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Delta Variant

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Re: Delta Variant

#91

Post by littlestymaar »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #36
joelbluminator wrote: post #12

Haven't read the piece but I have read a few things by this guy that made me panic. I don't know if he was right or wrong but he has a tendency to be overly bleak. Yes Covid kills, a lot. Also car accidents and air pollution kill a lot. I haven't gained anything from reading this guy despite all the good info, it hasn't given me any action items and I suspect a politician reading him won't gain anything either.

Why would anyone ever compare an exponentially spreading infectious disease with car accidents? They aren't even in the same realm of concern for public health.

And it's not like we've been passive about car accidents either. Billions have been spent worldwide on car equipment (seat belts, air bags, crush zones, …), road safety campaigns, traffic signs and road junctions. And it came with strict laws enforcement: there are thousands of people in jail right now for road-related felonies and crimes.

Why should we do nothing about Covid given that so much was done in car accidents?

Re: Delta Variant

#92

Post by raphlinus »

shkkmo wrote: post #81
raphlinus wrote: post #57

Some counterpoint. A lot of the assertions, particularly the fact that delta is dramatically more transmissible than ancestral type, are reported as fact in the mainstream, but the evidence for this particular claim is thin. It certainly is true that delta is outcompeting the other strains. But inferring higher transmissibility from observational or ecological studies is not really sound. Most of the increases can be…

The evidence cited in the article is not just looking at prevalence graphs, it is a study that looks at within household transmission rates and thus public social distancing and mask wearing would have no effect. And your [3] source explicitly warns against using their findings to compare infectiousness. > I don't believe 'infectiousness" is necessarily the ideal term here. B.1.1.7 (Alpha) could be intrinsically more…

Let me speak to the second criticism (I'm not sure I fully understand the first one). The quote in context from the paper is:

"there is no significant difference between B.1.1.7 and non-B.1.1.7 viruses in total infectiousness predicted by our model"

But "predicted by our model" is doing considerable work here, as the model doesn't take into account potential differences in what happens after someone is exposed to the virus, only what's measured in the study (viral shedding dynamics). So I think the critique of Prof Balloux is worth heeding: it would be a leap to conclude that alpha is definitely not more "infectious" than ancestral type when you take into account the broader meaning of "infectious." Even so, to my mind that places even more burden on demonstrating a biological mechanism.

It also refutes a major claim in TFA and calls into question the methodology used to support that claim: "In China, they estimated the viral load of Delta to be 1,000 times higher than that of the original variant." But when you look at viral load specifically, as is done in the Ke et al paper, you find no difference at all. A few things could be going wrong here, but my money would be on some problem in how that 1000 factor was "estimated."

Re: Delta Variant

#93

Post by polygotdomain »

adventured wrote: post #13
littlestymaar wrote: post #5

> I don’t think people are paying enough attention to Delta In the US probably. In Europe Delta has been followed closely even in mainstream media for at least a month.

In the US the Delta variant has been in the news non-stop for months. Once the vaccines began bringing the pandemic under control here, the Delta variant as the new big risk is what the news media began focusing on heavily. That began shortly after case counts exploded dramatically higher in India and gained coverage the further it spread around the globe.

I recognize that the Delta variant is serious topic for much of the world, but as a vaccinated person in the US it feels more like media hysteria than anything else.

As the article states, for vaccinated people, the risk is low and the Delta variant is likely of little concern, especially when cases are as low as they've been since the start of the pandemic here in the US. However, it seems that the media is pushing the Delta variant as a narrative to help get people vaccinated but it's all falling on deaf ears of those who are specifically choosing not to get vaccinated. The stronger media coverage winds up making those who are vaccinated overly concerned about it, when they as protected as they will be from the variant.

For the unvaccinated countries and people, the Delta variant is definitely something to be concerned about. What we should be doing is trying to get vaccines rolled out to as many countries and people as possible, as that's our best tool for getting things under control.

Re: Delta Variant

#94

Post by 35fbe7d3d5b9 »

pattrn wrote: post #78

The author links the following paper as a source for his comments: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3868853 . Unless I'm reading it incorrectly, the mortality rate of the infected, unvaccinated population is 0.5% (131 / 26,632), and the mortality rate in the infected, vaccinated population is 2.5% (33 / 1,410). Does this mean that the vaccine decreases your chance of contracting the virus, but incr…

> Does this mean that the vaccine decreases your chance of contracting the virus

Yes.

> but increases your chance of dying if you do contract it?

