Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

#81

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #64

gunapologist99 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “It is generally the case that we have to make public health decisions based on imperfect data,” Why can't the public draw their own conclusions and make their own health decisions, based on (imperfect) public data? Why does the data have to be kept secret? (Perhaps the data doesn't support the "public health decisions" and dictates of the state?) If there's a concern that we can't effectively interpret the data, w…

What is the greater evil here? The slight odds of infection when they are likely outdoors, or that they are running track, passing out, getting dehydrated, breathing high levels of CO2, and the unknown long-term health effects of that ? It doesn't take much common sense to realize that exposure to virus is bad, masking while running is potentially much worse for everyone and not just the odd infection, and that it sh…

I realize that in a few cities people are pushing for universal outdoor masking, but I don't think that measure is all that widely supported by public health officials.

Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

#82

Post by meheleventyone » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

hackandtrip wrote: post #77

meheleventyone wrote: post #11

Tangentially related but I’m on day 9 of COVID infection which is easily the longest I’ve been sick in years. I got two shots of Pfizer last one on the 13th of July. If the vaccine has kept this relatively mild then I’m very glad. It sucks. My main symptoms are a stuffed up face, cough, sore throat, aching body and an extremely fuzzy head that seems to come and go. I had a slightly raised temp at the start but otherw…

I had a similar experience, with 10-12 days of mild symptoms (up to 40°C fever), but the general feeling of tiredness and the infamous "brain fog" stayed for 3-4 weeks (it's not completely gone yet). Definitely one of the worst sickness I've had, but both me and especially my parents (60+) had no respiratory problems and didn't need urgent treatment. I was waiting for my second dose when I got it and my parents were…

Yeah am pretty concerned about there being long term effects. Two of our friends got it really early on and both still have lingering symptoms.

Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

#83

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 1:20 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #56

grandpoobah wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you could specify which parts are not true, and provide a retort? What OP said seems to be consistent with what we're seeing, but I am by no means an expert on the subject, so I'd like to hear your counterpoints.

>>So the virus will happily keep infecting as many people as it can regardless of the vaccines. This part very specifically and provably isn't true. Vaccines reduce the actual transmission rate by about 90%. What you said about vaccinated people who have managed to get infected still carrying the same viral load is actually true - but your comment makes it sound as if the virus will keep spreading at the same pace re…

[deleted]

Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

#84

Post by gunapologist99 » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

hackandtrip wrote: post #77

meheleventyone wrote: post #11

Tangentially related but I’m on day 9 of COVID infection which is easily the longest I’ve been sick in years. I got two shots of Pfizer last one on the 13th of July. If the vaccine has kept this relatively mild then I’m very glad. It sucks. My main symptoms are a stuffed up face, cough, sore throat, aching body and an extremely fuzzy head that seems to come and go. I had a slightly raised temp at the start but otherw…

I had a similar experience, with 10-12 days of mild symptoms (up to 40°C fever), but the general feeling of tiredness and the infamous "brain fog" stayed for 3-4 weeks (it's not completely gone yet). Definitely one of the worst sickness I've had, but both me and especially my parents (60+) had no respiratory problems and didn't need urgent treatment. I was waiting for my second dose when I got it and my parents were…

Two of my relatives in their 80's just got it without any vaccine and similarly had a nasty flu; they took ivermectin and didn't need any urgent treatment, although O2 levels did drop into the low 90's at times. About five days after diagnosis (and well after the worst days), they received monoclonals. They're still weak but recovering. I know another person (young, in 20's) who had similar symptoms -- brutal flu, similarly believed that ivermectin "saved" him. Of course, it's unknown (but https://www.wsj.com/articles/fda-ivermectin-covid-19-coronav... )

Most cases seem to be relatively mild. There are always the ones that aren't, though, but it does seem like (in the absence of real, double-blind, public data) the vaccine doesn't have too much of an impact on delta in terms of the harshness of the sickness in breakthrough cases, but it might reduce the overall incidence and prevent the vaccinated from getting sick at all. However, the data always seems very weak, and always lags behind.

EDIT: definitely doesn't seem like getting vaccinated reduces the incidence, either: "three-fourths of the nearly 470 cases were in vaccinated people" from a leaked CDC memo: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccin...

Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

#85

Post by hartator » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #3

What an utterly redundant point. If you catch and do not die from the virus then yay for you I suppose, but you'll still spread it around while you have it, you still might die from the virus, and there is literally no downside to having a better immune response when you inevitably do catch COVID-19 as we're all going to eventually. Like everything else, the goal of every single public health measure at the moment is…

> no downside to having a better immune response

Side effects increase when we vaccinate younger population - that includes long term ones - Whereas younger population are very unlikely to have serious symptoms from the virus.

Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

#86

Post by gunapologist99 » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

"three-fourths of the nearly 470 cases were in vaccinated people"

https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccin...

(from a leaked CDC memo; it seems like figuring out whether the CDC data should have been kept secret at all is left as an exercise for the reader.)

(edit: better source)

Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

#87

Post by EugeneOZ » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #33

EugeneOZ wrote: post #20

Covid affects your intellect, vaccine doesn't. Simple choice.

> Covid affects your intellect Accordingly to a poorly designed paper, which is probably completely bullshit and not reproducible.

I see you are an expert. Will believe you then.

Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

#88

Post by phonypc » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #64

gunapologist99 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “It is generally the case that we have to make public health decisions based on imperfect data,” Why can't the public draw their own conclusions and make their own health decisions, based on (imperfect) public data? Why does the data have to be kept secret? (Perhaps the data doesn't support the "public health decisions" and dictates of the state?) If there's a concern that we can't effectively interpret the data, w…

What is the greater evil here? The slight odds of infection when they are likely outdoors, or that they are running track, passing out, getting dehydrated, breathing high levels of CO2, and the unknown long-term health effects of that ? It doesn't take much common sense to realize that exposure to virus is bad, masking while running is potentially much worse for everyone and not just the odd infection, and that it sh…

Masking doesn't change your CO2 status. Or dehydrate you.

Outdoor masking, outside the context of something like a crowded concert, is probably silly. But we can be pretty confident it won't affect your respiratory health.

Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

#89

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

gunapologist99 wrote: post #86

"three-fourths of the nearly 470 cases were in vaccinated people" https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccin... (from a leaked CDC memo; it seems like figuring out whether the CDC data should have been kept secret at all is left as an exercise for the reader.) (edit: better source)

If you have an outbreak in a highly vaccinated population, guess what is true of the people that get sick?

Consider the limit case, a 100% vaccinated population. If you have an outbreak, everyone that gets sick will have been vaccinated.

Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

#90

Post by leereeves » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #42

leereeves wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the virus would need to randomly evolve [resistance] in the unvaccinated That's only true if the vaccine stops almost all infections, which the COVID vaccines do not. There's another comment in this thread from someone who's been vaccinated and sick for 9 days. That's a great environment for the virus to evolve immunity to the vaccine. And it's not an uncommon situation.

>>That's a great environment for the virus to evolve immunity to the vaccine Again, like the person above you said, it's not that simple. Bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics because they can either avoid or start to digest the chemical that would normally be harmful to them. Here it's not the vaccine that's killing the virus - it's your own immune system, and every single one is different. So yeah, maybe i…

> it means literally nothing for how another person's immune system will behave when they encounter it.

Vaccinations teach everyone's immune system to target the same part of the virus. Since everyone has immunity to the same spike protein, a change in that protein means something to all vaccinated people.