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Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

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Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#131

I'm pretty surprised to still see some misinformation in some of the posts here. I have a friend who has a PhD in molecular biology and she described the mRNA vaccines to me. The mRNA is only a piece of the spike protein, and does not enter the cell's nucleus. It only interacts with the cytoplasm. Normally, if a cell had to deal with an actual SARS-CoV-2 virus, it would be dealing with the spike proteins and the enti…

I have never ever on HN seen an argument about DNA and mRNA, but then again I don't follow the conversation too much. As it seems like you know someone with correct background on the subject, so I wanted to ask you something I've always wanted to know as a young,(late 20s) healthy person with no existing risky precondition in this pandemic: Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can…

> If the chance of me getting hospitalized is so low to begin with

I just don't think this is true. Again, look at the states in the US with the lowest levels of vaccination. They are running out of ICU beds due to the amount of cases.

I'm not sure where you're located. Maybe there's a low amount of cases there, but in general, the risk of being hospitalized (and maybe not having a bed to go to) is rather high. The delta variant is also affecting young people more than other variants before it. I personally think getting the COVID vaccine is a smart choice.

In terms of vaccinated people still spreading the virus, the idea with vaccination is to reduce the chance of being hospitalized. That still seems like a big benefit to me.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#132

I'm pretty surprised to still see some misinformation in some of the posts here. I have a friend who has a PhD in molecular biology and she described the mRNA vaccines to me. The mRNA is only a piece of the spike protein, and does not enter the cell's nucleus. It only interacts with the cytoplasm. Normally, if a cell had to deal with an actual SARS-CoV-2 virus, it would be dealing with the spike proteins and the enti…

I have never ever on HN seen an argument about DNA and mRNA, but then again I don't follow the conversation too much. As it seems like you know someone with correct background on the subject, so I wanted to ask you something I've always wanted to know as a young,(late 20s) healthy person with no existing risky precondition in this pandemic: Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can…

> when it is now known that vaccinated people can still spread the virus

I imagine this is not binary but you are likely to be less sick and less contagious.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#133
post #93
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If once vaccinated the virus is mostly harmless" Note that even not vaccinated, the ultra large majority of people either are asymptomatic or don't get anything worst than a flu (which doesn't mean covid = flu in general) We seem to have forgotten that the original concern with the virus was the fact that it saturated intensive care units in hospitals, and thus prevented people from getting proper care.

That’s the original acute concern. Long run we still don’t know if it will have effects on brain function etc. There are some disturbing lines of evidence on this front. For example the UK biobank showing grey matter loss post infection including in mild cases: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v...

i remember this study, but i'm surprised we don't have more papers on the same topic since. It seemed like a pretty big news, and yet i don't hear people recommending mass-vaccination mention it.

Any idea why ?

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#134

I'm pretty surprised to still see some misinformation in some of the posts here. I have a friend who has a PhD in molecular biology and she described the mRNA vaccines to me. The mRNA is only a piece of the spike protein, and does not enter the cell's nucleus. It only interacts with the cytoplasm. Normally, if a cell had to deal with an actual SARS-CoV-2 virus, it would be dealing with the spike proteins and the enti…

I have never ever on HN seen an argument about DNA and mRNA, but then again I don't follow the conversation too much. As it seems like you know someone with correct background on the subject, so I wanted to ask you something I've always wanted to know as a young,(late 20s) healthy person with no existing risky precondition in this pandemic: Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can…

I lack the background on biology, just a layperson take.

> Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can still spread the virus, there's an almost neglible chance of side effect, and with no information about possible long-term side effect.

There's unknowns about the long-term effects of infection, too. Several viral infections result in prolonged symptoms or decades-later re-emergence.

Bottom line IMO - there's little/no treatment for the infection resulting from this virus. So the best solution medicine can offer is the vaccine. Safe vaccines have been designed and administered before, so I hope this is among the many safe vaccines. We know it's effective at mitigating symptoms and we know it's effective at reducing the spread.

I think taking the vaccine is the net least risk, but you're right that there's stuff that we just don't know.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#135
post #129
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally not true about tetanus and other vaccines to go to college. EDIT: Meningitis is the exception.

This is where I went to undergrad: https://www.purdue.edu/push/Immunization/

Go look at ALL the other colleges. That is only one.

https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/features/vaccines-for-college...

