[HN Gopher] I Got a 'Mild' Breakthrough Case
___________________________________________________________________
I Got a 'Mild' Breakthrough Case
Author : dsr12
Score : 128 points
Date : 2021-09-12 18:29 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| nickysielicki wrote:
| At the beginning of the pandemic, health agencies started
| misrepresenting and overstating the certainty of science, in
| order to attempt to get more buy-in from the public.
|
| It started with masks. The studies that we had about masks really
| were not great, but they did a risk-reward calculation behind
| closed doors: worst case scenario, the surgical masks don't
| impact the spread and it changes nothing; best case scenario, we
| reduce community spread. The problem with this is that if they
| told the public that this was how they were thinking about the
| problem, they wouldn't get people wearing the masks, so they
| overstated their confidence in it when speaking to the public. A
| good amount of people truly believe that the science was clear.
| But it wasn't.
|
| It continued with tests. It's much better to have a high rate of
| false positives than to have any rate of false negatives, so they
| pumped up the cycle count to accomplish this. They later toned it
| down. To the public, the tests aren't even questioned, most
| people believe they're pretty accurate, and most people are
| unaware that they have changed the criteria throughout the last
| year and a half. They sold it to the public like this because
| they knew that people would avoid getting tested and staying
| quarantined if they didn't trust the tests.
|
| Lately, it's about the vaccines. There is no serious scientist
| that believed that the vaccines would prevent COVID from becoming
| endemic. It was obvious that this was going to be with us for the
| rest of our lives back all the way in April of last year (or
| earlier). There are no serious scientists that believe that 2
| shots and a booster is going to be the end of it, and yet they're
| happy to tell us that we "might" need boosters. Do any serious
| scientists actually believe that? These aren't "breakthrough"
| cases, because it's not truly a vaccine in the sense that the
| Polio vaccine was a vaccine. It's a prophylactic. We _always
| knew_ it was a prophylactic, but they sold it to the public as
| something else, because people wouldn 't get it if they didn't
| lie.
|
| We need to decide if we're okay with science agencies lying to
| us. Is their purpose to exact change on society, or is their
| purpose to do good science and tell us honest results? All of the
| confusion in this article stems from the misrepresentations they
| sell us.
| noasaservice wrote:
| > At the beginning of the pandemic, health agencies started
| misrepresenting and overstating the certainty of science, in
| order to attempt to get more buy-in from the public.
|
| Sure, the mainstream media oversimplified what the scientists
| were saying. But much of the actual early data was available in
| open archives, sci-hub, and library genesis. How much of the
| real science did you read, or did you use the MSM as a
| placeholder for scientists?
|
| > It started with masks. The studies that we had about masks
| really were not great, but they did a risk-reward calculation
| behind closed doors: worst case scenario, the surgical masks
| don't impact the spread and it changes nothing; best case
| scenario, we reduce community spread. The problem with this is
| that if they told the public that this was how they were
| thinking about the problem, they wouldn't get people wearing
| the masks, so they overstated their confidence in it when
| speaking to the public. A good amount of people truly believe
| that the science was clear. But it wasn't.
|
| It's simple to understand masks when you look at another tech :
| HVAC filters.
|
| The better the filter (keeping surface area =), the harder it
| is to breathe. The less filtering the filter, the easier to
| breathe.
|
| N95's and better were stupidly hard to get hold of early on.
| But they have a toll on breathing. Again, it's not "maskless"
| and "heavy filtration". It's a gradient of filtration... And
| most materials don't have rated filter properties. That's not
| to say they can't filter - they do. They're just not as good as
| an N95.
|
| And even surgical masks are there primarily to prevent talking,
| breathing, coughing, and sniffling from being as impactful to
| _other_ people.
|
| Anybody in IT would know there's no one solution, and no
| perfect solution. Everything's a tradeoff, and early on, cloth
| masks were leaps and bounds better than none at all.
|
| > It continued with tests. It's much better to have a high rate
| of false positives than to have any rate of false negatives, so
| they pumped up the cycle count to accomplish this. They later
| toned it down. To the public, the tests aren't even questioned,
| most people believe they're pretty accurate, and most people
| are unaware that they have changed the criteria throughout the
| last year and a half. They sold it to the public like this
| because they knew that people would avoid getting tested and
| staying quarantined if they didn't trust the tests.
|
| A good reason why our testing was so terrible and laggard was
| because of trump. Elections matter, and his brand of "inject
| bleach", "take hydroxyclorquine", and continual fall of fake
| news got a whole hell of a lot of people killed. And he
| retarded federal government's access to tests, and also
| severely impacted democratically led states in testing.
| (citation: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/did-trump-
| kushner-igno... )
|
| "Trump has made no secret of his ambivalence about testing.
| "When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more
| people," Trump said in June at an ill-timed rally in Tulsa,
| Oklahoma. "You're going to find more cases. So I said to my
| people, 'Slow the testing down, please.'""
|
| "Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert
| said a member of Kushner's team expressed: that because the
| virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was
| unnecessary and would not make sense politically. "The
| political folks believed that because it was going to be
| relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those
| governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,"
| said the expert."
|
| I believe those speak for themselves.
|
| > Lately, it's about the vaccines. There is no serious
| scientist that believed that the vaccines would prevent COVID
| from becoming endemic. It was obvious that this was going to be
| with us for the rest of our lives back all the way in April of
| last year (or earlier). There are no serious scientists that
| believe that 2 shots and a booster is going to be the end of
| it, and yet they're happy to tell us that we "might" need
| boosters. Do any serious scientists actually believe that?
| These aren't "breakthrough" cases, because it's not truly a
| vaccine in the sense that the Polio vaccine was a vaccine. It's
| a prophylactic. We always knew it was a prophylactic, but they
| sold it to the public as something else, because people
| wouldn't get it if they didn't lie.
|
| You only need to study your history about the Kansas Military
| Base Flu... Errr, the "Spanish Flu". Lasted 2.5 years. Had
| anti-vaxxers. Had anti-maskers. Had nearly the same groups on
| both sides saying the same stuff. Cats, dogs, and other mammals
| could also get and spread it (they even masked their cats and
| dogs).
|
| And regular Covid is pretty much gone. Now, it's delta and
| newer greek char variants. That's because people won't limit
| the spread using reasonable and working methodologies (vaccine,
| masking, social distancing, limiting group sizes). And those
| mutations migrate away from the original vaccine's work on the
| initial Sars-CoV-n19. I'd be reasonably sure my vacc would
| protect against the original.
|
| > We need to decide if we're okay with science agencies lying
| to us. Is their purpose to exact change on society, or is their
| purpose to do good science and tell us honest results? All of
| the confusion in this article stems from the misrepresentations
| they sell us.
|
| Scientists aren't lying - you're just listening to the wrong
| research (protip: main stream media are the usual culprits of
| lying/oversimplifying/lies of omission).
|
| The vaccines work in varying degrees, primarily keeping people
| who do happen to get a variant out of the hospital.
| gridspy wrote:
| Not all health agencies, for instance in New Zealand they have
| been very honest about the science and what is known.
|
| Regarding the article, I think many people wanted to know that
| there was an "end" in sight to COVID. This narrative was
| attached to Vaccines as "the end" by much of the press that I
| watch in the states.
|
| Here in NZ the press is putting pressure on the Govt. to ease
| lock-down restrictions as the vaccination rate goes up. But
| we're still reluctant to allow covid in "and just live with it"
| even as levels of vaccination rise.
|
| I think the only realistic "end" is when the multiplicative
| effect of masks, caution (social distancing for eg) and the
| vaccine reduces R below 1 in each individual country long
| enough to achieve elimination over time.
|
| It would be a pity if in some communities Covid is never
| eliminated.
| arglebarglegar wrote:
| it will never be eliminated at this point, animals can also
| carry it
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| I feel bad for the population of New Zealand.
|
| The amount of lockdowns and Covid restrictions was one of
| most restrictive in the world.
|
| And after all of that, you all recently had one of the
| highest rates of infection since the pandemic started.
|
| What a tough situation there.
|
| It like all being locked down for years and having the
| borders closed for years didn't change a thing.
| karateka wrote:
| No need for that, we're doing fine. Most of the country is
| already on it's way back to normality. The most populous
| city is still locked down but it's better to be locked down
| for 2 months than to have the hospitals clogged with Covid
| patients and have everyone you know getting sick. Looking
| forward to enjoying another long stretch without
| restrictions after this!
| gridspy wrote:
| Thanks for your concern.
|
| Our lockdowns might be the most restrictive, but that makes
| them the most effective. So I'm not too worried about that.
| I'd prefer a short sharp lockdown and then total freedom
| (within the borders) over the lingering fear that appears
| to be happening overseas.
|
| Personally I'm happy to be winning another few months or a
| year free of Delta by staying at home for a while. If there
| was no official lockdown I would still want to stay at
| home.
| javagram wrote:
| > And after all of that, you all recently had one of the
| highest rates of infection since the pandemic started.
|
| I think you need to check the stats again, NZ is finding
| about 20 covid cases per day. They have had fewer than
| 4,000 cases of covid since March 2020. It's one of the
| lowest rates of infection in the world and appear on track
| to eliminate the delta variant from their country for now.
| (I suspect it's only a matter of time till it escapes their
| quarantine system though, but they're successfully buying
| time to finish a vaccination campaign.)
|
| Source: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-
| data-explor...
