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We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

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Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#201

Post by xyzzy123 »

jameshart wrote: post #149
xyzzy123 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not been able to find medical evidence that the vaccine has any benefits at all for under 5s. It's been theorised to reduce severe illness and death (and it's very plausible it might!) but afaict that's never actually been measured.

Vaccines are not only supposed to benefit the recipient. Vaccination is a public health program . If vaccinating under fives reduces the risk to preschool carers and enables us to maintain higher preschool capacity then that's a public benefit that has nothing. to do with whether it affects the individual outcomes of five year olds who contract covid.

Right but it doesn't prevent infection or transmission for more than a couple of months.

> If vaccinating under fives reduces the risk to preschool carers and enables us to maintain higher preschool capacity

I agree, but this is also not known.

Any broader public health benefits are theoretical at this point. They don't seem to have been measured or even modelled.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#202

Post by internet_user »

jameshart wrote: post #148
yucky wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>sorry i'm rereading your post and I'm not even sure what your issue is with the current definition Really? So the definition the CDC used for years to describe vaccines had to be changed, since by their own definition the COVID vaccine wasn't actually a vaccine. And the best part is they didn't even announce & explain the change, they just stealthily modified it on their website. And you don't understand why so many…

If our approach to public health and epidemiology isn't changed by our first encounter with a truly global pandemic in a century, we're doing it wrong.

We've had two pandemics since the typhus/flu pandemics of 1920s.

1. 1968 flu pandemic. 2. 1957 flu pandemic

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#203

Post by metadat »

robhunter wrote: post #71
metadat wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of prevailing attitudes and behaviors in Utah and Texas are good examples of what I consider to be a total disregard for public health. Again, this is just me, some individual on HN who doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things.

What are those attitudes and behaviors, exactly?

Refusing to wear a mask indoors, attending large social gatherings sans mask, not getting vaccinated, and so on.

It boils down to breathing into other people's faces a lot, which is what I call "exposure".

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#204

Post by internet_user »

jameshart wrote: post #130
peyton wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people I know parrot “safe and effective” whenever testing positive. Turning an FDA-regulated phrase into a joke doesn’t bode well for future trust in government scientists.

Lots of living, nonhospitalized people, who are catching a preventable disease because community vaccine uptake wasn't as high as it needed to be to really stamp out the disease... ... have somehow reached the conclusion that the vaccine which did them no harm whatsoever, and is responsible for their being likely to have a very mild case of the disease, was not safe or effective? Why on earth have they reached that c…

>which did them no harm whatsoever

Astrazeneca was suspended in eighteen countries across three continents. Nordic countries pulled Moderna.

"no harm"? really?

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#205

Post by internet_user »

jameshart wrote: post #122
ekianjo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What, with respect to vaccines, specifically, would you say has undermined trust? The constant lies about the so-called efficacy of the vaccines, and the fact that they are perfectly safe, when they aren't? And let's not forget the complete propaganda from the CDC/WHO as if they were the only ones allowed to talk about vaccines.

No, you see, I get that you are an example of a person who doesn't trust the vaccines. But that doesn't explain why you don't trust them. You're using the fact that you believed a lot of anti-vaccine arguments as support for why you... chose to believe a lot of anti-vaccine arguments.

Why did 18 countries pull Astrazeneca? Why did Nordics pull Moderna?

Are they all populated exclusively by anti-vaxxers?

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#206

Post by cameldrv »

TeeMassive wrote: post #157
randomhodler84 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, stop staying this foolishness. In dense cities like NY, I would say at least 20% of the city is infected right now. Workers. People on the street. The subway is disgusting, there is at least one infected person per carriage coughing over everyone and refusing to wear a mask. You walk around and hear that infected lung with light mucus cough. It’s everywhere. Unless we get proper proper sterilizing vaccines, the w…

> In dense cities like NY, I would say at least 20% of the city is infected right now. Workers. People on the street. The subway is disgusting, there is at least one infected person per carriage coughing over everyone and refusing to wear a mask. You walk around and hear that infected lung with light mucus cough. It’s everywhere. If you are to insult people's intelligence then don't use your own germophobic anecdotal…

Bob Wachter, who is the chair of medicine at UCSF periodically publishes the UCSF asymptomatic test positive rate. Everyone who is admitted to UCSF takes a Covid test. This rate is the fraction of people who are admitted without Covid symptoms, that test positive. IMO this is a very good number because it's a somewhat randomized population that is being tested in a controlled way, without too much bias.

The latest number he posted, from July 3, was 6.5% [1]. This means roughly 1 in 15 people you come across in San Francisco is positive for Covid. If you're on a crowded bus or train car, there will be multiple Covid positive people on it, and likely one that is contagious. If you regularly take transit and aren't wearing a really excellent mask, it's pretty likely you'll catch it over the course of a month or two.

