Can someone tell if this would be a good personal/societal strategy: once you had covid, or fully vaxxed, it’s much better to be among other people, to be exposed to the virus and continuously train your immune system.
Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant
481–490 of 717 posts
Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant
#482If I'm reading this correctly, this is "protection against severe disease" and has little to do with transmission. The National Airport Data from Israel seems to suggest "the absolute number of infected individuals in the Vaccinated (boosted) group is likely to be at least as high as in the Unvaccinated" [0] So it seems to me that as long as we all remain obsessed with case numbers and not actual hospitalizations and…
We need to be able to predict the hospitalization rate to be prepared for surges, so tracking transmission is absolutely necessary. Perhaps after a long period of low hospitalizations (6 months, a year?) the general public can stop paying attention... but we're definitely not there yet. It's looking like high double and triple vaccination rates can do it (like 80%+), but that's starting to look impossible in some cou…
Covid is endemic and will be with us forever. The terror threat indicator on news networks lasted many years and I suspect the attention to covid will follow a similar attention cycle unless something else major happens and dominates the news cycle. You'll need biannual boosters until then
Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason why people are obsessed with case numbers and not deaths is that case numbers control the case numbers in the insufficiently immunized which predicts death toll 3 weeks ahead of time. Why would you want to control a system with 2-3 weeks of additional lag in your input data when case numbers (a thing that is somewhat easy to measure) correlates so well future deaths? Ideally politician would have some fami…
> Why would you want to control a system with 2-3 weeks of additional lag in your input data when case numbers (a thing that is somewhat easy to measure) correlates so well future deaths? Because case numbers are actually not easy to measure. I'm basing this of my personal experience working in a German healthcare company, we took up testing during the pandemic; All the tests we do are on unvaccinated people. That's…
The obvious solution to this problem is to do actual random sampling: pick members of the public in as close to a random fashion as possible, test them for Covid regardless of vaccination status or symptoms, and you should be able to get a reasonably unbiased estimate of actual infection levels in the community. The UK has been doing this since about spring 2020, but weirdly no-one else seems to even though it's obviously useful.
Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is absolutely no way to stop the spread forever. Just suggesting it is crazy. It is an option you have to forget about. Stalling the spread is useless as well - we have already had two major mutations in less than two years.
> There is absolutely no way to stop the spread forever. Well, there is, we just don't want to pay for it: vaccinating poor countries, where effectively the mutations are being created by high infection rates.
Don't forget to vaccinate the wild deer and other animals that catch and spread COVID.
Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fearmongering? I was literally forced to take it, with my company directly referencing Biden's order for companies > 100 to require it. I'm not sure where you get off calling it a conspiracy.
you were not "literally forced". you were given an option. they didn't hold you down. if you want additional protections you should lobby for those, maybe form a union, but don't lie about being forced to do something.
Your comments are incredibly disingenuous and you're the type of person who would be crying fascism under Trump.
Having a gun to your head is technically a choice too. This is your argument.
Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason why people are obsessed with case numbers and not deaths is that case numbers control the case numbers in the insufficiently immunized which predicts death toll 3 weeks ahead of time. Why would you want to control a system with 2-3 weeks of additional lag in your input data when case numbers (a thing that is somewhat easy to measure) correlates so well future deaths? Ideally politician would have some fami…
That’s not necessarily true. If you suddenly start testing low risk people you weren’t testing before, then you can get an increase in cases without necessarily an increase in death. For example, if you implement a travel rule that every traveler needs to get tested a day before they leave and a day after they arrive, then you’re going to see an increase in cases (both real and false positives).
Yeah, but in practice that hasn’t been relevant.
It’s important to be cautious, but it’s also important to not be a know-it-all who just because they can think of a limitation of a data collection / statistical method they can suddenly cast doubt on the whole thing, even though people who know much more about it already probably did exactly the same thing.
Finden a limitation of some data is extremely easy. Extremely easy. It will literally always be possible whenever people are working with data about people because this shit is hard. That doesn’t mean you get to name that limitation, cast doubt on something and piss off. That’s unproductive and irresponsible.
These are the facts: incidence is a great leading indicator if some care is taken with it and it’s regularly put into the larger context (i.e. given more vaccinations a higher incidence is possible until things turn to shit). And you can shout data limitations at that central fact until you are blue in the face but it’s still gonna be there and true.
Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant
#487Isn't it a little suspicious that they claim more of their existing vaccine will protect that well against the new variant? I don't want to question the rigour of their scientific testing, but it might be good to have independent tests done. Of course in parallel to giving out more booster shots, which can only help (by an unknown amount).
First neutralization test results posted by the Sigal group in Durban and the Ciesek group in Frankfurt agree with the BioNTech/Pfizer data.
Sigal did not test triple vaxxed.
Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
We get flu vaccine every year, what's wrong with getting vaccinated forever?
First of all, "we" don't all get the flu vaccine every year. Those of us who are healthy can elect not to get it and be just fine. Secondly, the flu vaccine isn't the same vaccine every year. It is reformulated to target the flu strains that are predicted to be dominant that season. Thirdly, the flu vaccines effectiveness varies wildly from pretty darn good to almost worthless. Usually depending on how accurately flu…
As a young, healthy person you don’t get the flu vaccine to protect yourself, you get it to lessen the chances that you’ll pass on the flu to someone elderly or immunocompromised for whom the flu is often deadly.
This is how vaccines work toward public health. Not by preventing illness in all cases, but by lessening the pool of potential cases to ease the health burden on the population.
It’s good practice as a citizen and a neighbor to get vaccinated.
Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fearmongering? I was literally forced to take it, with my company directly referencing Biden's order for companies > 100 to require it. I'm not sure where you get off calling it a conspiracy.
You're "literally forced" to do tons of things in order to participate in society in any major degree for the sake of public safety and standards of living. I don't know why you people get so obsessed about this effort to avoid spreading transmissible disease and not things like the requirement to not be naked in public, or requiring your vehicle to be considered safe to drive on public roadways. Don't pretend like t…
Having a properly functioning automobile and wearing clothes are not comparable to having shit injected into my body.
Tell me what else I need to be injected with in order to hold a job.
Re: Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been following the research closely and haven't seen this anywhere. Mind linking to the studies?
Discussion on HN of the Moderna vaccine released to GitHub. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26628233 Moderna targets one specific feature of one variant of the virus. If the virus evolves to minimize this structural feature, then this mitigation will fail.
> This is consistent with other research showing that people who are vaccinated then infected are more likely to get reinfected
A study that showed this was what I was looking for.