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| i don't think New Zealand has actually had intense lockdown
| for the entire last 18 months? I think they had short
| periods, but over the whole pandemic period I think they've
| had much less interruption to daily life than here in the
| USA, with much of that time having few restrictions, no?
|
| > you all recently had one of the highest rates of
| infection since the pandemic started.
|
| I don't think so?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| All of New Zealand's lockdowns saved a heck of a lot of
| lives over the course of 2020 and early 2021, and now
| vaccines are available! It wasn't for nothing!
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Wild animals can spread COVID, so I don't see how it can ever
| be eliminated. We may be able to reduce R temporarily in
| humans via social distancing measures, but it's going to tick
| back up as soon as the restrictions are lifted.
| gridspy wrote:
| One more reason not to let it breed in the human population
| - That's the easiest way to avoid creating new variants and
| spreading it to the local ecosystem.
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| >It continued with tests. It's much better to have a high rate
| of false positives than to have any rate of false negatives, so
| they pumped up the cycle count to accomplish this. They later
| toned it down. To the public, the tests aren't even questioned,
| most people believe they're pretty accurate, and most people
| are unaware that they have changed the criteria throughout the
| last year and a half. They sold it to the public like this
| because they knew that people would avoid getting tested and
| staying quarantined if they didn't trust the tests.
|
| Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Do you
| have a source for this?
| [deleted]
| armchairhacker wrote:
| People need to let go of their pride, so that even if they
| don't _want_ to listen to authority, they can accept that they
| _should_.
|
| This might not seem like a big difference but it is. The former
| creates arbitrary roadblocks: people refusing the vaccines no
| matter the incentives. It causes people to form junk "science"
| to justify why 2 + 2 actually equals 5. The latter allows
| people to compromise: I'm not intrinsically opposed to X, I'm
| just opposed because of Y, and if you can solve Y than I no
| longer care about X.
|
| People need to accept cognitive dissonance more. And accepting
| cognitive dissonance means accepting that sometimes you're the
| dumb guy or the bad guy. But everyone is the dumb guy or bad
| guy at some point, whether or not they accept it. Accepting
| means that you can correct your mistakes and be the dumb/bad
| guy less often.
|
| Unfortunately it's against human nature to accept cognitive
| dissonance: it literally causes stress. I don't even think I
| can fully accept cognitive dissonances. But I believe we can
| teach people how to resolve cognitive dissonance better, so
| that people can accept that they have flaws and make mistakes,
| without accepting that they're a failure.
| davmar wrote:
| > It started with masks. The studies that we had about masks
| really were not great, but they did a risk-reward calculation
| behind closed doors: worst case scenario, the surgical masks
| don't impact the spread and it changes nothing; best case
| scenario, we reduce community spread. The problem with this is
| that if they told the public that this was how they were
| thinking about the problem, they wouldn't get people wearing
| the masks, so they overstated their confidence in it when
| speaking to the public. A good amount of people truly believe
| that the science was clear. But it wasn't.
|
| Inaccurate and dangerously wrong conjecture. Research published
| long before COVID-19 proved the efficacy of masking in blocking
| particulate matter. That's why terms like N95 even exist.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72798-7
|
| That study came out last year, but there are similar studies
| published many years ago. I don't have time to google for them
| all right now, but they are out there for those who want to
| find them.
|
| The science on masking was clear and your statement is
| irresponsible.
| zdragnar wrote:
| If you wouldn't trust a cloth mask to protect you from
| asbestos dust or second hand smoke, you shouldn't trust it to
| protect you from a disease that spreads as an aerosol.
|
| OSHA doesn't, and you shouldn't either.
| davmar wrote:
| Not all cloth masks function the same way. If you read the
| studies, it depends on the weaving and the material. Cotton
| vs. denim, for example, is studied.
|
| None are as effective as a non-woven material. But they are
| still more effective than no mask.
|
| Edit: > asbestos dust or second hand smoke
|
| You have to know what size of particulate matter that
| you're looking to filter is in order to determine whether
| that mask material works for the given application. What
| you're saying is too broad to be useful and isn't very
| insightful.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Aerosol viral loads are (if I heard correctly) 50x
| smaller than asbestos particles. OSHA doesn't allow cloth
| masks to be used around asbestos.
|
| If this were a flu that spread primarily as droplets,
| cloth masks would have their place. As it is, we have
| known since early on that wasn't the case, and that cloth
| masks are about as useful as a cloth bonnet would be
| useful as a motorcycle helmet.
| davmar wrote:
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.0c05025
|
| "Materials were microimaged and tested against size
| selected NaCl aerosol with particle mobility diameters
| between 50 and 825 nm. Three of the top five best
| performing samples were woven 100% cotton with high to
| moderate yarn counts, and the other two were woven
| synthetics of moderate yarn counts"
|
| This image in particular: https://pubs.acs.org/na101/home
| /literatum/publisher/achs/jou...
|
| You can see N95 non-woven performs the best, but cotton
| twill does provide protection.
|
| Cool analogy tho.
| geoduck14 wrote:
| >Inaccurate and dangerously wrong conjecture. Research
| published long before COVID-19 proved the efficacy of masking
| in blocking particulate matter.
|
| Sure, but what wasn't certain was things like: Was covid
| transmitted in the air by particles (yes)? Was it transmitted
| via aerosols (no)? Was it transmitted by touch (no)? How many
| particles are needed to infect someone (unsure)? Do masks
| protect me or someone else? What type of masks are needed to
| protect? How many masks do I need to wear?
|
| From my exposure, I saw non experts being very emphatic about
| answers that actually took a long time to get answers to.
| These emphatic non experts alienated people that continued
| continued be unsure. In some cases, the experts were emphatic
| - and then wrong - which further alienated people.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| You're missing my point. Do you remember last year, very
| early in the pandemic, when Fauci went on TV and urged people
| not to go out and horde N95s, claiming that _they didn 't
| work_, when in reality he just wanted to ensure that they
| were available for healthcare workers? And then he flipped
| around weeks later and recommended surgical masks for
| everyone?
|
| I'm not claiming that masks do or don't work. I'm just
| claiming that they lied about it (twice) to suit their
| interests.
|
| > Research published long before COVID-19 proved the efficacy
| of masking in blocking particulate matter. That's why terms
| like N95 even exist.
|
| Sure, but what about for aerosols? If you want to see what
| the self-proclaimed rational community thought of masks and
| research available at the time in March of 2020 as it
| pertained to COVID, see this article:
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-
| more-t...
| davmar wrote:
| I agree with you on that point. Fauci told a noble lie
| about the N95 masks and it really harmed credibility.
| Perhaps I did miss your point.
|
| My intention was to say that, outside of Fauci, the science
| around mask efficacy was well-known because you said that
| it wasn't.
| adamrezich wrote:
| once you start accepting the existence of "noble lies"
| told by authority figures, why do you continue to trust
| them?
| lucretian wrote:
| you use the word "lie" here with loose abandon and with
| astounding confidence in your ability to infer motivations of
| every single member of a massive and complex system of public
| health and medical professionals.
|
| frankly, this is conspiracy talk and it's pathetic to see it
| upvoted.
| 1helloworld1 wrote:
| Your assumption is that everyone is just as rational as you.
| Scientific agencies should just give out the exact probability
| numbers and let people decide for themselves. That's not how
| the world works. Our brains just cannot intuitively grasp
| probabilities (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-
| our-brains-do...). Presenting the precise and most accurate
| information to the public without any embellishment sounds
| great in theory, but it doesn't work in practice.
| mrob wrote:
| Lying to the public doesn't work either, because once they're
| established as a known liar, why should we believe anything
| they say?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| The position you seem to be defending (not <<presenting the
| precise and most accurate information to the public>>) is
| dis-educative for its target (the not <<as rational as you>>)
| and alienates the rest (the <<as rational as you>>).
| josephcsible wrote:
| What alternative do you suggest? Lying to the public? Or the
| government making every decision for them like they're all
| children? Both of those sound much, much worse.
| 1helloworld1 wrote:
| Yeah, lie to the public for the greater good. If lying gets
| more people to wear masks and get vaccinated, and can
| prevent thousands of deaths, so be it. What's wrong with
| lying?
