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Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

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Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#181

Post by angelzen »

standardUser wrote: post #171
angelzen wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only vaccines were to prevent covid spread. 'CDC: COVID-19 Vaccines 66% Effective Against Delta Variant'. https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021082...

What point are you trying to make? And why do you think a link to a single study without explanation would prove any point whatsoever?

That according to CDC data 1/3 of vax people are going to develop an infection. There is no way to purge covid infections from the population, not even with 100% vax rate. In a population 67% vaccinated or higher, there are going to be more vax infections than unvax infections. At which point choosing to vax oneself or not is not going to keep covid from spreading and becomes a personal choice.

If you are an adult, would do you good to get vaxed. But seems strange that the OP claimed to be 'libertarian' and yet in favour of forced vax. There is a big difference between 'this is what I think would do you good, but I'm going to respect your decision regardless' and 'get vaxed or else' position so many have embraced of late.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#182

Post by nradov »

whymauri wrote: post #6
giantg2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let's not forget that people with natural antibodies are being fired from their private sector jobs too. We seem to be focused on measuring output rather than outcomes. Other countries are giving recovered people the same status as the vaccinated since they have the antibodies. But I guess that makes too much sense...

Natural antibodies + vaccination is basically a win-win for everyone, especially noting that the US is wasting vaccines rather than using them. You don't lose anything by getting the vaccine and there's a strong upside in resistance (around 10x more resistant than people who are simply vaccinated). Like, between a 100-200$ blood test to prove natural immunity* vs. a free vaccine, it should make sense to get the vacci…

Your numbers are incorrect. Vaccination appears to boost immunity after infection by a factor of 2×, not 10×. The duration of additional resistance is unclear.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#183

Post by lamontcg »

nradov wrote: post #168
michaelt wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right - getting vaccinated protects your family, your community, and your country. What I mean by punching yourself in the face is: Even if you don't have any family and you hate your neighbours, getting vaccinated is still in your own interests, because it stops you dying.

I encourage everyone to get vaccinated if they can, but it's unclear what community protection that provides. Vaccinated people can still get infected and spread the virus. They may be contagious for a shorter period on average but the magnitude is still unknown. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1 Since the Delta variant is so contagious there will be no significant herd immunity effect to protect the…

Vaccination almost certainly reduces transmission.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/80-of-vaccinated-covid-carrier...

RNA levels spike to the same levels on PCR, but they decline faster, and culturable amounts of virus are lower in breakthrough infections, indicating a higher proportion of viral debris in breakthrough infections rather than virus:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.20.21262158v...

Even if you take the worst numbers out there vaccines still eliminate 50% of infections. And symptomology, viral load and transmissibility are correlated -- which means the vaccines is likely to be effictatious against transmissibility just like it is against disease.

The worst-case idea that breakthrough infections, even though they're much less severe, produce identical risk of transmission does not make any sense at all.

I would bet money that if everyone was vaccinated that the R0 of delta would be less than 1.0 and we would not have epidemic spread and that breakthrough superspreaders are incredibly rare.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#184

Post by lamontcg »

angelzen wrote: post #164
pwinnski wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL;DR: You are correct! The counter-story seems to be based on radically misreading data out of Israel, which seems to show higher infection rates among the vaccinated, a reading which fails to take into account the incredibly high rate of vaccination there. So yeah, there are more infections among the 78% vaccinated than among the 22% unvaccinated. Given that there are 3.5x as many people in the first group, that's…

CDC says vaccines are only 66 percent effective at preventing Delta infection. As far as I can understand, this means 34% of vaccinated people develop a covid infection. I'm having a hard time squaring this with 'vaccines prevent infection' thesis. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious? (Yes, I'm aware the fraction is better against severe Delta infection. Yes, I agree 3x reduction is infection rate is a good thing.)…

> CDC says vaccines are only 66 percent effective at preventing Delta infection

WITH A 95% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL OF 26% TO 84%

They only statistically modeled how much their unvaccinated population was already recovered from coronavirus based on estimates of community spread, among other issues with that number.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm

And when you have a CI of something like that size, of course you wind up in the middle of it -- the actual value could very well be closer to 80% due to systematic uncertainties in the modeling.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#185

Post by peteradio »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #175
peteradio wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because its mostly undefined what long-covid even means. In the worst cases it means organ damage, but Ill bet you anything those are not anywhere near 10-30% of cases. More likely people randomly feel like shit for a while sometimes, like every other year in my adult life.

Which is exactly my point - we don't know what or how prevalent the long term effects of COVID are.

Agreed. But I guess I'm the odd-man out to err on the side of "not-fear".

