[HN Gopher] Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge ...
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Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid
Cases
Author : belter
Score : 33 points
Date : 2021-08-21 20:41 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| dom96 wrote:
| There is a similar story in the UK. This isn't all that
| surprising for the UK at least (I'm not familiar with how Israel
| is doing things): "freedom day" was now a month ago so of course
| more infections will happen.
|
| The questions now are: will we see a variant that can escape the
| vaccines? Will the vaccines becomes significantly less effective
| at stopping hospitalisation/death within a few months?
| linuxhansl wrote:
| Before anyone draws the wrong conclusions...
|
| 78.8% of the population above 12 are vaccinated. The remaining
| 11.2% make up about 40% of all hospitalizations.
|
| The vaccines are incredibly effective and the situation in Israel
| does by no means indicate that they are not.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Don't you mean the remaining 21.2%?
| golemiprague wrote:
| > Only vaccinated Palestinians are given permits to enter Israel
| and Israeli settlements
|
| Many cross from the west bank without permissions, there are
| known opening in the fence there and the army is not really
| stopping them since there aren't many terror attacks in the last
| years.
| ajay-b wrote:
| Is it possible The vaccine has the opposite effect on some
| people, rather than helping them to defend, it makes it easier
| for them to become infected?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Some vaccine candidates can do this, but it would have been
| caught early on as it's one of the things researchers will look
| out for.
|
| There are some citations here[1] when it comes to this
| phenomenon and COVID vaccines. It hasn't been observed in
| clinical trials, nor after mass inoculations.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation#Antibo...
| mixedCase wrote:
| What mechanism are you suggesting would be at fault for such an
| outcome?
| wayneftw wrote:
| From my own experience, I see that vaccinated people are less
| fearful of mixing with large groups of people. That's one way
| the vaccinated can be more easily infected.
|
| It's not a physiological effect but I think it's probably the
| crux of the whole issue here.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Behaviour-wise this is definitely true - not for everyone,
| but many. But I don't think it wouldn't matter for the
| comparison because they're looking at rates of serious
| illness, rather than absolute number of people catching it.
|
| Saying that, if seriousness of disease is related to
| initial exposure amount, perhaps being vaxxed and overly
| brave could mean you get a higher initial dose?
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| A possible mechanism I have seen mentioned is Antibody
| Dependent Enhancement:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement
|
| I am not a biologist and have no opinion on the matter, I
| have just seen it mentioned online.
| belter wrote:
| Interesting. It seems that this was actually a concern and
| considered during initial development of COVID vaccines. It
| seems it was considered not likely to happen but there is
| this interesting part here from 2019 that caught my
| attention:
|
| "Consensus summary report for CEPI/BC March 12-13, 2020
| meeting: Assessment of risk of disease enhancement with
| COVID-19 vaccines"
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7247514/
|
| "A syndrome of "disease enhancement" has been reported in
| the past for a few viral vaccines where those immunized
| suffered increased severity or death when they later
| encountered the virus or were found to have an increased
| frequency of infection. Animal models allowed scientists to
| determine the underlying mechanism for the former in the
| case of Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine and have
| been utilized to design and screen new RSV vaccine
| candidates. Because some Middle East respiratory syndrome
| (MERS) and SARS-CoV-1 vaccines have shown evidence of
| disease enhancement in some animal models, this is a
| particular concern for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.
|
| To address this challenge, the Coalition for Epidemic
| Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the Brighton
| Collaboration (BC) Safety Platform for Emergency vACcines
| (SPEAC) convened a scientific working meeting on March 12
| and 13, 2020 of experts in the field of vaccine immunology
| and coronaviruses to consider what vaccine designs could
| reduce safety concerns and how animal models and
| immunological assessments in early clinical trials can help
| to assess the risk. This report summarizes the evidence
| presented and provides considerations for safety assessment
| of COVID-19 vaccine candidates in accelerated vaccine
| development."
| polotics wrote:
| Can someone who knows more than me comment on my impression
| that the likelihood of ADE is much reduced with the very
| narrow (ie. spike-only) targeting of mRNA vaccines?
| belter wrote:
| From a purely scientific point a view, there is no reason for
| the post above (from ajay-b) to be downvoted.
| r00fus wrote:
| Wild assertions without data or references are simply
| trolling.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| A question isn't a wild assertion.
| r00fus wrote:
| A wild assertion can indeed be posed as a question. It's
| a dark pattern rampantly used in conspiracy circles.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| Because this hypothesis has already been shown to be false
| numerous times.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| And the GP was asking a question, not stating it as a fact.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| A question that would take 2-3 minutes of Googling to
| answer. I did not downvote that question, but I still
| think it didn't have any place here.
| bsaul wrote:
| i'm amazed at the number of people still believing high
| vaccination rates will get us rid of the covid, despite all the
| evidences of the previous year pointing in the opposite
| directions (people getting infected multiple times in a short
| period, variants mutating the spike protein a lot, and more
| recently vaccinated people still proven to be both carrier and
| transmitter of the virus). The final nail in the coffin being
| country-sized experiments like israel, showing no sign of any
| kind of victory over the epidemic.
