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18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

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Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one with any credibility is suggesting 2 months... As of October, "The confirmed examples worldwide [of re-infections] could possibly be counted on your fingers" [0]. Immune memory cells, which are more potent than antibodies, persist for longer than 6 months [1]. We don't have data to support 2 years of immunity, but current evidence is pointing at it being long-lasting [2]. [0] https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipel…

Lots and lots and lots (hundreds of thousands) of people in Russia have been officially infected and diagnosed twice. Many Russian docs who worked with Covid patients have already been sick three times. And yes, most of the time they say it's 3-5 months for asymptomatic cases and 9 months and more for severe symptomatic.

This comment is not consistent with other data.

It appears that Russia has a different distribution of coronavirus strains than the rest of Europe [0], but the strains in Russia are certainly found elsewhere. If hundreds of thousands of Russians were re-infected this would be observed elsewhere and documented.

The closest thing I can find to reporting on this matter is here [1]. The Siberian Times does not appear to be a reputable news source [2], and its claims do not match the magnitude of those above. It reports that Russia’s chief sanitary doctor Anna Popova said, "in Russia there was not a single confirmed case of coronavirus reinfection." Furthermore, the doctor on the other side of this disagreement has "heard about other cases [of re-infection] elsewhere in Russia from colleagues" (and claims to have been re-infected).

This is not "lots and lots (hundreds of thousands)"...

There is evidence of re-infections in the scientific literature, but they are exceedingly rare (tens of people worldwide). Long-term immunity will have to be measured, especially in light of new variants, but current evidence points in that direction.

[0] https://nextstrain.org/ncov/europe?transmissions=show

[1] https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/virology-profess...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Siberian_Times

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#422
post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not for quite a while. The vaccine grants 95% protection with those measures in place. We have no idea how effective it is without those measures. If we're all going to dance parties, the vaccine might not be adequate. I think the question is the point at which we can send kids back to schools and reopen our businesses with precautions in place -- in other words, stem the pain and bleeding. It makes sense to…

>Vaccine+masking/distancing should be enough to get rid of it. It's not clear vaccine alone will do that. The public is treating the vaccine for like the vaccine for polio, which is that once you get it, you're good. If 80%+ of Americans get the vaccine and we still have to mask and social distance, you're going to see a lot of angry people.

We've seen a lot of angry people. Prior to COVID19, I was quite frankly unaware of just how good Americans had become at denying reality.

When COVID19 hit China in January, it was clear it was coming to the US. At the time, I thought the US government was preparing. Nope. Complete denial.

When it hit in March, I thought schools would prepare. Nope. Complete denial. It's 2 weeks. 4 weeks. It'll be gone come the summer.

And so on....

... Anger against reality has led to over 400,000 deaths so far.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#423
post #381
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In this paper they've used 45 for HIV. What's your point? There is a difference between HIV vs SARS-Cov2: If you get AIDS, your body does not have the capacity to recover from it on its own. So, 1) the chances of detecting dead material from a long gone infection are nil; and 2) the cost of a false negative is much higher than the cost of a false positive. Since most people seem not to be seriously affected by a SA…

So you think they should use some lower Ct number for which it would be possible to show that eg 99.5% of people who are over it (i.e. have lower viral load) don't infect anyone? Interesting. I've read that most of the false negative for a PCR test actually come from sample collection (makes sense, PCR is super reliable) so it could be that you would miss people with high viral load where the sample was just not take…

> So you think they should use some lower Ct number

Everyone should use the same number in all tests. From what I understand, about 20 is a reasonable number which might still result in positives up to a month post-infection. I consider having a standard more important that the specific number chosen. It seems when people go to > 30 it is in a quest to ensure a positive test result.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infection fatality rates are based on antibody seroprevalence studies and thus accounts for asymptomatic cases. What you're thinking of is the case fatality rate, not the infection fatality rate.

You can't get an accurate community seroprevalence measure when your community is told to shelter in place.

Seroprevalence studies have been conducted all over the world. For example in Delhi India approximately 50-60% of the population now have antibodies for SARS-CoV-2. There are statistical techniques for adjusting the raw results based on population demographics.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/delhi-may-be-head...