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#186

Post by caeril »

nostromo wrote: post #83
strict9 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As you may know, an FDA-authorized vaccine for COVID-19 is now available for free to all adults in the U.S. Do you think you will...?" # Definitely not get the vaccine | white: 65%, hispanic: 13%, black: 13% # Wait and see | white: 50%, hispanic: 27%, black: 14% # Unvaccinated adults | white: 57%, hispanic: 20%, black: 13% "Partisanship also plays a major role with more than half (58%) of the “definitely not” group…

> Definitely not get the vaccine white: 65% hispanic: 13% black: 13% Given US demographics, this is exactly what one would expect. > Unvaccinated adults white: 57% hispanic: 20% black: 13% Again, this shows white people as more vaccinated than other groups when accounting for population.

It is shocking that this comment is downvoted by the supposedly math-loving pro-science HN crowd.

Click through to the specific graph mentioned - that's precisely what it shows - demographic breakdown of response groups, NOT percent responding per group.

I know this site leans heavily pro-vaccine, but we shouldn't be downvoting correct data analyses and upvoting grossly wrong interpretations because they confirm our biases.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#187

Post by lamontcg »

angelzen wrote: post #155
cbdumas wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> covid vaccines do not prevent infection This is untrue, see this site and the studies in the footnotes: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-var... TL;DR: Vaccines are effective, though not perfect, at preventing infection with the delta variant

> 10. Riemersma KA, Grogan BE, Kirta-Yarbo A, et al. Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Individuals Have Similar Viral Loads in Communities with a High Prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant. medRxiv. 2021 Jul 31; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.31.21261387external Not particularly supportive of the thesis your are arguing for. Perhaps you could narrow down a bit the range of papers that support 'vaccines prevent infect…

RT-PCR studies of Ct values only detects RNA loads and doesn't discriminate between viable virus and viral debris.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.20.21262158v...

> Results The delta variant (B.1.617.2) was identified in the majority of cases. Despite similar Ct-values, we demonstrate lower probability of infectious virus detection in respiratory samples of vaccinated HCWs with breakthrough infections compared to unvaccinated HCWs with primary SARS-CoV-2 infections. Nevertheless, infectious virus was found in 68.6% of breakthrough infections and Ct-values decreased throughout the first 3 days of illness.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#188

Post by MatteoFrigo »

angelzen wrote: post #164
pwinnski wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL;DR: You are correct! The counter-story seems to be based on radically misreading data out of Israel, which seems to show higher infection rates among the vaccinated, a reading which fails to take into account the incredibly high rate of vaccination there. So yeah, there are more infections among the 78% vaccinated than among the 22% unvaccinated. Given that there are 3.5x as many people in the first group, that's…

CDC says vaccines are only 66 percent effective at preventing Delta infection. As far as I can understand, this means 34% of vaccinated people develop a covid infection. I'm having a hard time squaring this with 'vaccines prevent infection' thesis. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious? (Yes, I'm aware the fraction is better against severe Delta infection. Yes, I agree 3x reduction is infection rate is a good thing.)…

> this means 34% of vaccinated people develop a covid infection

That's not what "effective" means. It means that if your probability of getting infected without the vaccine is p, your probability of getting infected with the vaccine is .34*p. One way to think about it is that the "ineffectiveness" is the relative risk P[infected|vaccinated]/P[infected|unvaccinated], and effectiveness is 1-ineffectiveness.

A vaccine can be 100% effective even if P[infected] is negligible.

P[infected] is per unit time and does not account for the dynamics of the situation. For example, if the vaccine is not powerful enough to make R<1, then everybody becomes infected eventually regardless of the vaccine.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#189

Post by Daishiman »

swayvil wrote: post #138

A new vaccine. Rushed to market. Pushed upon us before it was even approved. Then rushed to approval. That's strange. I need to get this vaccine, not to protect myself, but to protect you. That's strange. That's 2 strange things in a row. When you see 2 strange things in a row like that, it smells fishy.

It's strange if you don't know anything about the subject. For the several billion people vaccinated all over the world there's nothing strange.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#190

Post by angelzen »

MatteoFrigo wrote: post #188
angelzen wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CDC says vaccines are only 66 percent effective at preventing Delta infection. As far as I can understand, this means 34% of vaccinated people develop a covid infection. I'm having a hard time squaring this with 'vaccines prevent infection' thesis. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious? (Yes, I'm aware the fraction is better against severe Delta infection. Yes, I agree 3x reduction is infection rate is a good thing.)…

> this means 34% of vaccinated people develop a covid infection That's not what "effective" means. It means that if your probability of getting infected without the vaccine is p, your probability of getting infected with the vaccine is .34*p. One way to think about it is that the "ineffectiveness" is the relative risk P[infected|vaccinated]/P[infected|unvaccinated], and effectiveness is 1-ineffectiveness. A vaccine c…

Thanks!
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