Back to anecdotes, about 70% of the people I know that fit this description and ride transit in a big city without a mask have gotten symptomatic Covid in the past 3 months. All of them boosted btw.

[1] https://twitter.com/Bob_Wachter/status/1543780608744165376

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#207

Post by internet_user »

puffoflogic wrote: post #123
ars wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it basically doesn't work for children. It's nothing to do with the speed of the trial, the vaccine just doesn't work in children. Even the approved one that exists today barely does anything. There were a ton of attempts before that that simply straight out didn't work.

What does this have to do with anything? The CDC said we need to take the vaccine. That's all you need to know. If you need to take it then obviously kids need to take it too.

Why did UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) refuse to recommend universal vaccination to 12-15s on risk benefit basis? How did these internationally renowned vaccinologists and immunologists suddenly become antivaxxers overnight?

  Professor Andrew Pollard, Chair (University of Oxford)
  Professor Lim Wei Shen, Chair COVID-19 immunisation (Nottingham University Hospitals)
  Professor Anthony Harnden, Deputy Chair (University of Oxford)
  Dr Kevin Brown (Public Health England)
  Dr Rebecca Cordery (Public Health England)
  Dr Maggie Wearmouth (East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust)
  Professor Matt Keeling (University of Warwick)
  Alison Lawrence (lay member)
  Professor Robert Read (Southampton General Hospital)
  Professor Anthony Scott (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)
  Professor Adam Finn (University of Bristol)
  Dr Fiona van der Klis (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Netherlands)
  Professor Maarten Postma (University of Groningen)
  Professor Simon Kroll (Imperial College London)
  Dr Martin Williams (University Hospitals Bristol)
  Professor Jeremy Brown (University College London Hospitals)
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/joint-committee-on-vacc... https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2180

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#208

Post by lifeplusplus »

b0ner_t0ner wrote: post #186
lifeplusplus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or to make working public transportation a norm across the country and interstate travel

Please see comment on why this won't happen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31894308

that's hilarious.. but here is a thing lot of people grew up entirely dependent on cars in suburbs, so they think that's the best. They really have no other perspective, only context they have is really bad buses in really bad neighborhoods. And obviously if you are drawing your conclusion based on that limited experience you will conclude that I'd never pick to be in there. Same with suburbs, people who were born there, grew up there and now are living there will come up with bunch of reason why it's SOO GOOD to be there. But they don't know the ease of being in walking distance of doctors, pharmacy, gym, grocery stores, chain food stores, public transportation, parks, school, etc. I who has lived in NYC, had to live in a suburban area due to job for a year. And I finally understood things about USA culture that I couldn't get before..

- Why in movies college is seen as peak of life? Because if you live in a suburb that's the last time you are going to be around new people in general. Rest of your life is going to be in isolated house, isolated car, and some workmates.

- Why car was/is seen as a symbol of freedom? Need to buy milk? drive 10 miles in that direction, need to go to gym? drive 8 miles in that direction.

- Why guns are so valuable? If you live in middle of nowhere cops aren't coming on time..

- Why going to church is so big? Well that's the last place left to socialize after college, that and walmart.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#209

Post by lifeplusplus »

saltminer wrote: post #125
lifeplusplus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or to make working public transportation a norm across the country and interstate travel

These are not mutually exclusive, reducing car dependency requires massive investment in public transit.

That's my point, if you had better transportation system it'd reduce car dependency, but you can't create economically viable public transportation system for suburbs, which were designed to maximize roads. Not be pessimistic, but it'd take efforts along the line of fighting a new world war to fix this. People who live in suburbs suffer with a form of stockholm syndrome and really thing they are living the best life. Yet they end up spending most of their lives isolated and in traffic. Cities should be designed that things you need daily/weekly/monthly are close to you. Let's see what do I need, or have needed in last two weeks: Pharmacy, medical specialists, grocery stores, hardware store, barber shop, food shops, accountant, library, park... and I've walked to all of them. For each one of these I'd have to make potentially a separate trip in a car, if I was living in suburbs.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#210

Post by Auracle »

rayiner wrote: post #114
DennisP wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American with very little appetite for catching Covid, I'll be first in line for a universal covid vaccine.

I had it, before a vaccine was available, and it was a nothing burger, like it was for most 30-somethings. If you already have natural immunity, or 1-2 doses of the vaccine, there’s no point worry about it.

I had the original strain and then delta 9 months later. I was 33-ish, decent BMI and I get more exercise than 99% of people.

Both times I had two full weeks of extremely high fevers and I was the most fatigued I’ve ever been in my life, to the point where it was an incredible challenge to feed myself or go to the bathroom. The first time my around my lungs hurt enough where I could barely take a full breath and I developed a cough so bad I couldn’t really talk for at least a few weeks after the infection waned.

Granted, I have a really crappy immune system and I always get colds when exposed to someone sick and they hit me hard for at least a week with another week or two of symptoms. That said, your experience isn’t everyone’s.

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