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George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

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Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#141

Post by CryptoPunk »

junon wrote: post #134
CryptoPunk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the virus spreads among the vaccinated any way. Moreover, the global population of unvaccinated will not be meaningfully affected by any one country's decision to mandate vaccination. And the mutation rate is dependent on the size of the global population of virus carriers, not one country's. So all-in-all, I see very weak justification for such a heavy handed mandate, no matter how useful I think vaccination is.

> But the virus spreads among the vaccinated any way. At an incredibly reduced rate, and mutations generally do not spread to others. > Moreover, the global population of unvaccinated will not be meaningfully affected by any one country's decision to mandate vaccination. I don't see how that's relevant to my original response. > And the mutation rate is dependent on the size of the global population of virus carriers…

>>At an incredibly reduced rate, and mutations generally do not spread to others.

It's a fast enough where Iceland is now experiencing its largest wave yet, despite having a nearly fully vaccinated population. And why would vaccination stop mutated strains from spreading?

>>I don't see how that's relevant to my original response.

It's relevant to whether any one country has cause to mandate vaccination.

>>Mutations occur irrespective of any human constructs such as nations, countries, borders, etc.

My point is that - even if vaccination affected the size of the infected population and thus the opportunity for the virus to mutate - one country's decision to vaccinate will not meaningfully affect the global vaccination rate and therefore the global mutation rate.

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#142

Post by rajin444 »

junon wrote: post #134
CryptoPunk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the virus spreads among the vaccinated any way. Moreover, the global population of unvaccinated will not be meaningfully affected by any one country's decision to mandate vaccination. And the mutation rate is dependent on the size of the global population of virus carriers, not one country's. So all-in-all, I see very weak justification for such a heavy handed mandate, no matter how useful I think vaccination is.

> But the virus spreads among the vaccinated any way. At an incredibly reduced rate, and mutations generally do not spread to others. > Moreover, the global population of unvaccinated will not be meaningfully affected by any one country's decision to mandate vaccination. I don't see how that's relevant to my original response. > And the mutation rate is dependent on the size of the global population of virus carriers…

> Take the opposite case. Nobody vaccinates, we stop caring. What is the outcome?

We’ll never know. We have no proper controls. Just because B comes after A does not mean A implies B.

I’m exaggerating (some of our measures seem performative, but it looks like vaccines do a good job preventing severe illness), but places like Sweden would be decent to look at. They’ve had much better outcomes with nowhere near the restrictions.

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#143

Post by hallihax »

Grimm1 wrote: post #57
s1artibartfast wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if there was a medical treatment prbabisticly reduced aggression, violence, or other antisocial behavior?

Well today if you were to punch me you'd likely be on trial for assault, and if you killed me, murder. Antisocial behaviors generally aren't legally punishable until they're taken out on someone else. In this case, if you choose not to get the vaccine and then through contact tracing or some other mechanism an outbreak is traced to you when you could have gotten a vaccine? Assault sounds correct to me and if you kill…

I'm not aware of any actual data on this, but it seems to me that those who choose not to be vaccinated are probably also very unlikely to be tested on any regular basis (if at all), and also (at least in the UK, where I am) not engage in any kind of voluntary contact tracing.

There seems to me to be a gap between what people think is happening, and what is actually happening. How exactly are people who haven't tested positive for Covid (either through a negative result, or simply avoiding testing altogether) going to be identified as the source of an outbreak if they're also not engaging in contact tracing in the first place?

As it stands, it seems to me like the most likely people to be contact traced are those who are also testing regularly, and are also the most likely to be vaccinated. I would be surprised if non-vaccinated people are anything but rarely identified as the source of an outbreak, precisely because they're also much less likely to ever get tested (unless seriously ill) or engage in contact tracing.

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#144

Post by Treblemaker »

criticaltinker wrote: post #9
Treblemaker wrote: post #2

Disappointing, given the evidence that "natural" immunity has been shown to be less effective at producing neutralizing antibodies than many of the vaccines that are available[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01377-8

> given the evidence that "natural" immunity has been shown to be less effective at producing neutralizing antibodies than many of the vaccines that are available Down-voted because this is misinformation. First of all the citation you provided does not support your claim at all . Second, a large body of literature suggests that vaccination and natural infection induce a robust and durable immune response that is mos…

Thank you for the other references.

> Down voted because this is misinformation

I would hope you might agree that term is better reserved for bullshit conspiracy theories and not peer reviewed research published in one of the most cited journals in the world.

> the citation you provided does not support your claim

Upon re-reading the paper I still find that my claim is supported.

"Although antiviral T and B cell memory certainly contribute some degree of protection, strong evidence of a protective role for neutralizing serum antibodies exists. For example, passive transfer of neutralizing antibodies can prevent severe SARS-CoV-2 infection in multiple animal models,12,13 and Regeneron has recently reported similar data in humans14. We therefore focus our studies on in vitro virus neutralization titers reported in studies of vaccinated and convalescent cohorts"

"To compare neutralization titers across studies, we determined the mean and standard deviation (on a log scale) of the neutralization titer in published data from seven vaccine studies (mRNA-1273, NVX-CoV2373, BNT162b2, rAd26-S+rAd5-S, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, Ad26.COV2.S and CoronaVac) and one convalescent study3,16,17,18,19,20,21,22"

" This model assumes that there is a protective neutralization level, T, above which individuals will be protected from infection and below which individuals will be susceptible. The protective efficacies observed in phase 3 clinical trials of vaccinated individuals (and another large cohort study of convalescent individuals1; "

[data shows higher level of neutralizing antibodies from four of the vaccines compared with convalescent studies]

It is possible -- even likely -- that I have misunderstood the paper. And both you and the paper I cited agree that more research is needed to establish the correlation between levels of neutralizing antibodies and protection from infection and disease. But my claim was _about_ the levels of neutralizing antibodies and as I understand it that claim is supported by the paper.

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#145

Post by Treblemaker »

bpodgursky wrote: post #4
Treblemaker wrote: post #2

Disappointing, given the evidence that "natural" immunity has been shown to be less effective at producing neutralizing antibodies than many of the vaccines that are available[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01377-8

Could you point at the part of this paper that summarizes this result? I'm not seeing any comparison in this paper between the neutralizing response of a vaccination vs natural infection.

The data is in the tables, summarized in Figure 1:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01377-8/figures/1

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#146

Post by importantbrian »

loxias wrote: post #138
landemva wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'I can't even drive a store bought car without a drivers license.' If you are a corporation or business, that is generally true. If you are using a conveyance in your personal capacity, then you are not regulated unless you voluntarily sign up to be licensed. Your choice. "For while a citizen has the right to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, that right does not extend to the use…

Thanks for this! (really) And thanks for a great citation. I don't have a drivers license. I always assumed driving a car without a license, registration, and proof of insurance was illegal and would get me in trouble. I admit, I didn't research this aspect before writing my above comment (tho I did research the vaccine requirements, my source is a government website). Now I don't quite know what to think! Can I lega…

I'm late to the party on this but before you go trying to drive without a license what OP posted is untrue. Here's is a good write up about it from Snopes. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/supreme-court-rules-driver...
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