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Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

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Re: Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

#31

Post by adamlgerber »

dolni wrote: post #15

Studies continue to show vaccines are less effective than we were all lead to believe. It seems like every new study that comes out lowers the bar even further. Pretty soon we'll be hearing "the vaccine doesn't help at all, but at least it didn't give you cancer" (mild sarcasm there, but you get the point). Each of the big pharma companies were poised to make a boatload of money by being first to produce a vaccine. I…

To me this is the most frustrating and frequent hot take I hear; "continue to show vaccines are less effective than we were all lead to believe"

I was sold a vaccine that limited hospitalization and death and we have three vaccines that all do this, frankly, miraculously.

I wasn't sold a prophylactic sunscreen that prevented infection of coming into my body. I was sold an immune response that made my body more resilient to it. I have not seen any evidence that this is waning over time.

Now, delta is a new variant of the disease that wasn’t the subject of the original vaccine study so why should this now old 2020 vaccine be as effective against this new 2021 variant? It shouldn’t be but considering the vaccines effectiveness at preventing hospitalization and death against the new variation that it wasn’t even built to combat its actually OVERDELIVERING against its goals. Another miracle

So maybe that requires adjustments to the vaccine, perhaps on an annual cadence like the flu vaccine. Frankly I am fine with that.

I am disappointed that the vaccines don’t do more to dampen the spread of the disease but considering how defeatable the worst cases are with now multiple vaccine options I am highly confident that our deservedly well paid scientists and pharma companies can keep the progress flowing here and continue to improve over time.

Re: Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

#32

Post by adamlgerber »

dolni wrote: post #26
nitwit005 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're acting like this is a surprise result, but everyone expected this. The vaccine was designed to make you resistant to a different virus. We give out new flu shots every year for a reason.

It wasn't a surprise result, you say? Then how could it be that lockdowns were lifted in the US with barely 50% of the population vaccinated AND without approval for children?

2020 vaccines were made for 2020 variants. Summer 2021 brought new variants that are more contagious than the 2020 variants. Its not hard.

Re: Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

#33

Post by dolni »

yodon wrote: post #30
dolni wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't a surprise result, you say? Then how could it be that lockdowns were lifted in the US with barely 50% of the population vaccinated AND without approval for children?

They were lifted because voters were angry and made that anger known to politicians, who responded in a political manner rather than a medical manner.

Exactly what I expected to hear.

Let's acknowledge that at least some of the stuff we're seeing is being driven by politics to the detriment of actual science. Some of that might even include (gasp) information about vaccines.

Re: Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

#34

Post by dolni »

adamlgerber wrote: post #32
dolni wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't a surprise result, you say? Then how could it be that lockdowns were lifted in the US with barely 50% of the population vaccinated AND without approval for children?

2020 vaccines were made for 2020 variants. Summer 2021 brought new variants that are more contagious than the 2020 variants. Its not hard.

So... then it was a surprise?

Re: Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

#35

Post by HWR_14 »

rmdashrfstar wrote: post #25
HWR_14 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mRNA vaccines were very good at preventing any infection, between 80% and 95% effective depending on variant and study. J&J was between 65 and 80% depending on the variant and study. All of them have been excellent at preventing hospitalization and death. And they definitely were advertised as helping to prevent the spread. That's the whole "herd immunity" thing. After all, one goal is to prevent the epidemic fro…

Vaccines does not _prevent_ infection. Vaccines prevent _diseases_ that can be dangerous, or even deadly. Vaccines greatly reduce the _risk_ of infection by working with the body’s natural defenses to safely develop immunity to disease.

You're speaking nonsense. If you mean the vaccine doesn't prevent a virus particle from going into your body, you are correct. They aid the immune system in fighting the virus once it's inside. "Infection" is usually used when some boundary of viral load is crossed, a boundary almost impossible to reach through any means other than internal incubation. Hence, vaccines prevent infection.

Re: Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

#36

Post by HWR_14 »

j_walter wrote: post #18
HWR_14 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 39% is against getting an infection, and I believe that includes the ability to transmit the infection on. It definitely is crucial that Re (R0 modified by measures like vaccines and masks) be kept below 1 if at all possible. The preventing severe illness is still holding pretty firm, but not as strong as against other variants. Still a very good chance. And preventing hospitalizations is even stronger.

I haven't seen any good information on transmission. My gut feeling is that less symptoms == less transmissibility, but I have no data to back that up. One study has put the delta R0 around the same as Measles...which is 3x original COVID, but still less than Chicken Pox.

