Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine • Hacker News Board

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#361

Post by bzbarsky » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

bajsejohannes wrote: post #316

bzbarsky wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bottleneck is vaccine production Given claims like "I have 70m doses that I can’t ship because they have been purchased but not approved. They have a shelf life of six months; these expire in April." from https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/14/w... it seems like claiming that the bottleneck is production needs some serious caveats....

Huh, I hadn't seen this. Thanks for enlightening me. I'm curious where these 70M doses are bought but not approved. As far as I can tell, AstraZeneca is approved all over Europe.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't make clear which exact vaccines it's discussing.

So it's entirely possible that the specific vaccines approved in Europe are supply-constrained, while other vaccines are in the situation described in the article. All that means is that saying that "the problem problem is production" is very specific-vaccine and specific-regulatory-unit dependent and needs to be evaluated carefully.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#362

Post by TedPetrou » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #344

TedPetrou wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it also make sense that they are currently ranked #2 in the world in cases per million in the last week for countries with more that 1 million population? This is even after a down week in cases. Next door Lebanon is seeing cases fall at the same or faster pace and they peaked at the same time as Israel. Lebanon has yet to start vaccinating. Case fatality rate has not fallen either. You would expect a huge drop…

It’s not that hard to understand. People usually die several weeks after exposure. Only 27% of the population has received both doses; a few weeks ago that number was much smaller. In addition, the ultra orthodox community has continued to flout rules on a nearly universal basis. I’m going to go check your comment history — pretty sure you’ll have been wrong about everything related to COVID so far. Edit: shocked (no…

"Only 27% of the population received both doses". This is a misinterpretation. It's like saying 0.5% die of covid. The vaccinations (and fatality rates) are extremely stratified by age. Over 50% of the 70+ group received at least one vaccination by the third week of January and close to 85% have received both doses as of today.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#363

Post by pid_0 » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

Daho0n wrote: post #340

pid_0 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this getting down voted? Anti-Israel users I guess? Mad that Israel has its shit together?

I didn't vote but I wouldn't upvote a comment saying israel is doing good when they are a occupying power with first and second rate citizens. If they did good they would help the Palestinians first or equally, not let them die off.

>when they are a occupying power with first and second rate citizens. If they did good they would help the Palestinians first or equally, not let them die off.

This is objectively untrue though

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#364

Post by adventured » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #344

TedPetrou wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it also make sense that they are currently ranked #2 in the world in cases per million in the last week for countries with more that 1 million population? This is even after a down week in cases. Next door Lebanon is seeing cases fall at the same or faster pace and they peaked at the same time as Israel. Lebanon has yet to start vaccinating. Case fatality rate has not fallen either. You would expect a huge drop…

It’s not that hard to understand. People usually die several weeks after exposure. Only 27% of the population has received both doses; a few weeks ago that number was much smaller. In addition, the ultra orthodox community has continued to flout rules on a nearly universal basis. I’m going to go check your comment history — pretty sure you’ll have been wrong about everything related to COVID so far. Edit: shocked (no…

> Edit: shocked (not shocked) you were an early COVID vaccine skeptic, justified your belief with poor interpretation of statistics, and now that a huge amount of data have validated initial findings, you have instead decided to double down on your original gut feel!

I won't defend the comment author's (apparent) anti-vaccine stance.

However, it's almost universally frowned upon to dig into HN users archives and lambaste them for things they've said in the past. That has been the case here for essentially the entire time HN has existed.

It's properly considered borderline cruel/mean and is entirely unnecessary. If there is something worth debating about what they said in their present comment, that should very obviously be the point of focus in the discussion.

In late 2018 some guy on here basically told me I was an idiot and had no idea about investing for predicting that Facebook's stock was a good investment after the irrational drop it had suffered at the time. I was right, they were wrong to an almost humiliating degree. Now, if I go dig up that post and follow that user around HN torturing them with their past comment/s, it would be considered to be in extremely bad taste in HN-etiquette. And I think it's easy to understand why: given the volume of comments and the long archives, HN would rapidly implode into just about the worst pile of garbage on the Internet if everyone went around hitting everyone else for things they said in the past, focus would shift to weaponizing the archives to attack users based on past comments (which would chill discussion dramatically and poison the well).

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#365

Post by ars » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

helge9210 wrote: post #345

aphextron wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While in some places you have 70% in other communities you have 2%. (and those with 2% act like there's no coronavirus, see point 2) I've come to notice this over the last year. We now effectively live in two completely diverged realities. In one, coronavirus is a serious danger that affects our behavior and dominates every aspect of life, where we follow the news of new vaccines and declining case numbers with gra…

Which reality, in your opinion, is the real one according to measurements?