Note that seroprevalence studies will underestimate the number of infections because some recovered patients don't produce detectible levels of antibodies.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#425
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said "fuck it, I'm taking my life back" months ago. And then I realized how little that is possible. How are you going to protest your way into a concert that isn't performing? How are you going to demand your way into a university that isn't teaching? How are you going to riot your way into a Disneyland that isn't running? How are you going to force your way into a sports stadium that isn't playing? How are you go…

> We are no longer ever allowed to make personal risk management decisions. Your freedom borders with mine - you should be allowed to do EVERYTHING which doesn't affect others without their consent. Ignoring COVID-19 precautionary measures isn't one of those things, and I am happy the joy-destroying authoritarian overlords took that choice from you.

That's just silly. By the same logic you could claim than no one should be allowed to drive cars, because an inattentive driver might kill you. If you're afraid then you're welcome to shelter in place alone for the rest of your life.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It clearly doesn't though. Obesity and heart disease have been killing far more people in the US than covid and yet Mcdonalds and Coke advertisements are everywhere inbetween television entertainment. Also note obesity/heart disease are among the greatest risk factors of poor health outcomes for covid. Why is there little to no mention of eating healthy and exercising in the government's health guidelines to combat t…

Overeating and poor exercise only hurts yourself. The difference is that you going to a concert, contracting corona and passing it around our household/workplace may kill somebody completely unrelated to the initial risk vector, how would you feel if your neighbour eating McDonald’s directly affected your health?

Even before coronavirus, going to a concert, contracting influenza and passing it around could have killed someone. Influenza kills thousands every year, asymptomatic transmission is common, and the vaccine is only partially effective. COVID-19 is significantly more deadly but that's just a difference in degree; the same fundamentals still applied. So by your logic apparently concerts shouldn't have ever been permitted at all.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#427
post #310
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said "fuck it, I'm taking my life back" months ago. And then I realized how little that is possible. How are you going to protest your way into a concert that isn't performing? How are you going to demand your way into a university that isn't teaching? How are you going to riot your way into a Disneyland that isn't running? How are you going to force your way into a sports stadium that isn't playing? How are you go…

> We are no longer ever allowed to make personal risk management decisions. Living life like there's no pandemic is not just personal risk, it's risk to other people and to society as a whole. If you don't understand that a year in, you're either not capable of understanding or you just don't care.

In a society many things we do expose others to some level of risk, even absent a pandemic. That risk obviously can't be zero. So please quantify the level of risk we should be allowed to create for others.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#428
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Chicago we built [0] and staffed [1] extra capacity, and then got rid of it a short time later when it went almost completely unused [2]. Despite early claims they could, they did not bring it back for the second wave this past fall [3]. There was no reason for us to stay as locked down as we have been. [0] https://news.wttw.com/2020/03/30/mccormick-place-be-transfor... [1] https://abc7chicago.com/doctors-and…

Or ... is it that the restrictions are the thing keeping the hospitals from going over capacity?

You're talking about now, I'm talking about then. We had a ton of extra unused capacity and could have loosened restrictions back then, but didn't. If we had, then maybe people could have handled doing this longer, but we didn't and so people care less and less about following the restrictions.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently the post you're replying to is not very popular. But I think both yours and that post make valid points that don't even contradict each other. Because even if we pressure people to do the right thing, after all, this is presumably a free country and there seem to be plenty of people (quickly scanning this thread for percentage quotes, dangerously close to ruining the presumed herd immunity level) who will…

In Australia, there are daycare subsidies worth ~50% the cost, gated by kids getting vaccines or a doctors exemption. That largely works pretty well at keeping the pool of deniers down to the true-believers; it turns out that many anti-vaxxers give up their beliefs when it becomes personally inconvenient to hold them.

If your normalize getting it done and exclude people who don't from opportunities, you incentivize people who want to participate, not just in receiving the benefits, but in participating in the group.

I think of it much the same way I think of driver's licenses. I believe if you are driving on your own private property you don't need one. But if you are using public roads and putting people at risk, there's an expectation of training and the ability to revoke permission if you harm others.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For large portion of the population, it isn't. 99.9+% for many demographics. I'm not interested in it personally, as one of my dad's coworkers got Bell's palsy from the vaccine. Given my age and risk profile, the vaccine isn't worth it.

Nevermind the people who you infect and kill, you can’t be blamed for that, right?

If someone were to transmit covid to me and I ended up dying, I would not blame this person for my death, unless they had acted with malice and purposefully infected me by spitting in my drink when I wasnt looking
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