> One study has put the delta R0 around the same as Measles...which is 3x original COVID, but still less than Chicken Pox.

I think you swapped Chicken Pox and Measles in your example, as the delta R0 seems similar to Chicken Pox and Chicken Pox has a lower R0 than Measles.

Chicken Pox, which, pre-vaccine, was considered an infection everyone would get.

Re: Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

#38

Post by adamlgerber »

dolni wrote: post #34
adamlgerber wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2020 vaccines were made for 2020 variants. Summer 2021 brought new variants that are more contagious than the 2020 variants. Its not hard.

So... then it was a surprise?

variations in the virus are predictable, but which ones really catch on and how are hard to predict.

I don't know how phizer/moderna/etc balance needs to develop different drugs against all possible variants but I expect that once a strong variant emerges they are well incentivized (financially and culturally) to scale up development against it.

The real surprise is how slowly our social and political institutions respond, not our pharma institutions.

Re: Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

#39

Post by superkuh »

l33tman wrote: post #21
superkuh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. No intramuscular vaccination for a respiratory virus is going to be effective at preventing infection of the surface, mucosal, tissues in the upper respiratory tract. The IgG antibodies in the body serum do seep into the lower lungs though and prevent serious diseases there and in the body proper. To provide sterilizing immunity to the upper respiratory mucosa we'll need an intranasal booster after the intramusc…

But won't the mucosa learn to produce the IgA antibodies when you get exposed the next time though? The virus is going to be endemic forever, all who got and will get the vaccine are going to get exposed again and again. In other words, for the already vaccinated (or post-infected) won't repeated exposure also act as a booster?

Sure. But that means you're spreading the virus, you're taking a small serious health risk, and you're giving the virus tissues in which it can fall back to while simultaneously mutating under IgG antibody pressure in the lower lungs. That keeps the pandemic going.

Re: Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

#40

Post by dolni »

adamlgerber wrote: post #31
dolni wrote: post #15

Studies continue to show vaccines are less effective than we were all lead to believe. It seems like every new study that comes out lowers the bar even further. Pretty soon we'll be hearing "the vaccine doesn't help at all, but at least it didn't give you cancer" (mild sarcasm there, but you get the point). Each of the big pharma companies were poised to make a boatload of money by being first to produce a vaccine. I…

To me this is the most frustrating and frequent hot take I hear; "continue to show vaccines are less effective than we were all lead to believe" I was sold a vaccine that limited hospitalization and death and we have three vaccines that all do this, frankly, miraculously. I wasn't sold a prophylactic sunscreen that prevented infection of coming into my body. I was sold an immune response that made my body more resili…

> I was sold a vaccine that limited hospitalization and death and we have three vaccines that all do this, frankly, miraculously.

Really? What news do you watch? I was sold a vaccine that was 90% effective at preventing COVID infection. [1] Now we're at less than half that.

> I was sold an immune response that made my body more resilient to it. I have not seen any evidence that this is waning over time.

Huh? "Based on our latest assessment, the current protection against severe disease, hospitalization, and death could diminish in the months ahead, especially among those who are at higher risk or were vaccinated during the earlier phases of the vaccination rollout." [2]

> Now, delta is a new variant of the disease that wasn’t the subject of the original vaccine study so why should this now old 2020 vaccine be as effective against this new 2021 variant? It shouldn’t be but considering the vaccines effectiveness at preventing hospitalization and death against the new variation that it wasn’t even built to combat its actually OVERDELIVERING against its goals. Another miracle

It's almost as though vaccination of half the population and no kids wasn't enough. Here we are, having lifted mask mandates and lockdowns because the vaccine was "good enough", only to be treated to a Delta surge. If that doesn't scream "we have no clue how good the vaccine is," I don't know what does.

Everybody knew that a mutation in COVID was likely to happen, which only makes those reckless decisions even more disgusting to me.

Let's be clear: I don't fault Pfizer, Moderna, etc. for not creating a super-vaccine that defeated the pandemic single-handedly. I'm irritated because our government's complete ineptitude around addressing the pandemic is leading us into this surge. We gave up our other mitigations FAR too soon. The effectiveness of vaccines keeps declining, both because of Delta and because it just doesn't last very long.

Everybody I know (me included) thought we would get back to life as normal after getting vaccinated. We got bait and switched.

[1]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/29/health/pfizer-and-moderna-cov...

[2]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/covid-19-booster-shot-for-...

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