The mutation that helps Delta spread • Hacker News Board

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#191

Post by walterbell » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #165

hncurious wrote: post #70

Covid is going to be endemic like the flu and cold. It's not going to be eradicated, unfortunately, and I don't think we've come to terms with this yet. Now what's our plan exactly? Get vaccinated every 6 - 12 months indefinitely and always wear masks? What's our goal and what's our new normal?

Yeah, as long as COVID-19 fills up hospitals we should do this. Not having hospitals seriously compromises quality of life. I had untreated kidney stones for about a week at the peak of the pandemic. When I was in the middle of an attack I could not work, the pain was too severe. I was missing several hours of work everyday just dealing with pain. I finally got to the emergency room which did basic imaging and gave m…

> Not having hospitals seriously compromises quality of life.

A non-trivial percentage of healthcare workers were infected in 2020 and recovered with natural immunity to Covid. Some of those feel strongly enough about vaccine mandates that they are prepared to move jurisdictions or retire, which would exacerbate existing staffing shortages in some hospitals. If we don't want more hospital shortages, we should reconsider unnecessary vaccine mandates for those with hard-earned natural immunity, which includes nasal/mucosal immunity, unlike intramuscular vaccines that were developed for symptom reduction, https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/10/covid-intranasal-vaccine...

> Vaccines that are injected into the arm have done a spectacular job at preventing severe disease and death. But they do not generate the kind of protection in the nasal passages that would be needed to block all infection. That’s called “sterilizing immunity.” The fact that the vaccines don’t block all infections and don’t prevent vaccinated people from transmitting isn’t a big surprise, said Kathryn Edwards, a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt School of Medicine.

The UK's SAGE also commented on nasal (inhaler) vaccine development and the consequences of non-sterilizing intramuscular vaccines for variants, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti...

> Whilst we feel that current vaccines are excellent for reducing the risk of hospital admission and disease, we propose that research be focused on vaccines that also induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity in order to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals. This could also reduce the possibility of variant selection in vaccinated individuals.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#192

Post by loosescrews » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

jmfldn wrote: post #151

Purely anecdotal but I'm double vaccinated (Astra Zeneca) and I caught Covid recently. It was probably Delta as 99% of cases in UK are. I know of quite a few vaccinated friends who've caught it recently too. Mainly AZ I think but one was Pfizer (single jabbed). Anyway, none of us had severe illness although I felt pretty rough for a few days like I had a really bad cold and smell went for a week completely. I was bas…

Note that it appears that it is still unknown how likely breakthrough infections are to result in long Covid. The very limited data that does exist indicates that the likelyhood is rather high (~20%).

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/well/live/vaccine-long-co...

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#193

Post by pacerwpg » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

johnbaker92 wrote: post #156

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Lockdowns should have stopped covid. Maybe if people obeyed them, which they did not. > - Masks should have stopped covid. Maybe if people wore them, which they did not. > - Vaccines should have stopped covid. Maybe if people got them, which they did not. And now that there are new variants in the wild because of people not doing all of those things, the vaccines, lockdowns, and masks still keep ICU beds from ove…

Have we perhaps forgotten about Sweden which: - Did not force lockdown / masks onto anybody - Has one of the least vaccinated population in Europe (around 40% afaik) - Has had 0 covid deaths in the last couple weeks. - Has not had it worse than countries with stricter mandates. Are we also forgetting about Iceland / Israel which are among the most vaccinated countries in the world (on top of having stringent mandates…

Have you been actually following how things have gone? Sweden has 1708% more deaths to covid vs Norway, but only 84% higher population. That doesn't sound that great to me.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#194

Post by kaoD » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #184

schmichael wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we are about to face... I feel like this is what most experts were saying from near the beginning: this is not a few months problem. This is an ongoing problem that will require us to adapt just as it adapts. I remember many articles in 2020 projecting what the virus might look like 5 or 8 years out. Lockdowns and other extreme measures were about flattening infection curves to keep from overwhelming health…

I just dont see how getting a shot every year or six months for eternity is a viable solution. Not only that, vaccinated individuals can encourage new mutations (this is controversial, but I believe over time it will be realized)

> I just dont see how getting a shot every year or six months for eternity is a viable solution

What do you mean? We have yearly flu vaccinations.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#195

Post by sreque » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

sfink wrote: post #161

sreque wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is that the U.S. federal government in particular has been pretending for a while that we can get to zero COVID, then blaming the unvaccinated when it doesn't happen. First, they said we need 50% vaccination to achieve, herd immunity. Then 60%. Then 70%. Then 80%. When things don't work out, they vilify and blame the unvaccinated. In reality, unvaccinated with natural immunity are likely more protect…

Your numbers are wrong (see other responses for why.) The herd immunity figure (1) legitimately changed with the variants, and (2) is always going to be a shot in the dark so personally I don't find much point in paying attention to government figures anyway. Government is providing figures to achieve an outcome; it's fundamentally a policy tool. If you want the science, listen to scientists. The delta variant is cur…

I misremembered the numbers but if you click to the linked analysis the numbers are correct there.

As to the delta variant overwhelming hospitals, that's partially because hospitals are firing nurses that won't get vaccinated. The lack of beds is primarily a staffing problem and hospitals are shooting themselves in the foot. I've also heard they have been underpaying nurses and some are just quitting or switching to better-paying contract work.