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| The problem with it is that you lose trust.
|
| If I know you lied about the efficacy of the vaccine then
| how do I know you didn't lie about the chance of bad side
| effects too?
| gizmo wrote:
| Because democracy is much better than some kind of
| authoritarian system where the common people are
| considered stupid and ignorant and undeserving of having
| a say in how their society is ran.
|
| The big problem here is that many people don't think
| democracy is worth preserving, and they're fine being
| lied to as long as they're comfortable and have competent
| leaders. Except.... when the democratic checks and
| balances that keep the powers that be in check fail
| everything goes to shit. First slowly, then quickly.
|
| I don't want to turn this into an overly political rant,
| but if you look at recent history it's not hard to see
| how bad things happen when politicians and other
| authority figures can lie with impunity.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| No, don't lie to the public. That's what happened in the
| first place. "Pfft... you don't need masks." The
| government said that because masks were hard to get and
| they wanted to control public behavior. This turned out
| to be a lie, everyone found out, then regardless of
| whether the authorities were giving good, accurate advice
| or not, the trust had been breached.
|
| Politicians saw this as an opportunity to gain ground. In
| the absence of any trusted authority it became an us vs.
| them thing for too many people.
|
| Don't lie to the public. Tell them the truth, tell them
| what they ought to do, and why you think so. Earn trust.
| It'll be easier to get people to do the right thing.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _" Pfft... you don't need masks." The government said
| that because masks were hard to get and they wanted to
| control public behavior. This turned out to be a
| lie,..._"
|
| This is false.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28201328
| antognini wrote:
| Because invariably the truth eventually comes out and
| then people trust their government even less? Then when
| the next crisis comes along it doesn't matter if you lie
| or tell the truth, the public won't listen anyway.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _What 's wrong with lying_
|
| Where to start.
|
| First of all, dignity.
|
| Mental pollution.
|
| Problematic instancing of what is <<greater good>>.
|
| Retribution.
|
| Precendents and possibility of abuse.
|
| Alienating all those who immediately cease trust [against
| the matter] in front of what smells of a lie.
|
| Cessation of trust [against the agent].
|
| ...There must be more.
| [deleted]
| shkkmo wrote:
| > It's much better to have a high rate of false positives than
| to have any rate of false negatives, so they pumped up the
| cycle count to accomplish this. They later toned it down.
|
| I not aware of any evidence that increased cycle counts have a
| significant effect on false positives. To the best of my
| knowledge, the false positive rates of of PCR tests are
| extremely low. My understanding is that cycle counts were
| changed to balance false negatives against testing time/lab
| loads. If you have evidence that contradicts this, I would love
| to see it.
|
| > These aren't "breakthrough" cases, because it's not truly a
| vaccine in the sense that the Polio vaccine was a vaccine.
|
| The polio vaccine is also not 100% effective. Both polio
| vaccines and covid vaccines reduce but do not eliminate your
| chance of being infected. In what sense is the covid vaccine
| not a "true vaccine"?
|
| Edit: We have other vaccines that have even lower level of
| preventative efficacy than the covid vaccines do against delta
| and we still administer them.
| resource0x wrote:
| Counting down to the moment when mainstream media changes its
| tune to something like "Big Pharma! Rushed (Trump's)
| (non)-vaccines! $$$! etc."
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _We need to decide if we 're okay with science agencies lying
| to us._
|
| This is the "Science is a Liar sometimes"[1] defense, and it
| can be used to discredit any sort of scientific research. You
| are basically asking that our agencies be 100% correct the
| first time and be perfect predictors of the future.
|
| Secondly I don't understand how you were mislead about
| vaccines. The efficiency rates were always described in
| preventing you from going to the hospital. With COVID, the main
| issue has always been overstressing the health system - thats
| where the breakdown happens and thats why everyone needs to
| take the vaccine. Even now, ICU beds are not majority
| unvaccinated COVID cases, which overworks nurses and prevents
| people with other diseases from getting proper treatment.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Ak-SmyHHQ
| [deleted]
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| I think they're asking for science not to misrepresent the
| facts.
|
| They're not asking for science to be perfect.
| nemothekid wrote:
| It's easy to say the facts were misrepresented in
| hindsight. The original consensus is that there was no need
| for widespread mask wearing, and a supply shock would have
| been dangerous. We only know now (or rather a couple months
| later), that advice was wrong.
| criticaltinker wrote:
| > everyone needs to take the vaccine
|
| This is simply not true, anyone who claims this is ignoring a
| vast body of scientific evidence supporting the fact that
| individuals who've recovered from previous infection will be
| _at least_ as well protected as vaccinated individuals
| against reinfection.
|
| If you were to say "most people who don't already have
| natural immunity ought to be vaccinated" that would be a much
| more sensible recommendation, in-line with general scientific
| consensus (and public health policies in other countries).
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _If you were to say "most people who don't already have
| natural immunity ought to be vaccinated" that would be a
| much more sensible recommendation, in-line with general
| scientific consensus (and public health policies in other
| countries)._
|
| It might be scientific consensus, but I do not consider
| this good public policy. There are several problems:
|
| 1. How do you verify if someone has gotten COVID already?
| The PCR test can report negative for as short as 2 weeks
| after symptoms go away.
|
| 2. Do you then parallel documentation where people have
| vaccine documents or positive test requirements?
|
| 3. How should businesses/schools treat positive testing
| individuals who did not get vaccinated?
|
| 4. Should the government just wait for the unvaccinated to
| get COVID and just roll the dice if they survive or not?
|
| I'm not sure how you can seriously argue that point versus
| the _massively_ simpler to execute policy plan of just
| getting everyone vaccinated.
| bobbytit wrote:
| We are not cattle no matter what you public policy wonks
| have been led to believe. It is possible to test to
| differentiate between those currently shedding the virus
| and those who are recovered with natural immunity. Those
| with natural immunity actually do themselves harm by
| taking a double vaccine dose according to some
| immunologists.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > 1. How do you verify if someone has gotten COVID
| already? The PCR test can report negative for as short as
| 2 weeks after symptoms go away.
|
| Antibody tests?
| mcguire wrote:
| " _Among Kentucky residents infected with SARS-CoV-2 in
| 2020, vaccination status of those reinfected during May-
| June 2021 was compared with that of residents who were not
| reinfected. In this case-control study, being unvaccinated
| was associated with 2.34 times the odds of reinfection
| compared with being fully vaccinated._ "
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=m
| m...
|
| " _Effectiveness of two doses remains at least as great as
| protection afforded by prior natural infection. The
| dynamics of immunity following second doses differed
| significantly between BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1, with greater
| initial effectiveness against new PCR-positives but faster
| declines in protection against high viral burden and
| symptomatic infection with BNT162b2. There was no evidence
| that effectiveness varied by dosing interval, but
| protection was higher among those vaccinated following a
| prior infection and younger adults._ "
|
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.18.21262237
| v...
|
| " _We examined whether sera from recovered and naive
| donors, collected before and after immunizations with
| existing messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, could neutralize
| the Wuhan-Hu-1 and B.1.351 variants. Prevaccination sera
| from recovered donors neutralized Wuhan-Hu-1 and
| sporadically neutralized B.1.351, but a single immunization
| boosted neutralizing titers against all variants and SARS-
| CoV-1 by up to 1000-fold. Neutralization was a result of
| antibodies targeting the receptor binding domain and was
| not boosted by a second immunization. Immunization of naive
| donors also elicited cross-neutralizing responses but at
| lower titers. Our study highlights the importance of
| vaccinating both uninfected and previously infected persons
| to elicit cross-variant neutralizing antibodies._ "
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abg9175
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > This is the "Science is a Liar sometimes"[1] defense
|
| No, this is not "Science is a liar sometimes" defense.
|
| When we were misled about mask efficacy with a number of
| circular lies (you don't need masks, you do need masks,
| double mask!, cloth masks are as effective as N9ts, N95 is
| overkill, it is not aerosolized, etc) a good number of those
| were well-known lies of varying proportion, and not the
| scientific method in progress.
|
| The truth was that people were lying to us consciously to
| preserve N95 mask supply for frontline workers, but that
| truth would have gone much further than the mistruths and
| half truths we were told.
|
| At the same time as the hyperbole was spreading about covid
| taking over ERs and News coverage was emphasizing this fact,
| my surgeon wife was telling me how empty all of the hospitals
| were, and the on-call cases dropped to nothingness because
| people were isolating and not going outside. But still, the
| drumbeat of 24/7 news cycle kept putting out bogus info about
| saturation of ERs and ICUs chock full of intubated covid
| patients.
|
| If there has been any damage done to science by our
| authorities during this crisis, it is completely self-
| inflicted.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _When we were misled about mask efficacy with a number of
| circular lies (you don 't need masks, you do need masks,
| double mask!, cloth masks are as effective as N9ts, N95 is
| overkill, it is not aerosolized, etc) a good number of
| those were well-known lies of varying proportion, and not
| the scientific method in progress._
|
| The original consensus is that there was no need for
| widespread mask wearing, and a supply shock would have been
| dangerous. We only know now (or rather a couple months
| later), that advice was wrong. Again, I'm not sure how you
| can feel misled about the advice with regards to a novel
| virus. It just sounds like you are frustrated because the
| data wasn't 100% accurate on day one.
|
| > _At the same time as the hyperbole was spreading about
| covid taking over ERs and News coverage was emphasizing
| this fact, my surgeon wife was telling me how empty all of
| the hospitals were, and the on-call cases dropped to
| nothingness because people were isolating and not going
| outside. But still, the drumbeat of 24 /7 news cycle kept
| putting out bogus info about saturation of ERs and ICUs
| chock full of intubated covid patients._
|
| Your anecdote is not a good replacement data. Maybe your
| wife's hospital or experience was different but that may
| not reflect the hundreds of thousands of other hospitals.
| If you don't believe ICU reports, it could help to look at
| how salaries for traveling nurses have grown in the same
| time period. If hospitals are empty why are their salaries
| rising? Did hospital administrators suddenly get
| charitable?
|
| [1] https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/nursing/going-
| back-to-...
