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Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

news.harvard.edu

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Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#171

Post by [deleted] »

maxerickson wrote: post #103
mikem170 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If it means snogging random strangers ... might not be a reasonable thing to do until late 2021 or after for most of us" 7000 people ages 18-39 have dies of covid19 in the U.S. [0][1]. There's at least 75 million people in that age group! (maybe more, sorry no handy/easy/exact reference) That's 1 in 10,000 odds of dying for that age group. They are 20 times more likely to die of something else. I think it is unrea…

1 in 10,000 is the death rate so far, not the individual odds of dying if everyone in the age group gets sick.

[deleted]

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#172

Post by ketamine__ »

walterbell wrote: post #109
ketamine__ wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/10/do... > But here’s the key part: “cross-react” does not mean “neutralize” and it does not mean “provide protection from”. These antibodies may or may not have been neutralizing against the other coronaviruses, but they don’t seem to have any such effect on the current one. And in keeping with that, having such cross-reactive antibodies seems to provide no prot…

Yes, the topic of discussion is T-cells, NOT antibodies.

Yes, but you didn't read the article.

> Now, you can still make an argument that the T cell component of immunity might provide some protection after a previous coronavirus infection. The current study didn’t address this directly, but after these results, it’s at least less likely that that’s happening. The authors make a note of this, and also note that pre-existing mucosal antibodies might exert a protective effect (which this study didn’t examine, either). But prior circulating human coronavirus antibodies, even ones that can bind to the current one – those it looks like we can rule out. Which is too bad.

It's interesting that your comment omitted:

> The current study didn’t address this directly, but after these results, it’s at least less likely that that’s happening.

Why is that?

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#173

Post by DoreenMichele »

refurb wrote: post #170
DoreenMichele wrote: post #110

I hope they are correct. I also hope we will continue to be more careful about germ control from here on out in myriad ways. I hope we do not blithely go back to "business as usual" in a way that fosters future pandemics as if we learned absolutely nothing here.

Why wouldn’t we go back to normal? We’ve done that after stock market crashes, housing crashes and other pandemics. That’s what humans do. It takes about a decade or two before people assume it will never happen again.

For one shining moment, while the world burned, my life sort of worked because people were willing to let me take a wide berth around them without them glaring at me like I was some evil, hateful bitch for not wanting to be coughed on.

I don't want the pandemic to persist, but I desperately hope that the end of the pandemic doesn't have such a negative impact on my life as an individual with a compromised immune system as to make me wish it would come back.

I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to hope for, though I'm aware I may well not get it. I long ago got the memo that it's a shitty world full of shitty people and, no, this shitty world doesn't give a damn at all about my welfare or what I want. The world has been not at all shy about letting me know that.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#174

Post by boldpandabear »

mikem170 wrote: post #126
ceejayoz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a few people 18-39 have friends and family in more vulnerable age groups they can spread it to, and the "one-in-tens-of-thousands" odds are with unprecedented global mitigation measures. "The odds are low with distancing and closed nightclubs" is a weird argument for packed nightclubs being safe.

Why did you put "one-in-tens-of-thousands" in quotes? I looked it up, in 2019 there were 89 million 20-39 years olds in the U.S. [0], and 7000 ages 18-39 died dies of covid19 [1]. Mathematically that works out to 1 in 12,714, and would be a bit higher were 18-19 years added to the denominator. I didn't mean to exaggerate this number. You mentioned family in vulnerable groups. Lets grant common sense, that someone who…

Because viral theory is unproven and likely wrong. Much more likely that illness is the result of stress & conflict.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#175

Post by refurb »

erklik wrote: post #95
015a wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States has administered 2.3 million vaccination doses. Oh, lol no, not cumulatively. I mean Yesterday. We administered 2.3 million doses in about 14 daytime hours on March 12th. Naturally, the number of vaccinated individuals grows every day. That's what vaccinations do. But the number of doses we are administering every day is growing every day. One week ago, on March 8th, we administered about 2.05 milli…

>US will be one of the first countries back to normalcy I live in Australia. The country has been to normal for a long time now, and my state specifically had a lockdown at the start of the pandemic, and since August 2020, we have not had a major lock down (except for one week in Jan 2021 due to a outbreak scare) and have been living in normalcy since then. Just saying because it seems like people erasing and forgett…

Back to normal except for any unrestricted travel in or out of the country. Isn’t there a massive backlog of Australian citizens who have yet to be able to return?