|
| What surprise me most is the slow rate at which government adjust
| their strategy.. As an example, my country (france) still is deep
| in its "vaccine pass" controversial measure, splitting the
| country in half, and the government seems to show no sign of
| hesitation or even doubts whether it really is the best thing to
| do... They're running this strategy based on 6-months old
| assertions, and half the population doesn't seem to notice it.
| polote wrote:
| Green pass in France is not a health measure but a politics
| one. They will stop it if they think thats going to prevent
| macron be re elected and keep it if it will help him be
| reelected.
|
| There are not one valid health reason to let people not wear a
| mask if they are vaccinated (if you believe mask works as the
| governement thinks)
| djtriptych wrote:
| ???? Isreal's data proves that the vaccine helps reduce serious
| disease related to coronavirus infection.
| bsaul wrote:
| sure, i'm not talking about preventing vulnerable people from
| getting a serious case. This part seems to be working just
| fine, even in france. Hospitals aren't saturated anymore
| (except in some islands were people didn't vaccinate
| themselves for various reasons).
|
| It seems to me that life could already be "back to normal"
| here, simply making sure old / obese people get regular
| shots.
|
| It's the long-term strategy of wanting to get everyone a
| vaccine, including children who have close to 0 risks, in the
| hope of getting rid of the virus that i'm talking about.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| I'm afraid I do not follow...
|
| 1. 11.2% of the population (unvaccinated people older than 12)
| make up 40% of the hospitalizations. It's even more stark when
| you remove the immune compromised from the statistic.
|
| 2. For the delta-variant we need a higher vaccination rate to
| reach herd immunity. Estimates vary, but most put this around
| 85%.
|
| 3. While vaccinated people still can get sick (and why won't
| they, the immune system can only start to act after
| encountering the pathogen), but... the time of being infectious
| is lower and (see above) hospitalization and death rates are
| much lower.
|
| Upon (very basic) scrutiny the numbers from Israel point to the
| high efficiency of the vaccines not the opposite.
|
| And last, what would have us do instead?
| creato wrote:
| > That means only 58% of Israel's total citizenry is fully
| vaccinated. Experts say that's not nearly high enough.
|
| 58% isn't that much higher than most other countries. France
| actually has a _higher_ vaccination rate at 61%! So I 'm not
| sure what you think the "country-sized experiment" is.
| bsaul wrote:
| that's a very different take on the situation than what
| israel experts were saying just a few months ago. They
| reopened everything thanking the vaccine for that, and being
| happy of being the first country to heavily bet on mass
| vaccination. (note that the country is closed to people who
| don't have a pass, and people have to quarantine when they
| arrive).
|
| It looks a bit like they're changing the narrative now that
| the next wave is coming, saying vaccination rates aren't high
| enough after all (i'm curious to see one expert provide a
| definitive number on the "good enough" threshold, based on
| models or anything else, but maybe 100% it is ?)
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Some information on what groups are seeing a serious breakthrough
| infection.
|
| >As of 15 August, 514 Israelis were hospitalized with severe or
| critical COVID-19, a 31% increase from just 4 days earlier. Of
| the 514, 59% were fully vaccinated. Of the vaccinated, 87% were
| 60 or older.
|
| https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/grim-warning-israel-...
|
| and
|
| >comorbidities were more frequent in patients with vaccine
| breakthrough infections in comparison to a large case series on
| unvaccinated hospitalized patients - including hypertension,
| diabetes, heart failure, chronic kidney diseases, chronic lung
| diseases, dementia and cancer. Moreover, 40% of the patients were
| immunocompromised.
|
| https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210713/Israeli-study-of-...
|
| So the serious infections among the vaccinated are concentrated
| in those who are older, immunocompromised, or those who have
| other conditions already known to be linked to having a more
| serious case.
| danmaz74 wrote:
| > The good news is that among Israel's serious infections on
| Thursday of this week, according to Health Ministry data, the
| rate of serious cases among unvaccinated people over age 60
| (178.7 per 100,000) was nine times more than the rate among fully
| vaccinated people of the same age category, and the rate of
| serious cases among unvaccinated people in the under-60 crowd
| (3.2 per 100,000) was a little more than double the rate among
| vaccinated people in that age bracket.
| peter422 wrote:
| Under 60 is not a specific enough age group for comparison of
| vaccinated vs unvaccinated cases. A 55 year old and a 12 year
| old have vastly different odds of serious disease, so much so
| that an unvaccinated 12 year old is less likely to get severe
| disease than a vaccinated 55 year old.
|
| This easily could be biased by the older end of that range
| being significantly more vaccinated than the younger end.
|
| If you want to compare vaccinated efficacy, look for 10 year
| age group comparisons. Anything else is really leaving you wide
| open to misleading interpretations.
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(page generated 2021-08-21 23:00 UTC)