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > The original consensus is that there was no need for
| widespread mask wearing, and a supply shock would have
| been dangerous. We only know now (or rather a couple
| months later), that advice was wrong. Again, I'm not sure
| how you can feel misled about the advice with regards to
| a novel virus. It just sounds like you are frustrated
| because the data wasn't 100% accurate on day one.
|
| Please do not project anger or frustration. It was
| clearly respiratory in nature from day one, and I always
| thought it was bad advice intentionally given out to
| control supply, rather than the painful truth of "we
| don't have enough and we need to save it for medical
| workers".
|
| > Your anecdote is not a good replacement data. Maybe
| your wife's hospital or experience was different but that
| may not reflect the hundreds of thousands of other
| hospitals. If you don't believe ICU reports, it could
| help to look at how salaries for traveling nurses have
| grown in the same time period. If hospitals are empty why
| are their salaries rising? Did hospital administrators
| suddenly get charitable?
|
| This wasn't anecdotal, as the 4 hospital systems she
| supports are circulating daily covid lists, and the
| numbers were quite low. Because I have an interest, this
| data was shared with me. The CDC's own numbers for covid
| patients also reflect this fact [1].
|
| A travel nurse is a poor proxy for a Covid staffing
| problem, since what you are probably pointing out is
| instead common staffing issues from school closings, and
| nurses prioritizing their own family over work. More
| recently, many nurses are resigning from covid vaccine
| mandates [2].
|
| Many nurses go through advanced training in order to be
| able to treat specialized patients, also known as
| Critical Care [3]. Most travel nurses are not Critical
| Care / ICU / ID qualified [4] , nor experienced to work
| an infectious disease unit either, nor are they
| respiratory therapists, or Infectious Disease docs, the
| two medical pros most likely to be impacted by a covid
| outbreak.
|
| Saying a travel nurse is like a Critical Care / ICU / ID
| nurse, is like going to an Orthopedic surgeon to have
| your heart surgery, or visiting an interventional
| radiologist to get your ACL repaired. While both an
| Orthopedic surgeon and an interventional radiologist are
| medical doctors, they have specific residencies,
| fellowships, and advanced medical education that equates
| to thousands of hours. In this type of education for
| nurses, that likewise translates to a specific number of
| hours working in the field, learning the equipment,
| practices for Standard of Care.
|
| The more mid-level Critical Care certifications can be
| found at [5] and the graduate-level / advanced
| certifications at [6]
|
| Here is a useful reference I found on the transition of
| nursing into advanced specialties focused on Critical
| Care / ICU / disciplines [7]
|
| If you wanted to provide accurate data around travel
| nurses, you would need to pull out the small subset of
| travel nurses trained in Critical Care, ICU/ID, or
| advanced educated like Nurse Practicioners, and then
| expand on it. But you haven't done that, and are just
| conjecturing.
|
| The medical establishment has a rapidly growing body of
| knowledge and a huge number of specializations, to treat
| all the injuries, pathologies, and maladies that plague
| us.
|
| [1] https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_3.html
|
| [2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/lewis-county-hospital-
| halts-ba...
|
| [3] https://www.purdueglobal.edu/blog/nursing/list-
| nursing-speci...
|
| [4] https://www.gmercyu.edu/academics/learn/types-of-
| nurses
|
| [5] https://www.aacn.org/certification/get-certified
|
| [6] https://www.aacn.org/certification/advanced-practice
|
| [7]
| https://www.americannursinghistory.org/nursingspecialty-
| crit...
| saurik wrote:
| > You are basically asking that our agencies be 100% correct
| the first time and be perfect predictors of the future.
|
| That isn't how I read this comment at all :/.
|
| First off, the person isn't even saying not to trust
| scientists at all, much less because they are _wrong_ : in
| each case the idea was that they are acting in their best
| understanding of what the effect of a certain kind of
| intervention will be; the comment isn't blaming scientists
| for getting something wrong or failing to predict the future:
| it explicitly even seems to agree with each intervention as
| being a sensible thing to do given the information at the
| time and the risk/benefit analysis.
|
| And then secondly, the issue of someone overstating their
| confidence _on purpose and knowingly_ is very different from
| someone misunderstanding something and later realizing they
| were wrong. "I think this is our best course of action to
| mitigate the impact" is an honest thing to say. But people
| seem to want to hear "this will solve the problem fully".
| People seem to not want to deal with "I realize this might
| not help much, but it certainly won't hurt: let's try it and
| see how effective it is" (another honest thing to say), but
| instead want to hear "trust me: you need to do this as I know
| it is going to work".
|
| I was--and am!--fully willing to do things that are only
| going to mitigate the impact, whether to myself or to others,
| and I am willing to do it even on reasoning as flimsy as "it
| is unlikely to hurt". But I feel like I am in a vast
| minority, and so everyone instead is motivated to overstate
| their confidence and overstate their intended result in the
| hope of getting more compliance, which is why we have people
| who don't just feel "scientists and doctors are trying their
| best to work in our best interests, and this is our best hope
| as of today" but help get on the bandwagon of "if you
| disagree with how effective this is going to be you are an
| idiot who is anti-science and you are _part of the problem_
| in our attempts to get compliance ".
| nemothekid wrote:
| I truly do not understand what distinction you are trying
| to make and your interoperation seems to be way less
| charitable than I gave.
|
| Your problem is, as I understand it, is you understand that
| they can be wrong, but they didn't use your preferred
| language? Are you asking the USG to personally message to
| 300MM Americans?
|
| Do you get mad at your doctor for being wrong sometimes for
| the same reason?
| rasz wrote:
| No, he is asking to not be knowingly lied to. You might be
| fine with this if you are from Far East or India https://en.w
| ikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)#Ch.... Lying to
| save face, or even for greater good is not tolerated in the
| West.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _No, he is asking to not be knowingly lied to._
|
| My problem is the implication what they _lied_. That 's why
| I posted the "Science is a liar sometimes clip". You can't
| call someone a liar for giving you bad advice on imperfect
| information. Was Aristotle lying when he said the sun
| revolves around the earth or was he just wrong?
| GoodJokes wrote:
| With this and Afghanistan coverage one really needs to analyze
| what the media CHOOSES to cover. There are plenty of other things
| just a little less rare and way more scary than breakthrough
| cases of covid. With Afghanistan, the major news stations devoted
| a like a grand total of 5 minutes on Afghanistan before we
| withdrew.
| whb07 wrote:
| Here's an interesting calculator from Oxford using Britain's data
| from COVID:
|
| https://www.qcovid.org/Calculation
|
| My wife is a nurse and doesn't follow up the data and she was in
| disbelief that her "risk" of serious/death was around 0.00005% or
| somewhere near that.
| nkozyra wrote:
| As a nurse, what's her risk of spreading it to someone with a
| much, much greater risk of death?
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| What's a parents' risk of having children that eventually
| die? What's your risk of driving and having a seizure at the
| same time and wiping out kids on the sidewalk? What's your
| risk that while leaving Home Depot you dropped a few nails on
| the ground and someone's car tire picked them up and now
| they'll have a blowout on the highway?
|
| We can take this stupid premise to its logical end and never
| do anything out of fear that we might eventually harm someone
| else, but that's not how life has gone on for millennia. We
| have the vaccine which is the solution, by and large the data
| supports that the sustained overreaction is now
| disproportionate to the actual risks, time to let the science
| we supposedly all believe in aka natural selection run its
| course.
| shkkmo wrote:
| We can take a realistic look at the increased risks
| involved with particular behaviors and the relative gains.
|
| There are people who don't have kids of their own because
| of the high risk of passing potentially fatal genetic
| defects to their children. If you are an at risk epileptic,
| driving regularly is something you should avoid.
|
| If an you are contemplating an activity that has a
| significant risk of causing harm to others, you have a
| moral obligation to consider if the benefits are big enough
| to be worth that risk.
|
| If you have a higher than average level of contact with
| vulnerable populations, you should take higher than normal
| precautions to reduce your chances of infection. This is
| just basic moral common sense.
| Grakel wrote:
| No way, the 6th booster will definitely do it! Or maybe the
| 7th!
| rogerkirkness wrote:
| If we're going to run society this way, we're going to need
| much more difficult driving tests.
| Icathian wrote:
| I understand the point you meant to make, but to be honest
| I've always found it horrifying whenever I have to sit in
| the DMV and see who all they allow to pilot steel missiles
| around. Our "licensing" for drivers in the US is abhorrent.
| lovegoblin wrote:
| > we're going to need much more difficult driving tests.
|
| Sounds good to me. Let's require regular re-testing while
| we're at it.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Your analogy doesn't really make sense to me.
|
| It's not like we are aware that there are certain drivers
| that are 100x more likely to kill certain members of the
| population.
|
| And if we were aware that certain ways of driving made you
| 100x more likely to kill someone, people would AT LEAST be
| talking about banning them.
|
| Like, if teenagers could drive around drunk just find and
| not kill themselves or other teenagers somehow - they
| probably wouldn't care if only old, sick people ended up
| dead from their driving. People would probably make rules
| or at least talk about making rules to prevent this.
|
| But that's not how driving really works.
| herbstein wrote:
| Sounds sensible to me.
|
| The US in general has super lax driving tests. Here in
| Denmark it's about 3 months of theoretical classes side-by-
| side with driving with a certified driving instructor. We
| also learn the basics of cars on a closed track, and later
| learn to drive in slippery conditions on the same closed
| tracks. The closed-track tests include being able to catch
| the car after pulling the handbrake in a turn while going
| 80 km/h (50 mph).