Second, the media and even some hospital administration officials are blatantly deceiving people on actual hospital status: https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/08/06/fact-checking-4-claim...

There's a whole section there debunking the claims, for instance, that hospitals in Florida are overwhelmed.

I don't think anyone thinks that "moving on" means forgetting, but I do think it does entail having the government get out of the business of mandating lockdowns, masks, or vaccines. The problem lies in the fact that the media were too successful in scaring people to death about COVID. It makes handling the virus in a sane way impossible without negative political fallout.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#196

Post by silicon2401 » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #33

silicon2401 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People believe what's comfortable/convenient, not what's true. In very early 2020, when I was following the news of the virus development in Wuhan, China, I felt like a conspiracy theorist pointing out to friends and coworkers that a bad epidemic spreading in one of the most crowded parts of the world. They thought it was ridiculous to say that hospitals were getting overwhelmed, people were being quarantined etc. Do…

That's just fear mongering nonsense, like claiming that we can't reasonably say that aliens won't invade the Earth tomorrow. I mean I can't prove it's impossible but come on. There's no scientific evidence that a coronavirus can be both highly contagious and have a 30% fatality rate. CDC data clearly shows that the fatality rate in the US has been 0.6%, largely because we have a lot of vulnerable elderly people with…

Yes I'm aware of what today is like, now tell me what tomorrow will bring, because not many people have been able to do that so far. Instead, as I said, optimism is proven wrong as things just keep getting worse. But I'm sure you're right, all the other mis-steps to this point were flukes, this time you know for sure what the future holds.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#197

Post by osigurdson » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #125

johnbaker92 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that this comment (and probably mine) downvoted despite being a reasonable long-term response to this virus. Instead of mandating this vaccine worldwide, why don't we focus on collectively building a better / stronger health that would prevent the large majority of severe cases?

It is downvoted because it's pseudo-science.

Regular exercise should be a larger part of the conversation.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/does-exercise-help-prote...

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#198

Post by criticaltinker » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 8:53 PM UTC

sfink wrote: post #161

sreque wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is that the U.S. federal government in particular has been pretending for a while that we can get to zero COVID, then blaming the unvaccinated when it doesn't happen. First, they said we need 50% vaccination to achieve, herd immunity. Then 60%. Then 70%. Then 80%. When things don't work out, they vilify and blame the unvaccinated. In reality, unvaccinated with natural immunity are likely more protect…

Your numbers are wrong (see other responses for why.) The herd immunity figure (1) legitimately changed with the variants, and (2) is always going to be a shot in the dark so personally I don't find much point in paying attention to government figures anyway. Government is providing figures to achieve an outcome; it's fundamentally a policy tool. If you want the science, listen to scientists. The delta variant is cur…

> it wouldn't have done so with higher vaccination rates

That is the rhetoric that Fauci and others have been pushing, but the scientific literature is accumulating mounting evidence that counters the claim. Not to mention the data out of Israel - which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world - is also strong evidence against your claim. Israel is struggling with overwhelmed hospitals due to variants reducing the efficacy of vaccination and also naturally acquired immunity.

FWIW I'm keeping an open mind, please cite primary sources to support your claim and I will happily consider them.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#199

Post by sfink » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #171

sfink wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Before Delta, it was reasonable to resume almost all activities after being fully vaccinated. I don't believe that is true any longer. There are too many breakthrough cases, presumably driven by a much higher viral load that can overwhelm defenses. (The figures I have seen are 1000x in the upper respiratory tract of infected people; I haven't been following well enough to know what the increase is in actu…

Well, I made no predictions for the future. :) Vaccinated people are still mostly fine, even with Delta. You just don't get the close to 100% protection against severe disease, it's a little lower than that. It's still pretty good protection against severe cases (talking about mRNA vaccines). What's clearly disappointing is that the vaccines are not very good at preventing Delta from spreading. I have not seen good e…

Sorry, I was only disagreeing with the summary "You're mostly fine [because you are fully vaccinated]". I agree with everything else you said. My only disagreement is that I read "you're mostly fine" implying that it's still ok to resume (or in this case continue) regular activities. In my opinion, that is definitely no longer true if you live in or near an area with overburdened hospitals, and at the very least changes your calculations in other areas because it's again important to reduce transmission.

Before Delta, I felt like reducing transmission was good but not that important compared to the disadvantages of isolation. Delta shifted the tradeoff back in the other direction. How much is debatable, but personally I feel that quite a few activities that were ok, aren't anymore. I'm definitely still doing more than pre-vaccination, though.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#200

Post by sreque » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

kriskrunch wrote: post #160

tomrod wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please share some scientific citations showing natural immunity gives better protection than vaccines. This runs counter to what I'm hearing from my virologist sources.

Here are a couple of preprint studies that show naturally acquired immunity provides protection. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33948610/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33907755/ Meanwhile the CDC published this study showing the opposite: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm... I can understand why people are confused. There appears to be two camps, one that believes that science can defeat…

It really depends on the virus. For some viruses, the vaccines are far more effective and less risky and have helped eliminate or mostly eliminate the virus entirely. For other viruses, vaccines are far less effective.

The Israel data is clearly showing natural immunity doing better for COVID, and every other peer-reviewed study I have seen shows natural immunity doing "at least" as well as vaccinated immunity.