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#176

Post by Method-X »

de6u99er wrote: post #112

A globally coordinated approach, similar to NZ's approach could have ended the oandemic already a year ago. Thanks to COVID-19 fatigue amongst the population, such an effort very close to impossible.

New Zealand is an island nation, which gives it a pretty significant advantage when it comes to controlling pandemics.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#177

Post by Animats »

mikem170 wrote: post #75
tialaramex wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That also depends what "normal" means to you. If normal just means you get to hug your grandmother who lives an hour away it might be safe right now (in a bunch of countries) or permitted but perhaps unwise (in a lot more countries) and it's likely that for most HN readers it will become a reasonable thing to do around mid-2021. If it means snogging random strangers at a crowded nightclub after a night of drinking th…

> "If it means snogging random strangers ... might not be a reasonable thing to do until late 2021 or after for most of us" 7000 people ages 18-39 have dies of covid19 in the U.S. [0][1]. There's at least 75 million people in that age group! (maybe more, sorry no handy/easy/exact reference) That's 1 in 10,000 odds of dying for that age group. They are 20 times more likely to die of something else. I think it is unrea…

Dying is 1 in 10,000. But about 10% of people who get coronavirus have some problems for months thereafter.[1] This is not well understood. "More than a third of them hadn’t returned to their usual state of health 2 to 3 weeks after testing positive. The older the patients, the more likely they were to say they their pre–COVID-19 health hadn’t come back. But even a quarter of the youngest, those aged 18 to 34 years, said they had not yet regained their health."

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771111

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#178

Post by pbourke »

gregwebs wrote: post #70

These articles are missing an important aspect of the vaccine: the immunity gained is non-sterilizing. [1] The vaccine stops the infection from becoming severe and spreading throughout the body, but it doesn't actually stop infection (and transmission) in the upper respiratory tract. So we don't have any evidence showing we can achieve herd immunity even with a 100% vaccination rate (this article is wrong). The only…

> some experts predict that we will see more deaths this year as we attempt to resume normal societal activities while SARS-COV-2 continues to circulate.

Some 35 million Americans - heavily weighted towards the most vulnerable - are fully vaccinated. Unless something wild happens with variants, I think these experts are being overly negative.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#179

Post by jb775 »

scott_w wrote: post #169
refurb wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m skeptical. Even countries like Singapore have constantly had 1 or 2 locally transmitted cases per month they can’t trace. Now multiply that across 170 countries some too poor to do what Singapore did. If every country had locked down like NZ, we would have just had a series of lockdowns and flare ups and more lockdowns. It certainly would have kept the case numbers much lower but can you imagine the fatigue after…

I can imagine the fatigue of what I’m currently going through of constantly locking down for 4 months at a time! Compared to that, having to lock down every couple of months for a week or two doesn’t seem anywhere near as bad. Oh, and we wouldn’t have 130,000 dead in the UK and 500,000+ dead in the USA!

To bad that simply isn't realistic when accounting for hundreds of millions of people. Not to mention the whole "freedom" thing.

Quit virtue signaling using conjecture and bogus stats (i.e. my way would have saved everyone!).

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#180

Post by pbourke »

betwixthewires wrote: post #105
Trasmatta wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it might take several more years for things to go back to somewhat normal. People always make statements like this, but nobody defines what "normal" actually means. Some things will probably never go back to the way they were. Does that mean things won't be "normal"? Normal also means entirely different things for different countries and different individuals. That's why I dislike statements like this, unless there…

Let's define normal as, no lockdowns, no business restrictions, public gathering restrictions, public activity restrictions, and no mask requirements.

For all of those, you’re probably looking at 2022. For some - enough that it feels much more like normal than it has in over a year - the middle of summer seems like a safe bet for most of the US.
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