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We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

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Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#291

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

LooseMarmoset wrote: post #146

Full disclosure: I have not gotten a COVID vaccine; I am quite unlikely to get a COVID vaccine. If you want to get a COVID vaccine, please feel free to do so, though I would urge informed consent. Good vaccines are difficult to make, but there's no doubt that a well-tested and approved vaccine saves lives. We don't have polio or smallpox today, thanks to vaccines. I made the decision not to get the COVID vaccine. I h…

The military is a bit different - when you enlist, you're basically giving your body to the U.S. government for a period of time. It's one of the only situations where you can be legally required to throw your body into harm's way. Whether that's running into a room where there are guys with guns drawn, or taking an experimental vaccine, the laws on this are long-settled.

Of course, the people who were forced to do all these unfortunate things should have godtier medical care for life, and the V.A.'s performance has been an absolute disgrace.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#292

Post by bombcar »

wizofaus wrote: post #253
bombcar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be more efficient but the question remains if it's more likely to kill than otherwise (not all travel miles are equal). In one state 34% of traffic fatalities involved alcohol. So Uber may do more for that than grocery delivery. Grocery delivery drivers may also be better drivers because drive more often. Or, they may be overworked and rushing to complete deliveries.

Stats on % of car accidents (esp. fatalities) involving delivery vehicles would be good to see actually, they must be available somewhere?

The DOT almost certainly tracks "real" delivery drivers (think: semi trucks, etc), but who knows how much gets reported from fly-by-night outfits like Uber and Doordash.

https://cdan.dot.gov/query could probably return something useful if poked long enough.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#293

Post by peteradio »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #289
peteradio wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> quality adjusted life years Do you feel comfortable acknowledging that this metric in isolation could result in trading years across age demographics? To what degree does it matter if we take 1 year of life from a child and give it to a middle aged person, doing exactly that would be fairly neutral according to QALY.

Well from my understanding they'd only be equal if the middle aged person were in perfect health. The real issue with QUALYs is that it discounts the lives of disabled folks because they might never be 100% "healthy".

> Well from my understanding they'd only be equal if the middle aged person were in perfect health.

Okay, so lets change the dilemma from 1:1 to 1 child life-year traded for 2 adult-life-years. Did it get any better?

Sounds like we agree: QALY is not where we should hang our medical ethics.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#294

Post by soramimo »

lamontcg wrote: post #166

We can't vaccinate our way out of this virus. Even without the issues of compliance, eradication is likely impossible with a respiratory virus like this. Even if you have a pan coronavirus nasal vaccine the NAbs will wane and people will get infected again. It doesn't matter if we use more mRNAs than just spike for more targets or anything else. It'll mutate, NAbs will wane, people won't get vaccinated and the virus…

> Once everyone has been exposed to the antigen a half dozen times and the virus is forced to mutate off of its naive optimum then the disease burden will drop even further. Then we just have another human common cold coronavirus.

This is presented as a fact/certainty, however, I'd like to caution that it is still unclear whether multiple reinfections will add up to lasting damage (unlike the common cold), see e.g. [1].

That said, I agree with you that it'll be hard to eradicate this virus given how quickly it mutates (I'm just not as certain of the consequences).

[1] https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-reinfection-red-flag

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#295

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

internet_user wrote: post #202
jameshart wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's nice, but doesn't at all refute the parent's point that the current global pandemic (which worse than those, if a quick google is anything to go by) can and should cause changes to public health and epidemiology.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#296

Post by randomhodler84 »

rayiner wrote: post #283
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…

Well maybe try moving out of such a densely packed disease trap? Out here in the exurbs I don’t know a single person for whom covid has been any more inconvenient than a cold (since vaccines became widely available). I’m no anti-vaxxer. I had it, got vaxxed anyway just in case, wore my masks, etc. Like most people, I’m done now. If you want to go live in a bubble be my guest.

I don’t not have that luxury to move. It’s not about me in a bubble.

It’s about humanity and a painful existence of pestilence. You might be “done” with it. Humanity is not. Virus is not.

A bubble is ignoring one of the greatest threats to our civilization today.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#297

Post by metadat »

Auracle wrote: post #211
metadat wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

How long should be wear masks indoors and refuse to attend large indoor social gatherings? The rest of our lives?

For me, success looks like not getting long covid. It's russian roulette right now, and if you lose it can impact you for the remainder of your life.

I'll take a few years of not attending large indoor social functions over risking my long-term health.

This won't be forever, humans are an ingenious bunch.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#298

Post by wizofaus »

internet_user wrote: post #257
wizofaus wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, suspended, but then resumed once it was determined the risks were very low and suitable techniques were established to handle the adverse reactions.

False. Moderna remains banned in the Nordics for boys/men under 30. NHS does NOT give AZ boosters, only mRNA. NHS will not give AZ for those under 40, only mRNA. [1] https://thl.fi/en/web/infectious-diseases-and-vaccinations/w... [2] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavir...

Neither of those links back up your claims. The pause on administering Moderna was originally set to expire December last year - I can't find any suggestion it was extended after that (wikipedia claims it's still restricted in Finland, but the source is an article from December). At any rate the risk was identified as extremely rare, and I'm yet to see any indication it has caused deaths in anyone under 30 in the many countries it's definitely used. Use of AZ as a booster I understand to be unadvised due to efficacy concerns.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#299

Post by wizofaus »

josephcsible wrote: post #282
wizofaus wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you seeing that? And clearly the fundamental point of current COVID vaccines is to protect you from disease (they may not help much preventing you from catching it, but they certainly protect you once you have caught it).

Here: https://web.archive.org/web/20191111050113/https://www.cdc.g... https://web.archive.org/web/20220205010915/https://www.cdc.g...

Wow, that is...weird. I can't imagine why anyone felt there was a need to make that change.

Re: We could have universal Covid vaccines soon

#300

Post by jameshart »

peteradio wrote: post #280
jameshart wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. And what specific number of quality adjusted life years would a vaccination program need to promise to save across the globe before you personally are willing to take it?

> quality adjusted life years Do you feel comfortable acknowledging that this metric in isolation could result in trading years across age demographics? To what degree does it matter if we take 1 year of life from a child and give it to a middle aged person, doing exactly that would be fairly neutral according to QALY.

Taking 1 year of life from person a and moving it to person b is fairly neutral, yes. If, without intervention, both of them were likely to live to 80, now one of them will live to 79 and the other to 81.

That probably doesn’t matter much to either a child or a middle aged person, to be honest, since neither of them has much idea of exactly how many years they have left.

It probably matters quite a lot more to a 78 year old, though.

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