|
| Oh, and to actually get your license you also have to drive
| 45 minutes with a police official checking your every move.
| pandaman wrote:
| Why would you want to pull the handbrake in a turn while
| going 50 mph? And what is going to happen if you pull the
| handbrake at 50 mph other than the handbrake burning out?
| I have not had a car with a handbrake at all but I drove
| a few rentals with one and they drove normally even when
| I forgot to take them off the handbrake, the thing is
| just a lever with a wire, it cannot stop the car even on
| idle. Or do they use a rally car with a hydraulic
| handbrake that does something at that speed?
| nradov wrote:
| The point of pulling the handbrake is to artificially
| trigger a slide in a controlled environment in order to
| verify that the student driver has the vehicle control
| skills necessary to recover. It's similar to what can
| happen driving on ice.
| ThalesX wrote:
| My friend living in Denmark, with a driver's license from
| a corrupt country where literally anyone can get it,
| would render your whole 3-months intensive system
| useless. He is in fact driving, and could cause quite a
| crash, with all this amazing procedure you describe.
|
| We are a somewhat globalized civilization and the same as
| this security theatre about keeping airports open with
| countries with 2% vaccination rate can be said about
| driving.
| rasz wrote:
| But Mum, Kevin does drugs and he is fine, why cant I?
| nkozyra wrote:
| Unless bad driving is an infectious airborne pathogen, I'm
| not following this analogy.
| dgfitz wrote:
| Sure seems to be in the mid Atlantic region of the US.
| Also, I'm sure you get the point they were making, why be
| unreasonable about it?
| Igelau wrote:
| Is there a better name for the "playing dumb" style of
| argument?
| Smaug123 wrote:
| Come on - obviously bad driving is not primarily an
| infectious airborne pathogen. Bad driving is something
| you can unilaterally inflict on other people to
| permanently ruin their lives, as is an infectious
| airborne pathogen.
| nkozyra wrote:
| Well I certainly do think people should consider others
| when they get behind the wheel.
|
| Similarly I think people should consider the risk to
| others if they get this pathogen rather than just the
| risk to themselves.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| The problem is, 73% of drivers think they're above-
| average drivers[1]. So just as you can't know whether
| you're the one spreading COVID, you can't know if you're
| the bad driver.
|
| The solution is to get rid of cars as a primary mode of
| transport, and I really do think we should do that!
|
| 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-are-
| overconfident-...
| nkozyra wrote:
| > So just as you can't know whether you're the one
| spreading COVID, you can't know if you're the bad the
| driver.
|
| This really isn't remotely analogous, particularly since
| you absolutely can know you're at risk of spreading
| COVID.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| You added the "at risk" part, not me! :)
|
| Your version applies to cars too! By driving a car, you
| are _at risk_ of causing a car crash!
| nkozyra wrote:
| You said "you can't know"
|
| With COVID, you can. Pretty easily.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Sorry, I might not be understanding where you're going
| with this. I initially thought you meant "you can know
| you're at risk of spreading COVID, because everyone is at
| risk of spreading COVID."
|
| Certainly, anyone who receives a positive PCR test for
| COVID should quarantine ASAP. But if you're incubating
| COVID, but not infectious yes, the tests will return
| negative. A test only tells you whether you were
| infectious at the time of the test, so by the time you've
| seen the results, the information is already outdated.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > I initially thought you meant "you can know you're at
| risk of spreading COVID, because everyone is at risk of
| spreading COVID."
|
| No. That wouldn't be a particularly useful statement.
|
| Dismissing the aggregate risks solely based on your own
| is short sighted.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Indeed, driving lorries and buses requires an advanced
| license, with far more stringent testing, presumably
| because, like in the analogy, you could kill a lot more
| people behind the wheel of those?
| TakuYam wrote:
| Bad driving begets bad driving. Some jackass cuts you up
| dangerously, your adrenaline is pumping and you then
| follow too close behind a third driver repeat ad nauseam
| nvr219 wrote:
| The website doesn't have that info.
| fredophile wrote:
| I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Should we
| stop having nurses treat covid patients so they don't spread
| it to people who are more likely to have severe reactions?
| Should we stop having nurses treat people with compromised
| immune systems and other health issues so they can treat
| covid patients?
| clairity wrote:
| also tiny, since they have rigorous procedures and properly-
| deployed ppe for all sorts of transmissible infections, not
| just covid (and where masks can actually help, unlike most
| mask usage).
|
| the treatment risk calculation is also entirely different,
| since "someone with a much, much greater risk of death" is
| already flirting with death in other material ways.
| citboin wrote:
| You're making uninformed assumptions and obviously don't
| work at a Covid center in the USA. Personnel are now
| careless, many are fatigued and/or disillusioned,
| protocolsuu are not universal or enforced, many buy into
| the political drama and don't mask when outside the
| facility and patients have become argumentative about
| masking. The moment I have another career option is the
| moment I quit. PPE use / enforcement and availability is
| also spotty. People are tired of arguing with their
| coworkers about it, too.
| clairity wrote:
| buddhism suggests we focus on the things we can control,
| like perception and attitude in the face of otherwise
| uncontrollable circumstances. i've no doubt the situation
| for many medical professionals is quite frustrating, even
| infuriating, but it would have been so in any of the
| myriad of realistic scenarios. the virus is, and was
| always going to be, endemic, which means hospitalization
| and death rates are pretty well bounded no matter what we
| realistically did. the frustration comes from believing
| that this isn't true, that there was something that could
| be done to significantly reduce these rates, but that's
| mediopolitical messaging, not realistic possibility.
| accepting this could possibly relieve some of your
| frustration.
|
| also, no assumption was involved, just the simple logic
| of multiplying two tiny numbers resulting in another tiny
| number.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| NPR article honestly just sounds like fear-mongering. I am fine
| with showing how worse it can get, but nothing in the NPR
| article talks about the likelyhood of getting a bad case of
| COVID after vaccination. Objectively informing the public, it
| is not.
| dimator wrote:
| The section "How high are my chances of getting a
| breakthrough case these days?" goes into that. If you're
| looking for a hard number, I don't think anyone can give you
| that because it's highly community specific.
|
| I have no idea how you got fear-mongering from that article,
| though. My impress was that it's a reality check on what the
| vaccine is capable of and what one individual's breakthrough
| looks like.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > I have no idea how you got fear-mongering from that
| article
|
| This is a single first-hand account, was subject to
| publication bias, and a relatively bad breakthrough case.
| clairity wrote:
| > "NPR article honestly just sounds like fear-mongering."
|
| that's nearly all of npr (and nyt) now, especially the covid-
| related news that's 50+% of npr stories. i can no longer
| stomach more than their 10-minute hourly news summary on the
| radio these days.
| tfehring wrote:
| I'm personally way more worried about long-term cognitive
| symptoms than about dying. Obviously the jury's still out on
| long term symptoms, but something like a quarter of people with
| symptomatic COVID seem to have some kind of cognitive symptom
| (mainly "brain fog" and/or short-term memory loss) 8 months
| later.
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.18.21253633v...
| b3nji wrote:
| With around than 1% getting long COVID, which used to be
| called "viral fatigue" pre 2020, I'm not certain its
| something to worry about.
| tfehring wrote:
| I think "long COVID" is too vague to really provide a
| specific incidence rate - it's more meaningful to look at
| the incidence rates of particular symptoms long after
| infection.
|
| The study I linked finds 27.9% incidence of
| "confusion/brain fog/trouble focusing attention" and 20.7%
| incidence of short-term memory loss 8 months after
| symptomatic COVID infection (confirmed with antibody
| testing), compared to 14.7% and 5.6% respectively in the
| control group (who tested negative for COVID antibodies).
|
| I don't know or really care if "long COVID" is the right
| term for what those folks are experiencing, but that result
| has real practical significance and the rates are way
| higher than 1%. The same study also finds significant
| incidence rates for lots of other symptoms that could
| reasonably fit under the "long COVID" umbrella.
| xupybd wrote:
| It's also unclear if those long COVID symptoms will resolve
| after a few years.
| jxf wrote:
| Even a few weeks of "brain fog" would be pretty devastating
| to my mental health, ability to earn a living, and ability
| to be an effective parent.
| [deleted]
| robocat wrote:
| Absolutely useless: the calculator doesn't even ask if you have
| been vaccinated! And the risks are calculated for someone in
| the UK - completely irrelevant if you are not (no NHS
| etcetera).
|
| Was the calculator developed before Delta? Does it already
| include a factor for your chances of catching it, or is it the
| risk _after_ you have caught Covid? So many glaring issues - it
| isn 't designed to be informative to the general public.
| azornathogron wrote:
| The associated paper was published in October 2020, so yes
| this was developed well before delta (at least well before
| delta's arrival in the UK), most likely in the period between
| the first and second major peaks in the UK. Given the way
| academia works I doubt it has been updated significantly
| since then.
| learc83 wrote:
| The "risk" is misleading because it's the risk that you will
| catch it within a 90 day period based on the community spread
| in the UK at some point in the past (before Delta) times the
| risk that you will die if you catch it.
