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The mutation that helps Delta spread

nature.com

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Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#441

Post by maxerickson »

criticaltinker wrote: post #435
maxerickson wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So "[3]" is the only citation you give that addresses vaccine escape and it is about how it doesn't happen that often. Nice work.

If you read beyond the title you'll find that [3] outlines the conditions for vaccine escape and gives many broad examples of antibiotic and antiviral resistance. [1][2] also discuss vaccine escape in detail, but you won't find that out from the title.

Antibiotic resistance is pretty different than vaccine escape.

I wouldn't say [1] goes into any particular detail.

Nor does [2]. It says it can happen.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#442

Post by dehrmann »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #205
hncurious wrote: post #70

Covid is going to be endemic like the flu and cold. It's not going to be eradicated, unfortunately, and I don't think we've come to terms with this yet. Now what's our plan exactly? Get vaccinated every 6 - 12 months indefinitely and always wear masks? What's our goal and what's our new normal?

Slightly off-topic: shouldn't the 'new normal' be to wear N95/N99 masks? We know they're far more effective, and there's been plenty of time to ramp up production. I don't see why the 'normal' option is to wear a non-medical mask. It's also surprising that societies are entirely incapable of doing a hard lockdown for 3 weeks with mandatory testing at the end. I imagine that would be enough to reduce the case count to…

It's just hygiene theater to make people feel better. 95% of time when I see masks in a situation that isn't particularly risky (outdoors), it's not an N95. People do it because it makes them feel safer and to virtue signal.

What's bizarre is that it's rare for public health officials to care, either. It makes me think they're actually very effective (which I doubt with delta), they want to people to feel safe to keep the economy running, or they're worried about how much more contagious it could get facing a real obstacle.

As for the hard lockdown, I think we're past the point of that being a theoretical option. Looking to Australia, it's still spreading. There's a level of contagiousness where the minimum amount of interaction is still to much to stop the spread. We'll see what happens in New Zealand.

You're right about the national scale for everywhere other than Singapore. There are just too many people too spread out to actually enforce it. Borders are too porous, and enough people are onboard with letting it spread that this option isn't practically or politically viable.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#443

Post by sethammons »

nawitus wrote: post #166
criticaltinker wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fortunately the vaccines are very effective at preventing death Yes individuals who have been vaccinated or recovered from natural infection will have durable immunity and significantly lower risk of severe outcomes like hospitalization and death. [5][6] The real question: is mass vaccination effective at preventing the spread and increasing trasmission/virulence of variants of concern? A growing body of the scient…

Why use vaccines in a highly targeted way instead of giving it to everyone?

Same reason why antibacterial soap has led to the rise of antibiotic resistant infections

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#444

Post by betwixthewires »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #358
walterbell wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a social-acceptability phenomenon where people say one thing (e.g. in surveys) and do another (e.g. what they buy). Relatively early in 2020, some grocery and pharmacy shelves were completely emptied of Vit C/D/Zinc/Quercetin. When they were restocked, they would sell out again, even with per-customer quotas. This took place even with a complete news blackout on early treatments. As with HCQ/Ivermectin, we ha…

> there are billions of dollars of economic incentives for suppression of early treatment, because vaccines are still under EUA that could be questioned by the availability of therapeutics with decades of safety data Conspiracy theory. Rather old and naive, I should add. Zero Hedge is a cesspool of pseudo-science when it comes to COVID. The best data source can be twisted into complete nonsense when folks have politi…

What you're doing is called a character attack. I agree with you about zero hedge, but that doesn't change what you're doing. A character attack is usually used when one doesn't have a counterpoint against the point being countered.

"There are financial incentives to sell vaccines" might be a conspiracy theory, but anyone not considering this reality a factor is delusional. I don't think they're selling us snake oil and scaring us into getting it, but there is definitely a motive beyond (but probably including) public health and that is to recoup the cost of development of the vaccine, at the very least.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#445

Post by cryptonector »

sethammons wrote: post #430
nneonneo wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your video claims that masks don’t work because they’ll leak vape smoke. However, masks aren’t meant to be airtight, but rather a barrier against droplets (like the kind expelled when you cough or sneeze). Droplets are what primarily carry the virus across long distances.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br... This says that the virus can be an aerosol and that this is what causes infection after long time periods after a spreader was in the area. Can someone confirm if vape is an appropriate analog to aerosol virus in our breath? If so, the video is very convincing that masks are ineffective at preventing infection.

