Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The mutation that helps Delta spread

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 641 posts

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#391

Post by civilized »

breck wrote: post #385
civilized wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stand by my post. None of this says anything remotely implying what you claimed, that the mass vaccination programs pose a serious public health risk. That is purely your speculation, vaguely inspired by the content of the papers. Your contention that it matters whether the campaign is compulsory or not only takes you further from your supposed evidence base. It's not even in the same universe as what the papers ar…

I disagree. I think it is a serious public health risk, at a certain probability, and you've provided no sources or math to explain what the probability is. Can you enlighten us as to what the probability of vaccine escape is? Is the risk of vaccine escape 50%? 5%? .5%? .00005%? I have no idea what the OOM of possibilities is (I am attempting to model it). I appreciate all literature that explores that. Clearly we've…

To repeat what I've said several times now (how can I be more clear?), the risk of vaccine escape does not imply a particular public health policy. There is no procedure that tells us what policy we should choose based on vaccine escape risk, because it isn't the only consideration. It is irresponsible to make authoritative pronouncements on a complex public health policy issue when you're completely fixated on one particular risk. Unless you're willing to describe EVERY possible action as a public health risk, in which case you should be honest and upfront about the obscure, misleading choice of language.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#392

Post by Jeema101 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #354
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…

There’s a question of preferences that too often gets buried in this debate. If Covid becomes endemic at around its current severity, what level of pandemic restrictions are you willing to accept forever? For me personally, Covid would have to be at least 100 times worse before I’d support masking forever. But I get the sense that some people barely see any downside to it. I think these cross-views drive so much if t…

I hope I am mistaken here, but... are you saying that it would need to kill 1/6th of the population every year (instead of 1/600) before you will consider putting a piece of cloth over your face?

What's so terrible about wearing a mask?

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#393

Post by tedunangst »

walterbell wrote: post #273
vkou wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because mass vaccination combined with a vaccine that does not necessarily prevent infection and transmission creates selective pressure that is likely to further enhance the fitness of the virus and will lead to variants that escape the immune response in both vaccinated and naturally infected individuals. And yet, the Delta variant evolved in an 100% unvaccinated population - and is quite happily punching through…

Why should already-immune, recovered people be vaccinated?

Simple answer is many people incorrectly self diagnose as recovered, and it's faster and easier to vaccinate than test for actual prior infection. And it provides even more robust immunity.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#394

Post by solarengineer »

tiahura wrote: post #372
dcolkitt wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a question of preferences that too often gets buried in this debate. If Covid becomes endemic at around its current severity, what level of pandemic restrictions are you willing to accept forever? For me personally, Covid would have to be at least 100 times worse before I’d support masking forever. But I get the sense that some people barely see any downside to it. I think these cross-views drive so much if t…

“what level of pandemic restrictions are you willing to accept forever?” That’s the question our leaders seem to be terrified to answer. How long until Fauci admits that its not just going to go away?

Non-American here from Singapore.

There’s “not going away” and then there’s “are enough vaccinated? Are the vulnerable vaccinated? Do we have hospital bed and nurse +doctor capacity?”

Here in Singapore, we’re ensuring that those above 60 get vaccinated where feasible before we fully open up. Meanwhile, with an increasing percentage of the population getting vaccinated, there are gradual lifting of controls. The Ministerial Task Force have said a few months ago that Singapore will have to prepare for the possibility that COVID 19 will be endemic.

I suggest that rather than take potshots at Faucci, it’d be wise to understand whether your hospital systems are ready for an upsurge in those who need to be hospitalised.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#395

Post by dboreham »

OliverGilan wrote: post #383
aflag wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so bad about face masks? Just trying to understand.

I wear glasses and masks are basically untenable. I have yet to wear a mask and not fog up my glasses. Maybe I'm just an idiot, I don't know, but being able to see properly is far more valuable to me than not getting COVID (in it's current state and threat level to me).

With some work it's possible to find and fit masks that don't fog glasses. Fwiw in order to work effectively as an "outbound" filter , the mask must not duct exhaled air around it's seal with the face. So fogging means it isn't working.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#396

Post by Talanes »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #244
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?

I'm not sure if this is technically feasible, but maybe a yearly covid shot just gets added to the flu shot routine. Either through the same shot, or two shots in one visit.

Less than half of Americans get flu shots though.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#397

Post by tedunangst »

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?

Disappointing that nobody can provide a real answer. A third shot 6-8 months later seems to provide robust immunity. Same with measles or any other shot regime, which is administered over a course of several months, but not continuously and forever.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#398

Post by fy20 »

red_trumpet wrote: post #278
belter wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing your experience. >"... Of course the thing to emphasise is that, whilst it might break through, the vaccine still stops serious illness to a high degree...." Important to note, vaccines do not protect you, its the immune response they trigger and the level of antibodies that will protect you. What really should be happening should be a mass vaccination program and a mass antibodies level testing pr…

It's not just antibodies though. Vaccines also trigger you to get memory cells, which have a longer life span. So even if your antibody levels go down after ~6 months, and you might get infected again, your immune system will have a faster and more precise reaction, preventing a more severe course of covid.

This is what a lot of people do not understand. Antibodies are basically the front line soldiers fighting the virus, but there's no point keeping them deployed even after the war is over.

Memory cells circulate in the blood stream for much longer - sometimes decades for other pathogens - and if they identify their target antigen, will quickly trigger an immune response and produce new antibodies.

Having a high number of antibodies correlates with a strong immune response and lower rates of incidence, but that doesn't mean having a high number of antibodies is needed for that. It's really too early to say exactly how long term immune response works with this virus, as the only studies that have been completed so far are small samples sets or short time frames.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#399

Post by cryptonector »

aflag wrote: post #370
dcolkitt wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a question of preferences that too often gets buried in this debate. If Covid becomes endemic at around its current severity, what level of pandemic restrictions are you willing to accept forever? For me personally, Covid would have to be at least 100 times worse before I’d support masking forever. But I get the sense that some people barely see any downside to it. I think these cross-views drive so much if t…

What's so bad about face masks? Just trying to understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iaIYlcD_Po

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#400

Post by rolph »

godmode2019 wrote: post #359
rolph wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when reproduction[X] occurs before a selective factor[y] is in play, the selective factor has no first order influence on reproductive success. the theory of inverse relationship between severity of symptoms and transmissibility, is based on the idea that sick individuals spend more time laying in convolesence than interacting with other individuals. this mechanism goes out the window when the infection is transmissi…

Its also based on what is not getting used to increase fitness gets repurposed. Causing illness in the host after it has finished spreading has no evolutionary advantage. So those traits are less likely to make it to the next epoch.

causing illness in the host after transmission allows more contact between infected and putative hosts thus conspecific differential of reproductive success.

prospecific differential reproductive success occurs when variations are able to generate progeny that themlelves are capabe of reproducing. i.e. delta variant sars2

evolution occurs when the properties leading to these phenomenon are genetically based and transmitted through populations at varied frequencies subject to differential natural selection i.e. the fittest as in most apt to survive to reproductive modality.

Post reply on HN