|
| Since your wife is a nurse, she's much more likely to be
| exposed than the average UK resident. I also think even in her
| case you likely added an extra zero or 2 based on what I'm
| seeing while playing around with it.
|
| I think what most people want is what's my risk of death
| assuming I get it, not that multiplied times the risk of being
| infected within only the next 90 days.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Those are two different measurements.
|
| You have: 1. Chance of getting a disease 2. Chance of dying
| from said disease once acquired
|
| Both have numerous factors that affect the result.
| noasaservice wrote:
| For someone who works in health care, they're likely
| subjected to multiple variants at one time.
|
| What's the metrics look like when someone is hit with 2+
| variants at once?
|
| HIV is similar, where someone can be positive for 1 or more
| different strains. And their viral loads are cumulative.
| nradov wrote:
| At this point the Delta variant has effectively out
| completed everything. The chance of exposure to any other
| variant is low.
| mlac wrote:
| I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but the pharma companies burying
| some side effects doesn't help anything.
|
| Here is one example in Pittsburgh with severe side effects [1]
| (temporary paralysis, loss of fine motor control and a
| continuously flapping hand). The news did one story and both the
| person impacted and news station were contacted and told to not
| run a follow up story or they would have "problems" (this is
| second-hand info, but I have no reason to distrust the source).
|
| I think transparency is key in a situation like this. Yes we will
| have side effects, but if we are ever going to get past it, our
| only hope is very high vaccine compliance. The unvaccinated are
| causing a drag on the economy, the healthcare system, and the
| country.
|
| We don't know if the vaccine side effects impact the same people
| who are most likely to die from COVID or not, so it's definitely
| a decision under uncertainty.
|
| [1] https://www.wpxi.com/news/top-stories/bethel-park-woman-
| para...
| laurent92 wrote:
| I don't know why you're downvoted. The French president clearly
| decided to manage this crisis by lying a lot, to the point that
| he says the opposite every two months:
|
| - "Masks are absolutely useless for the general population" in
| April 2020 => Mandatory in September.
|
| - "There will be no vaccine passport" in May 2021 => Vaccine
| passport enforced in bars on 01/08/2021.
|
| And so on. Now they want us to take the vaccine, but gave
| pharma and ministers exemption of responsibility on it. Also,
| the French govt injected AIDS to 10,000 patients in 1985 and
| spent 6 years to admit it.
|
| And that was when the press was free!
| over_the_raibow wrote:
| Ahahhaa, and somehow, you ve got here like a solid 70% of
| this forum that not only do not question any measure by the
| governments media and big pharma in the last 18 months, but
| actively find excuses for any inconsistency and lack of logic
| for any measure, or the lack of any positive results. These
| people are mostly phds, bay area engineers, entrepreneurs,
| highly skilled specialists and scientists mind you. These
| people work with deadlines, need to show scientific papers,
| or some working snippet of code, or some working
| infrastructure at the end of the day. Somehow, they never
| question the moving deadline for pandemic(2 weeks to flatten
| the curve) or the abysmal results of vaccination and
| lockdowns in stopping covid infections and hospitalisations.
| Covid is truly the afghanistan of the nerds it seems. See you
| in 20 years.
| laurent92 wrote:
| Excellent point.
|
| I've also worked in feminism. None of the scientific
| results are correct (We often think women have always been
| oppressed, remembering the right to vote, but disregarding
| that ILO's convention on slavery in 1930 excluded men 18-49
| - which literally reverses the conclusion about
| oppression). And yet this scientific field was funded and
| hyped in 2013-2020.
|
| The common points with Afghanistan and Covid: Every study
| is slightly wrong enough to lead to an incorrect global
| picture, and obviously enough that simply reading the
| studies is enough to find the major flaws; Laws are written
| in emergency; Actions that are undertaken either amplify
| the problem or are orthogonal to solving it; Those very
| actions harm the bystanders in a significant way, enough
| that it causes major outrage and focalises everyone's mind.
|
| I wonder to which point they are rotating the topics,
| whether they have a major cycle on 20 years (otherwise
| people would get too knowledgeable and able to disprove the
| sophisms) and a short cycle on 6 years (perhaps election
| cycle, the swings of the two-party), or whether this is a
| natural phenomenon emerging from large nations in peace.
|
| Next topic will be something else such as microrobot
| attacks, so they are not visible but everyone will have to
| protect themselves.
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| Science is not static.
| jhawk28 wrote:
| The issue is that they are changing things without the data
| changing so it feels like it is more politics driven than
| science driven.
| arn wrote:
| This is firmly conspiracy theory territory however.
|
| The vaccine certainly has side effects and there are going to
| be rare side effects that are severe.
|
| But considering that 209 million people in the United States
| have gotten the vaccine -- if there were a high rate of serious
| side effects, there is no way that would be suppressed.
|
| Even a 1% rate would mean there are over 2 million people that
| would have been affected.
| tomohawk wrote:
| This is what post pandemic looks like.
|
| Covid is endemic, and just like you probably don't know anyone
| who has never had the flu or the cold, it will be the same with
| this.
|
| Get your vax! It'll likely keep you out of the hospital when you
| do get it.
|
| Mask up all you want. Avoid crowds. Shun and shame people. You're
| still going to get it, just like everyone else.
| [deleted]
| htlkjlrh wrote:
| "muh breakthrough case"
| htlkjlrh wrote:
| I really wish covid related articles would be banned from HN.
|
| This has _nothing_ to do with startups.
|
| This has _nothing_ to do with hacking.
|
| Covid is pure democratic/liberal/commie propaganda. FUCK RIGHT
| OFF!
| Vecr wrote:
| I searched for "monoclonal" and "respirator" in the article and
| found nothing. If you want go avoid getting infected, wear a
| correctly fitted respirator, preferably NIOSH P100 elastomeric
| with replaceable cartridges. If you can convince your doctor,
| they can prescribe monoclonal antibodies right after you get
| exposed, with no symptoms or testing needed.
| murkle wrote:
| Cost is "PS1000-PS2000 per treatment"
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58281332
| Vecr wrote:
| In the US the federal government buys it, though I'm not sure
| they are going to continue doing so. In the tristate area and
| Florida it's apparently pretty easy to get.
| nvr219 wrote:
| I've seen nobody wear respirator or anyone recommend wearing
| that to avoid infection until this comment.
| mrob wrote:
| I wear a EN 149 P3 elastomeric half mask respirator (99.97%
| effectiveness) and face shield whenever I go into shops or
| other indoor spaces other than my own home. It's a lot more
| comfortable than a surgical mask. If everybody did the same
| then the pandemic would probably be over by now.
| [deleted]
| bob229 wrote:
| Sounds just fine. The vaccine is doing its job. Time to let the
| virus rip through the unvaccinated and let them face the
| consequences
| [deleted]
| ttul wrote:
| NB: The plural of anecdote is not "data".
| arcticbull wrote:
| I like that haha. Will use.
| ColinWright wrote:
| You are one of today's ten thousand:
|
| https://xkcd.com/1053/
| ColinWright wrote:
| While what you say is true, I'm surprised that you think it is
| the most relevant and useful thing to say given the content.
| I've read the article and it has lots of useful things to say.
|
| It may have been written because they themselves caught the
| virus, but the article is not just their story.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| The plural of anecdote _is_ data, though. That's the original
| expression [1]; unclear why it became popular to flip it
| around.
|
| [1] http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-
| anecdote-i...
| dnautics wrote:
| This article is fantastic, I love the quote about no data
| having a virgin birth.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Well, the correct puralization would "biased data". With
| data, the method of collection matters a great deal in
| determining the amount of bias inherent in your dataset.
|
| The implication of flipping the expression around is that
| poorly collected data isn't really data (which is silly).
| That is a bit silly, but so is the implication of the
| original expression which implies that simply having more
| anecdotes resolves issues of data bias.
| [deleted]
| dnautics wrote:
| Actually the original quote is "the plural of anecdote _is_
| data ". As a scientist, I support the original. All scientific
| observations start as anecdote.
| shkkmo wrote:
| All scientific observations may start as an anecdote, but
| hopefully they continue with a sampling methodology that
| minimizes bias in your data.
| dnautics wrote:
| It's impossible to eliminate bias. Whenever you report a
| measurement, the answer to "why did you choose to measure
| that particular thing to represent the phenomena"
| implicitly encodes a set of biases, and a tower of biases
| that a lot of other accessory things are built on (why did
| you use that instrument? Why does that instrument use
| mechanism X and not mechanism Y? Why do you use filter Z
| when processing your data? Why did you use exposure time T
| for the imaging, why did you pick that particular P-value
| threshold, etc.) these are all at some point, subjective
| judgements. _Biases are not a priori bad_
| shkkmo wrote:
| Bias is unavoidable, but definitely reducable. Biases are
| the least harmful when they are well understood. The
| problem with just haphazardly collecting anecdotes is
| that the biases tend to be poorly understood becuase the
| collection protocol is inconsistent and poorly
| documented.
| dilap wrote:
| I'll disagree with you on this. A collection of anecdotes
| absolutely is data. It may have more (and unknown) sample bias
| than you'd like, but it is real data. Just because something
| happens outside the context of a formal study does not mean
| it's not data, nor that it can be safely disregarded.