Both are real, to different people, in different communities.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#366

Post by aphextron » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #365

helge9210 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which reality, in your opinion, is the real one according to measurements?

Both are real, to different people, in different communities.

Exactly my point. I don't know enough to make a value judgement one way or the other, simply pointing out how shocking it is when you come into contact with someone from an alternate reality to your own.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#367

Post by birken » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

TedPetrou wrote: post #362

xadhominemx wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that hard to understand. People usually die several weeks after exposure. Only 27% of the population has received both doses; a few weeks ago that number was much smaller. In addition, the ultra orthodox community has continued to flout rules on a nearly universal basis. I’m going to go check your comment history — pretty sure you’ll have been wrong about everything related to COVID so far. Edit: shocked (no…

"Only 27% of the population received both doses". This is a misinterpretation. It's like saying 0.5% die of covid. The vaccinations (and fatality rates) are extremely stratified by age. Over 50% of the 70+ group received at least one vaccination by the third week of January and close to 85% have received both doses as of today.

You said cases were high. Case counts are going to depend on how quickly the age groups with the most cases get vaccinated, which is generally the younger population. So it is going to take a while for case counts to fall.

Since a COVID death generally happens 5-8 weeks after exposure, what you'd expect is that once the high risk populations have been fully vaccinated, you'd start to see the death counts dropping 5-8 weeks later, and you'd start to see the hospitalization rates dropping 2-3 weeks later. Case counts are going to drop last because the high risk populations are not driving the majority of cases.

Also I don't understand what point you are trying to prove? We have detailed clinical trials about the efficacy of the vaccines. We have strong evidence to believe they work. If you are trying to interpret the data to show this isn't the case, you are probably misinterpreting it because it would be going against what we think we know with a high degree of confidence. It doesn't mean we couldn't be wrong, but it is much more likely you are just misinterpreting the data.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#368

Post by marshmallow_12 » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

helge9210 wrote: post #348

strulovich wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israeli here as well. The Haredim way of life is less than 250 years old. Also, name calling authorities you don’t like is a not even a national sport, it’s a global one. There’s a lot of good arguments against them, but they require more nuance.

> The Haredim way of life is less than 250 years old. I would say, less than 80 years old. In most normal countries this kind of behavior would be called "destructive totalitarian sect".

wanting to practice religion freely cannot be called "destructive" or "totalitarian". certainly no more than the blm riots in america. Those were certainly destructive and (imho)somewhat totalitarian in their desire to impose their agenda on everyone. The way i see it you have 2 options; either acknowledge you are wrong that normal countries wouldn't call this out as such, or explain why the blm riots are quantifiably more significant then freedom of religion.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#369

Post by jb775 » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #352

jb775 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously anecdotal, but my wife is a nurse and she's been hearing some frightening things about the vaccine. Young people getting it are basically bed-ridden for days and are calling out of work...one lady couldn't lift her arm anymore and is now getting physical therapy...one guy went out to dinner with his family after getting it and had complete memory loss of the entire dinner. At what point does common sense ri…

I’m happy to feel crummy for a few days if my grandmother gets to leave her house

In other words, you'd potentially give up the ability to procreate and possibly give yourself cancer in 10 years so grandma can slightly lower her chances of catching a flu where she has 99% chance of being perfectly fine.

You truly are a hero.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#370

Post by asdff » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #278

amitport wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Israel. There a three big points to make: 1 - There is a delay. While now we have more and more vaccinated people, much of the current cases in the hospital got infected before that. 2 - It changes from community to community but in general we have many people that are really not "disciplined". Either they believe coronovirus does not exist or it won't get them or that god will save them or the herd immunit…

> While in some places you have 70% in other communities you have 2%. (and those with 2% act like there's no coronavirus, see point 2) I've come to notice this over the last year. We now effectively live in two completely diverged realities. In one, coronavirus is a serious danger that affects our behavior and dominates every aspect of life, where we follow the news of new vaccines and declining case numbers with gra…

I'm so surprised that the "just a flu" crowd has endured for so long. Deaths are rare, but at least among the people I know who've had it, severe reactions are common place. Plenty of people consider this the worst illness they've had in their life to this point, many considered hospitalizing themselves, and I know people who have been saddled with fatigue, muscle soreness, and shortness of breath months later. Those that have had mild symptoms count themselves lucky. Surely at this point, everyone knows someone who has had a bad bout of covid. Of course, people don't necessarily advertise that they've had covid since generally they get it by doing something irresponsible and regrettable in hindsight, so maybe that's why some people lack this context.