EDIT: Example, University of Texas,

https://www.healthyhorns.utexas.edu/requiredvaccine/

Meningitis and measles

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#136

I'm pretty surprised to still see some misinformation in some of the posts here. I have a friend who has a PhD in molecular biology and she described the mRNA vaccines to me. The mRNA is only a piece of the spike protein, and does not enter the cell's nucleus. It only interacts with the cytoplasm. Normally, if a cell had to deal with an actual SARS-CoV-2 virus, it would be dealing with the spike proteins and the enti…

I have never ever on HN seen an argument about DNA and mRNA, but then again I don't follow the conversation too much. As it seems like you know someone with correct background on the subject, so I wanted to ask you something I've always wanted to know as a young,(late 20s) healthy person with no existing risky precondition in this pandemic: Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can…

> when it is now known that vaccinated people can still spread the virus

Why wear your seatbelt if you can still die in a collision? Why bother with refrigeration when cold food can still rot?

You can't think of risk in terms of binaries; bad things are still possible with the best safety technologies, but that doesn't mean those technologies aren't worthwhile.

As an aside, the virus is actively changing over time, and delta variant is putting a lot more young people in the hospital.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#137

I'm pretty surprised to still see some misinformation in some of the posts here. I have a friend who has a PhD in molecular biology and she described the mRNA vaccines to me. The mRNA is only a piece of the spike protein, and does not enter the cell's nucleus. It only interacts with the cytoplasm. Normally, if a cell had to deal with an actual SARS-CoV-2 virus, it would be dealing with the spike proteins and the enti…

Whatever is causing the severe side-effects, it's probably not the MRNA or the spike protein. With Pfizer/Moderna vaccines, it's likely the lipid nanoparticles causing Myocarditis. With the J&J vaccine, it's likely the viral vector that is causing TTS. Both technologies have never been widely deployed before. The fact that we could not predict and still do not understand these side-effects is quite concerning. It als…

I've read that Myocarditis can happen with actual COVID cases as well [1]. To me that makes sense, considering that the mRNA-based vaccines generate a portion of the spike protein similar to the actual virus.

[1] https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/comment/myocarditis-covi...

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone knows you can't predict what a treatment will do just by knowing its mechanism - if you could, clinical trials would never fail. Talking about the mechanism is the least effective way to explain how it's safe, because most people realize that well-controlled studies are the only true authority.

Except we’ve been studying this for well over a hundred years, and it’s not a medication, it’s only presenting something to the immune system so it can perform it’s singular task on. So, by this point, you’re telling me I can’t understand what editing a cell in my excel spreadsheet will do without a huge test of hundreds or thousands of people all making the same edit to figure out if it’ll work. We know it works. We…

The claims that rare side effects have been well-characterized and can be predicted from the mechanism alone are simply not true - the FDA itself required further postmarketing studies (to be finished around 2023) as a requirement in their approval letter. The foundation of convincing people that taking the vaccine is safer than not taking it cannot be the false claim that the probabilities of each side effect are known, because they are not. Instead we should focus on the true claim that the virus is much more dangerous and also not completely characterized.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#140
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trauma center emergency room in my state is diverting patients to less-capable facilities. Elective surgeries (such as for cancer and other life-threatening conditions) are being cancelled. All of this is happening in states representing perhaps a third of the US population. Not being able to get lifesaving cancer removal surgery is the state of affairs that people colloquially mean when say a medical system is "…

> Not being able to get lifesaving cancer removal surgery is the state of affairs that people colloquially mean when say a medical system is "collapsing." Rural medical systems in places with low vaccination rates are collapsing. The American health system, broadly, is not. Being relocated to a smaller hospital is not good; collapse is being denied altogether. (EDIT: Was not aware that parts of the country are, in fa…

I live in one of the top 10 largest American cities (our metro population is, roughly, larger than all European cities except Moscow and London).

> Being relocated to a smaller hospital is not good

The rural hospitals in our state have effectively been in collapse for months, using our major metro city hospitals as a backstop. There is no relocation to smaller hospitals, there is only cancellation of lifesaving treatments. The backstop has failed.

I am aware of this happening in other very large cities in America as well.

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