| criticaltinker wrote:
| If you think you're getting sick, the number one action you
| should take is to begin treatment _early_. You need to take
| action before symptoms get worse. The author had a high grade
| fever for a week but never mentioned seeking any treatment.
|
| Things you should do yourself: take vitamins and nutritional
| supplements, drink plenty of water, get your body moving, isolate
| yourself from others, wear a mask.
|
| Things your doctor should do for you: prescribe antivirals, also
| corticosteriods & antithrombotics if symptoms continue to worsen.
| The goal is to avoid the hospital and severe outcomes - many
| clinics will prescribe these safe & widely available over the
| counter medicines with little to no consultation.
|
| Whether you're vaccinated or not, this should be the standard of
| care for everyone - it's no different than most other viral
| infections. For some reason very few people seem to be aware of
| this advice, and all the scientific evidence supporting it (in
| the context of SARS-CoV-2 and in general).
| sonicggg wrote:
| Nonsense, get monoclonal antibodies as soon as possible. The
| earlier the better.
|
| All you said was available during 2020, and people have been
| taking vitamins minerals, etc. and dying anyway.
| arn wrote:
| Most things on your list are fine and prob won't hurt, but you
| didn't explicitly mention one thing that has studied benefit
| which is monoclonal antibodies. Also needs to be done early.
| javagram wrote:
| > For some reason very few people seem to be aware of this
| advice, and all the scientific evidence supporting it (in the
| context of SARS-CoV-2 and in general).
|
| It's because most of it is not backed by scientific evidence,
| there aren't proved to be any general "antiviral" drugs you can
| effectively take to fight colds or other viruses. Tamiflu does
| exist for flu and maybe takes a day off your disease course,
| but even that is disputed. Zinc has as many negative studies as
| positive, high doses of vitamin C (e.g. "Emergen-C") have
| flamed out in trials in the past. Some of them may have a small
| effect but don't think it's going to be a game changer in the
| fight against COVID-19. Only monoclonal antibodies and the
| vaccine are.
| htlkjlrh wrote:
| Fuck everyone in this thread that support covid measures. Kill
| yourselves.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| I must have been living under a rock to come back to the
| transformation hn underwent. Has every covid discussion on hn
| turned into a discussion you'd see on a Joe Rogan episode? A
| grain of signal, a silo of noise. This is a festival of morons
| who adopted libertarianism as a substitute for critical thinking.
| Seems as though the hackers have exited the building.
|
| Getting ahead of the reprimand: I would love nothing more than to
| never return to this burning shit-heap of what hn used to be.
| Feel free to ban me any time.
| y7 wrote:
| > Recent research from the U.K. suggests that vaccinated people
| are about 50% less likely to develop long COVID than those who
| are unvaccinated.
|
| To me that doesn't sound like that great of a risk reduction.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| That's on top of the reduced risk of catching it in the first
| place. Estimates of that vary widely, let's use 1/6. So 1/12
| risk of long COVID.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Have you factored in the reduced chance of symptomatic disease?
| That comes before long COVID.
|
| With (two months after) vs without = ~0.2 vs 0.05x0.5x0.2 =
| ~20% vs ~0.5%
|
| (Explanation: chance of symptomatic disease 2 months after
| reported as 5% vs "control"; chance of long COVID after
| symptomatic infection reported as 2.3% as bare minimum, 13% to
| other research and 40% to a large interpretation.)
|
| Edit: to the three British studies of 2.3%, 13% and 40%, after
| this thread I can add 25% from a post from user _tfehring_ ,
| including link to article: <<something like a quarter of people
| with symptomatic COVID seem to have some kind of cognitive
| symptom (mainly "brain fog" and/or short-term memory loss) 8
| months later>>. I will update the tentative value for the
| chance of long COVID, but the ratio, half of one twentieth,
| does not change.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| People get sick. It happens. I am well-aware that by resuming my
| pre-pandemic lifestyle, and only wearing a mask in the spaces
| where they're mandatory, I am increasing my risk of getting ill.
|
| But I'm not going to change my behavior, because I'd rather be
| sick for a week than sit at home 24/7 for the next year, or wear
| a mask every time I step outside, and constantly monitor my
| physical distance from other people. My life is passing me by
| right now, and I want to enjoy it while I can.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > sit at home 24/7 for the next year, or wear a mask every time
| I step outside
|
| These are extremely extremely extremely different things.
| 5faulker wrote:
| Nice attitude. Time flies whether you like it or not.
| bequanna wrote:
| Our perception of time seems to be related to the number of
| new experiences we have.
|
| If every day is exactly like ever other, you quite literally
| are losing a portion of your life.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Again another false dichotomy. Wearing a mask and social
| distancing doesn't preclude you from new experiences. One
| could argue living to have more masked experiences is more
| experiences. Having more people living to share those
| experiences with, is more experiences.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| I don't understand how some of you seem perfectly content
| to want to wear a mask everywhere for the rest of your
| existence.
| rkk3 wrote:
| > Wearing a mask and social distancing doesn't preclude
| you from new experiences.
|
| You really can't think of any activity that is diminished
| by wearing a mask ?
|
| 210 Million people (64%) have already been vaccinated in
| the US, and children aren't even eligible. At some point
| there is an acceptable level of risk. When do these
| 'temporary safety precautions' stop?
| birdyrooster wrote:
| I'm getting tired of rural and trailer park America being the
| tail that wags the dog. It's asymmetric warfare and these
| people do it for a political end. Terrorists.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Everyone can make their own choices, but I don't mind wearing a
| mask in optional scenarios if it gives me a good chance of
| avoiding a difficult and feverish few days with above average
| risk of hospitalization compared to flu. I can definitely
| picture wearing masks on an ongoing basis e.g. on mass transit
| even once the pandemic is done. On the other hand, we are still
| taking measured risks like eating indoors in not too crowded
| restaurants. My tolerance will likely increase once my children
| are both vaxxed but at the rate we're going that won't be for a
| while.
|
| It's worth considering the continuum between taking the minimum
| possible measures and the maximum. There is space between those
| two.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > eating indoors in not too crowded restaurants.
|
| This is one of the potentially higher risk activities that I
| see commonly accepted. If your area has high rates of
| community spread and/or the restraunt has poor ventilation,
| this is probably a risk that should be avoided. Choosing
| restraunts with outdoor seating or getting takeout to eat in
| a park is a very minor sacrifice to cut out one of the
| hishest risk activities that people commonly engage in
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| > [Indoor dining] is probably a risk that should be avoided
|
| Eh. I have seen conflicting data on this. For example, some
| studies attributed only 1% of COVID spread to indoor dining
| (sorry in advance, I don't have a citation). My area is
| very highly vaccinated and requires all people to show a
| vaccine card to eat indoors, and while we do have some
| cases, the per capita rate right now is about 1/10000 and
| level.
|
| Also, point of order, you can tell me I "should" do
| something according to your values, or according to some
| mutually agreed standard (which in this case does not
| exist), but you cannot tell me what I should do according
| to my values. I feel like this is a point of communication
| disconnect between those of us who favor increased or
| decreased COVID restrictions.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > Eh. I have seen conflicting data on this. For example,
| some studies attributed only 1% of COVID spread to indoor
| dining (sorry in advance, I don't have a citation)
|
| This is pretty useless without details on the study
| conditions. If the study includes a population for which
| indoor dining is allowed 10% (on a per capita per day
| basis) but masks are mandated in other venues at a 0%
| rate, then the proportional amount of spread drom indoor
| dining should much lower that if the data is collected
| where indoor dining is allowed 100% and mask mandate
| coverage is 100%.
|
| Similarly, if you don't bother to wear a mask in other
| indoor settings, indoor dining won't be as high among
| your risks. If you work from home, always mask everywhere
| and are very careful with social distancing, and have a
| similarly cautious bubble, indoor dining will probably be
| among your highest risk.
|
| I mean "should" as in "if managing your covid risks is
| something you care about, this is a low impact way to
| reduce those risks when your local situation makes that
| important." Since I am not advocating any externally
| imposed restrictions, I think you are reading things into
| my comment that aren't there.
| htlkjlrh wrote:
| I mind wearing a mask.
|
| I mind not being able to go to private businesses.
|
| I mind being yelled at while walking alone on a nature trail
| in the middle of nowhere for not wearing a mask.
|
| I mind my civil liberties being stolen from me.
|
| I mind the government using VIOLENCE to inject me with a
| unknown 'vaccine' that has cause more deaths than those
| without.
|
| I mind the fact that some governments such as Australia are
| literally building concentration camps as we speak.
| CONCENTRATION CAMPS! Do you speak Nazi!?!!
|
| FUCK EVERYTHING ABOUT COVID and FUCK YOU if you support _any_
| covid measure.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Or you know you can adjust your lifestyle and still enjoy it
| without it needing to be the same as pre-pandemic. Have some
| more imagination.
| crixlet wrote:
| do you have kids, or know anyone who has kids that are unable
| to get vaccinated?
| iammisc wrote:
| Kids should get infected so they have immunity. The vast
| majority of children will experience no symptoms or an
| extremely mild cold. You should be more worried about the
| flu.
| sroussey wrote:
| That we know of. Delta is killing some children, but low
| numbers. COVID-19 can infect brain cells and organs, so
| very much not like other viruses, and definitely not like
| the flu (or colds) which is limited to acidic cells from
| your nose to your lungs (and stomach).