No, I think not. Scroll down to table 3, page 14.

No one under 60 who was vaccinated and fell ill died. No one under 60 who was vaccinated was even hospitalized.

But even in the most at risk group, age 75+, vaccinations reduced mortality by a factor of 10.

I think it's safe to claim that "breakthrough infections are rare, the vaccine still provides a level of protection if one occurs, but when breakthroughs occur the elderly are at the most risk of death"

Re: Delta Variant

#95

Post by modmans2nd »

polygotdomain wrote: post #93
adventured wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US the Delta variant has been in the news non-stop for months. Once the vaccines began bringing the pandemic under control here, the Delta variant as the new big risk is what the news media began focusing on heavily. That began shortly after case counts exploded dramatically higher in India and gained coverage the further it spread around the globe.

I recognize that the Delta variant is serious topic for much of the world, but as a vaccinated person in the US it feels more like media hysteria than anything else. As the article states, for vaccinated people, the risk is low and the Delta variant is likely of little concern, especially when cases are as low as they've been since the start of the pandemic here in the US. However, it seems that the media is pushing…

The difference between 95% protective and 88% is more significant than you think if you live in a low vaccinated area. The more exposure to the virus you have the more likely it is you will get infected. It’s the spread we need to concern ourselves with, not just personal protection.

Re: Delta Variant

#96

Post by shkkmo »

jsbdk wrote: post #29
ceejayoz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Help get the rest of the world vaccinated, too.

Doesn't seem like that's a good idea, since the supply of vaccines is not infinite.

Increased funding and coordination can absolutely increase the available supply of vaccines.

Re: Delta Variant

#97

Post by pattrn »

programmarchy wrote: post #85
pattrn wrote: post #78

The author links the following paper as a source for his comments: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3868853 . Unless I'm reading it incorrectly, the mortality rate of the infected, unvaccinated population is 0.5% (131 / 26,632), and the mortality rate in the infected, vaccinated population is 2.5% (33 / 1,410). Does this mean that the vaccine decreases your chance of contracting the virus, but incr…

I think you’d need to separate out the populations by age demographics to make that hypothesis because the vaccinated population could be skewed towards older people.

Good point. I just checked the paper, and it's true that the vaccinated population had proportionally more 60+ year olds (by about 3x).

As I read through this more, It's a bit surprising that out of 805,124 people (includes uninfected) under the age of 45, there were only 5 deaths. Haven't looked into the data for a long time.

Re: Delta Variant

#98

Post by tremon »

franciscop wrote: post #72

The article purposefully conflates numbers to tell a narrative. I am talking only about EU, and at that southern EU which is where I've been following the numbers closely. Delta variant has been acting for up to 1 month in some regions, and as described in the article yes cases are up very quickly. However, the article says: > COVID deaths [...] And if you think Europe or the US will be spared This is not reflected a…

and we are past the potential 2-week delay from cases to deaths

Not everywhere. See here, for example: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherland...

The Netherlands went from 550 cases/day at the end of June to 10,000 cases/day now. The Delta variant took less than two weeks to spread as much as the EU variant did in two months (Sep 1st - Nov 1st). Of course, it was helped a lot by the government deciding to open up bars, dancings and nights clubs on June 26th so it's not a fair comparison :/

Point is, we'll have to wait two weeks to see what effect this will have on the death rate. I expect the death rate to be a lot lower than in November, partly because of vaccinations but also because the age group that flocked to the bars and night clubs is a lot younger than the earlier wave victims.

Still, I don't expect our death rate to remain in the single digits as it has been since the beginning of June.

Re: Delta Variant

#99

Post by davnn »

usrusr wrote: post #32

Is seems kind of logical in hindsight: the first mutation of the predecessor bat/pangolin/whatever virus genome to cross over to humans is an MVP full of "compatibility bugs" that barely achieves R0>1. A few billion dicerolls later many of those "compatibility bugs" have found fixes. Remember the hand washing phase of the pandemic? Aerosol transmission was basically ruled out because it was assumed that spread would…

> full of "compatibility bugs" that barely achieves R0>1

Did I miss something? COVID-19 was highly contagious from the beginning, thus the drastic measures, or not?

Re: Delta Variant

#100

Post by dqv »

shkkmo wrote: post #87
dqv wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it gets that tag after some threshold of flags and then has to be revived. >controversial I would say there is some contention going on in this thread.

I don't see any of the degredation of discussion that usually justifies flagging articles.

Almost every top level comment is grayed out - that's a sign of controversy.
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