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The mutation that helps Delta spread

nature.com

471–480 of 641 posts

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#471
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen an evidence that supplements would prevent the majority of severe cases, or the neurological damage done (in even mild cases). Is this something backed up by data?

Anyything that makes your immune system work properly will help, the reason Covid is even a subject is that there is a silent epidemic of immunocompromised people, a large number of which are unaware that they are - the kind of people who routinely get sick in the winter, for instance. It's very strange that we are pretending that healthiness doesn't exist or can't be improved. It can, and rather easily and cheaply (…

why does improving vascular function help with dealing with covid?

  > etiology of Covid is closely linked to vascular health...
any links about that? im curious to take a look

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> What's so terrible about wearing a mask? They're uncomfortable. I wore a KN95 mask around a maternity ward while waiting for my wife to deliver, and after a few hours it smelt bad. The cloth masks get all sweaty when worn all day, in the summer, at an amusement park. The mask gets in the way when getting a haircut. (FWIW: I have some friends who really like wearing their masks, and continue to wear them because the…

> The cloth masks get all sweaty when worn all day, in the summer, at an amusement park.

You can put an extra one in your pocket.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#473
post #370

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.

Eating, drinking, smiling, frowning, grimacing, talking, kissing, recognizing our friends are all social activities that are impeded by masks. Humans are social animals.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read it as a stretch because first generation vaccines used in the campaigns all have shared targeting, and medical treatment is being discounted. > Such a narrow molecular focus raises the specter of viral immune evasion as a potential failure mode for these biomedical interventions This was from [1] > Backing up a provocative claim with a snowblind of irrelevant references is a shameful misinformation tact…

It's not valid to go from "vaccine escape may occur" to "mass vaccination is a public health risk". You can't claim B, which doesn't follow from A, and follow B up with a bunch of citations that only support A. That's misinformation about a high-stakes public issue, it's irresponsible, and it warrants harsh criticism.

> "vaccine escape may occur"

You're disregarding the nuances and evidence put forth in the cited literature - either intentionally or out of ignorance.

A much more fair representation is: "vaccine escape is exceedingly likely to occur under the conditions of mass vaccination combined with a vaccine that does not necessarily prevent infection and transmission, and which induces an immune response highly targeted toward the spike protein RBD"

In that case B absolutely follows from A. To argue otherwise is a non-sequiter.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#475
post #466
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one like having the right to show my face in public

You may find this sentiment to sour in our near future in which it will be mandatory to show your face in public for facial recognition tech to keep track of you...

I agree with that. I've never felt better about walking around in public. If I trip over myself and look like a fool and someone posts it to Instagram, nobody will know it's me! It's great!

(No I've never tripped over myself and had it posted to Instagram. But I do worry about it!)

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#476
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…

I'll get down voted but...

COVID and it's variants now have a growing reserve in the mammal animal populations of the world.

If we decide to continue this fight we must go in eyes wide open that this is an unwinnable war that will go on forever with ever new versions of vaccine immune COVID.

The problem is people believeing it will be over. And using that belief to justify opinions and action against others who believe the opposite... which is... since it's not going away we just have to live with it. We can not stop society for this. Society will collapse before this is eradicated to levels some members of public hope for.

You must consider the mutability of a virus along with is other attributes and respond accordingly.

Perhaps next we work on preventing earthquakes and volcanoes.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then most masks, by your logic (and not necessarily arguing your logic) aren’t working. The only way to completely seal off your mouth and nose is to wear a more fitted mask. The masks most (probably 99%+) people are wearing are ducting air on either side of the nose. And yes, most masks have the metal piece to help with this, but it doesn’t work. No matter how I adjust the metal piece, air makes its way out. So if w…

I think cloth masks are at the crossroads of wishful thinking and public health theater.

They absolutely have legitimate medical uses, and can prevent droplet borne disease transmission and thus there is a plausible mechanism by which they reduce spread. But I don’t think there’s any serious evidence that they are anything more than marginal with respect to the spread of COVID.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#479
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one like having the right to show my face in public

I for one like to not have to look at peoples mouths/noses, nor do I like to smell their breath/perfume/cologne/bo.

Not everyone has to wear a mask in order for you to wear one.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not valid to go from "vaccine escape may occur" to "mass vaccination is a public health risk". You can't claim B, which doesn't follow from A, and follow B up with a bunch of citations that only support A. That's misinformation about a high-stakes public issue, it's irresponsible, and it warrants harsh criticism.

> "vaccine escape may occur" You're disregarding the nuances and evidence put forth in the cited literature - either intentionally or out of ignorance. A much more fair representation is: "vaccine escape is exceedingly likely to occur under the conditions of mass vaccination combined with a vaccine that does not necessarily prevent infection and transmission, and which induces an immune response highly targeted towar…

Even if vaccine escape eventually occurs, it doesn't follow that mass vaccination itself is a bad policy. You have to weigh the consequences of the escape against the consequences of not mass vaccinating.

The consequences of not mass vaccinating are "a lot of people die that wouldn't have with the vaccine", so the consequences of escape need to be pretty dire to outweigh that. Does escape make the virus significantly more dangerous than it would have been if the vaccine were not used on such a large scale? It's unclear.

To answer that, one critical question would be whether the vaccine somehow hinders the immune system from developing a more complex and robust response to the virus. I have not seen anything that speaks to that question yet.

Antibiotic resistance don't make us regret the use of antibiotics. We just avoid using them without evidence that they are needed, and we use them in combination with other measures. Mass vaccination and a more targeted campaign are both consistent with both of those principles, and nuanced evidence and reasoning would be needed to favor one over the other.

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