Aerosol covid viral particles are much, much smaller than the spaces between the fibers of a cloth mask, or an N95 mask, and anyways, you can see the vape going out the sides.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#446

Post by dcolkitt »

mynegation wrote: post #432
dcolkitt wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Covid death rate among vaccinated people is under 0.01%[1]. One hundred times worse than the current situation would make Covid not significantly worse than seasonal influenza for the vaccinated. Sure, one hundred times worse among those who refuse to vaccinate would be significantly worse. But if a significant proportion of the population voluntarily refuses to vaccinate, I see no reason why the rest of society…

I know it may all look like small potatoes, but this is HN and you are two orders of magnitude off. 0.01% is pretty close to annual death rate from flu in pre-COVID years [1] so the situation that "one hundred times worse than the current situation" will make it 100 hundred times worse (i.e. significantly worse) than seasonal influenza. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

Okay, fair enough. But a major difference is that flu deaths are much more heavily burdened on the the young, whereas Covid is on the very elderly. The death of a 6 month old from flu results in approximately 20 times more QALY loss than an 85 year old.

Let me approach it from another angle. Pre-vaccine, it appears that Covid roughly doubled everyone's all-cause mortality.[1] Like it killed 30 year olds at a much lower rate than 90 year olds, but 30 year olds have a much lower baseline mortality to begin with. This isn't an exact relationship, but approximately about double mortality across the board. (Even interestingly enough men's excess Covid death rate is about in line with their general mortality vis-a-vis women.)

The vaccine appears to reduce the mortality risk of circulating Covid by about a factor of 100X. There's very little reason to believe that it substantially shifts the relative mortality burden between groups. So, post-vaccine Covid increases all-cause mortality broadly by about 1%. That translates into less than 1 month of lost life expectancy.[2]

[1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33412438/ [2]https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2012/11/10/mortality-...

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#447

Post by gwbas1c »

Jeema101 wrote: post #392
dcolkitt wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a question of preferences that too often gets buried in this debate. If Covid becomes endemic at around its current severity, what level of pandemic restrictions are you willing to accept forever? For me personally, Covid would have to be at least 100 times worse before I’d support masking forever. But I get the sense that some people barely see any downside to it. I think these cross-views drive so much if t…

I hope I am mistaken here, but... are you saying that it would need to kill 1/6th of the population every year (instead of 1/600) before you will consider putting a piece of cloth over your face? What's so terrible about wearing a mask?

> What's so terrible about wearing a mask?

They're uncomfortable.

I wore a KN95 mask around a maternity ward while waiting for my wife to deliver, and after a few hours it smelt bad.

The cloth masks get all sweaty when worn all day, in the summer, at an amusement park.

The mask gets in the way when getting a haircut.

(FWIW: I have some friends who really like wearing their masks, and continue to wear them because they like hiding their faces.)

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#448

Post by betwixthewires »

ssklash wrote: post #148
johnbaker92 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to "science": - Lockdowns should have stopped covid. - Masks should have stopped covid. - Vaccines should have stopped covid. - "Health" passports and those ridiculous mandates should have stopped covid. The fact is, we're two years down the road and we're still talking about this virus - so "true" science (that advocated by governments / media I imagine?) is obviously not working. Time to take a step back…

> - Lockdowns should have stopped covid. Not everyone cooperated with lockdowns, rendering them less effective. > - Masks should have stopped covid. Not everyone wore masks, rendering them less effective. > - Vaccines should have stopped covid. Not everyone is getting vaccinated, rendering it less effective. I see a pattern here with an obvious solution, and it's not doubting the "true" science and declaring ourselve…

If your solution requires every person on earth to obey you it's not much of a solution, and "everyone didn't obey" is an excuse to why your non solution predictably did not work.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#449

Post by karlshea »

sa1 wrote: post #422
OliverGilan wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wear glasses and masks are basically untenable. I have yet to wear a mask and not fog up my glasses. Maybe I'm just an idiot, I don't know, but being able to see properly is far more valuable to me than not getting COVID (in it's current state and threat level to me).

There are also anti-fogging solutions (basically soap solutions) available to apply on glasses.

I can say from experience these do not work in the winter in Minnesota.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#450

Post by zik »

jimmaswell wrote: post #314
bingohbangoh wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long do you think we'll be keeping up the mask wearing given that "more variants are inevitably coming?"

It has to end at some point, and for me and most other people where I live in the US, it mostly has.

Mask wearing was common in some Asian countries at certain times of the year even before this so it doesn't necessarily need to end at all. It all comes down to what level of hygeine you want to pursue.
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