistle.

I'm tired of hearing that masks don't have consequences and are just basic precautions. I for one feel it massively reduces the quality of my interactions and trust in people. I find it much harder to communicate properly. The long term consequences of this are not taken into account. And I'm vaccinated, everyone in my country who wants to be vaccinated is. Why should I reduce the quality of my life for people who ma…

There's also people like me who have serious PTSS phenomenons with masks (for me caused by nearly suffocating several times when I was an infant). I hate it when people call it 'a small ask'. Living for the rest of my life with masking is just not an option. It's manageable during the crisis but we can't give up on finding a real solution and keep them forever.
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