| slugabed wrote:
| The children's hospital in our area has been running at
| near full capacity.
|
| Not for my kids, thanks.
| iammisc wrote:
| Not due to covid. Unfortunately lots of childhood
| illnesses around, many much more dangerous than covid.
| This is not controversial. It's just empirical
| observation.
| neilv wrote:
| Living in a dense, student-heavy neighborhood of the Boston
| area, I really hope that this isn't the thinking of many
| students who just arrived, from all over.
|
| The thinking is understandable, but a pandemic like Covid-19
| seems like one scenario in which a billion small individual
| sacrifices together could've (and possibly still can) be a
| dramatically positive net benefit to the world.
|
| One way to think about the significance of minor individual
| sacrifice like voluntarily masking (where it's not absolutely
| required by law/rules) is that every infection will tend to
| spread exponentially. Passing it on to even only one person
| seems like that would likely result in at least one _tragedy_
| for someone else 's family. IIUC, masking reduces that
| significantly, so masking when I believe there's a significant
| risk of spread seems an easy decision to me.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| My question for you is, what is the end point?
|
| I am willing to wear a mask and practice social distancing
| for a period of time--in the aim of some goal. I'm not
| willing to do it forever. Which is why I wore a mask until
| this summer when vaccines were widely available.
|
| Give me an end date, and explain why things will be different
| then, and I'll do it! Honestly! But right now, I'm looking
| around and I'm not seeing a timeline.
| neilv wrote:
| I don't know when this will end, nor what the end will look
| like.
|
| To consult recent history, my layperson's vague impression
| is, if early on we'd had better leadership and precautions
| compliance, we would've already incurred vastly fewer
| family tragedies, and the pandemic might've even been all
| but over by now.
|
| So, personally (and I know my situation is easier than many
| people's), I can hold out longer with precautions, and I'm
| not yet willing to just give in to the same mistakes that
| seemed to contribute to us getting into the current
| challenging situation.
| TillE wrote:
| It's a pandemic. Why would you expect a firm end date?
|
| I know we're living in strange and difficult times, but I
| feel like a lot of people haven't accepted that just
| because you're tired of it, doesn't mean the pandemic is
| over, doesn't mean it's a good idea to stop taking measures
| to reduce illness and death.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Because we think the powers that be might not _ever_ let
| it be "over". Remember that after it became apparent
| that "two weeks" was a lie, the next lie where the
| goalposts were moved to was "once a vaccine is widely
| available".
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Remember that after it became apparent that "two weeks"
| was a lie...
|
| It wasn't a lie.
|
| First off, significant portions of the population refused
| to take the measures advised.
|
| Second, it's on _you_ if you took "two weeks to slow the
| spread" (and yes, it was slow, not stop;
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/trumps-coronavirus-
| guideline...) as "two weeks to slow the spread _and then
| we 're done_". That's an absurd misunderstanding of the
| point of it.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| ^ Just to be clear, I personally don't think there's some
| conspiracy. I just think a lot of people aren't reasoning
| about the level of risk in a rational way. They
| absolutely were in 2020, but now we have widely-available
| vaccines.
| rkk3 wrote:
| It doesn't have to be a conspiracy, there just has to be
| incentives to keep the fear up.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > It's a pandemic. Why would you expect a firm end date?
|
| Or an event, and a plausible way the world will get
| there. Please tell me what the goal is.
|
| I don't think COVID is ever going to go away, just as the
| flu has never gone away, and every number I've seen
| indicates that if you're vaccinated (!), the risk of
| either virus putting you in the hospital is similar.
|
| That seems to me like it's as good as it's gonna get.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Please tell me what the goal is.
|
| I think a reasonable goal is "get the vaccine approved
| for children", and I think the FDA's dragging heels on
| this has been a significant mistake.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I think a major reason the FDA is dragging their heels is
| because children under 12 are not at serious risk from
| COVID in the first place, so the risk vs reward calculous
| is very different.
|
| Which is subsequently why I'm not particularly worried.
| Yes, the stories of the children who _are_ in the
| hospital are heartbreaking, but they 're the outliers.
|
| Edit: Actually, I just realized something... now that the
| Pfizer vaccine is fully FDA approved, parents should be
| able to find a pediatrician who will administer the
| vaccine off-label, if they want their kids to have it
| badly enough...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| If kids truly needed a vaccine, they'd be approved by
| now. The fact is kids are not at all even close to being
| at risk of covid. This is something that all these public
| health "experts" should be cheering about but I good news
| hasn't been allowed since March of 2020. Good news around
| covid has always been met with outrage and mockery.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| _I 'd rather be sick for a week_
|
| this is a completely absurd assumption, and not appropriate for
| the standard of serious discourse this site aims for.
|
| you could have no symptoms at all. you could die. you could
| suffer serious cognitive effects which eliminate your ability
| to work, read books, or even watch TV. you could get sick and
| stay sick for the rest of your life. we don't know the exact
| duration of long covid, but there are plenty of people who got
| sick in early 2020 and haven't gotten better yet.
|
| there's a huge range of symptoms. in the dreamworld you posit
| here, where getting sick for a week would be the worst-case
| scenario, your reasoning would make sense, but nobody lives
| there, because that place doesn't exist.
| rkk3 wrote:
| > you could have no symptoms at all. you could die. you could
| suffer serious cognitive effects which eliminate your ability
| to work, read books, or even watch TV. you could get sick and
| stay sick for the rest of your life. we don't know the exact
| duration of long covid, but there are plenty of people who
| got sick in early 2020 and haven't gotten better yet.
|
| Why just apply this to covid? 45,000 people a year in the US
| die when they get behind of a wheel of a car every year. Does
| that number need to be zero to be an acceptable level of
| risk.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| at our current covid death rate, that 45K people happens
| about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for
| simplicity's sake.
|
| that 45K is also the most popular argument in favor of
| self-driving cars.
|
| but none of this has ANYTHING TO DO with the argument I
| made, which is that the grandparent's estimate of a worst-
| case scenario was just wildly inaccurate.
| rkk3 wrote:
| > at our current covid death rate, that 45K people
| happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for
| simplicity's sake.
|
| Your math is wrong, 45 /1.5 = 30
|
| But so what? 8,000 people tragically die a day in the US
| under accepted normal conditions and we move on.
|
| > none of this has ANYTHING TO DO with the argument I
| made, which is that the grandparent's estimate of a
| worst-case scenario was just wildly inaccurate
|
| Realistically if you are young, healthy, and vaccinated
| that is the worst case scenario.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > at our current covid death rate, that 45K people
| happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for
| simplicity's sake.
|
| I think your numbers may be a tad off in general, but
| regardless, I'm pretty sure you're including unvaccinated
| adults. While I absolutely don't want _anyone_ to die, I
| don 't feel a responsibility to protect people who aren't
| willing to take the most basic of steps to protect
| themselves.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| But doesn't this apply to everything?
|
| When you crash your car, you could walk away unscathed. You
| could die. You could suffer serious cognitive effects which
| eliminates your ability to work, read books, or even watch
| TV. Should people be afraid to drive?+
|
| My question for you would be, when does this end? I'm
| vaccinated, and the vaccines _are_ very effective. Should we
| all be practicing social distancing for the rest of our
| lives?
|
| ---
|
| + Actually, maybe yeah, I think the number of people who die
| in car crashes is reason enough to move away from them as a
| primary mode of transport, even putting aside environmental
| concerns. But the point is, we have decided to accept this
| risk.
| jayd16 wrote:
| It only applies if you completely ignore the magnitude of
| the situation. Most US adults are exposed to cars on a
| daily basis. It doesn't overrun the hospital system like
| covid. Cars are dangerous but covid seems much more so.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| The hospital system is overrun by people who refuse to
| get vaccinated. If you're vaccinated, the risk is
| significantly lower than a car crash. And if you're not
| vaccinated, you should get vaccinated.
| YZF wrote:
| I think a better analogy is drunk driving because we are
| talking about risk to yourself and the risk you present to
| others. What about those people who really want to
| experience driving while high or drunk? What sort of
| freedom do we have where we prevent those activities?
|
| Should you be allowed to drive drunk on a private road?
| Well, as long as I'm not paying your health bills, you
| fully recycle your trashed vehicle, and there's no other
| externality - go for it...
|
| Is asking people not to drive drunk too much? Apparently it
| is because there are lots of people who do it.
|
| EDIT: You do make a good point re: what's the exit
| strategy. My personal thoughts are we take some reasonable
| measures, especially during times when the virus is very
| active, but we should resume a more normal life. The people
| who don't get to resume a normal life should be those that
| have made the choice not to get a vaccine. To continue on
| my analogy, you choose to get drunk at the party, driving
| home is not an option as much as you'd really like to do
| that.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Why do you bring up being drunk? The analogy is much more
| accurate if you question why we're allowed to drive at
| all, even when sober.
| YZF wrote:
| It has to do with your probability of causing serious
| harm to other people. ~40k deaths/year from driving
| (presumably some significant portion from drunk driving,
| texting, drugs etc.). (EDIT: this number is in the USA)
|
| The point I am making is that you are _not_ free to do
| whatever you feel like you want to do. You wanna drive?
| Get a license. You wanna drive drunk? Not allowed. You
| wanna speed? Not allowed. There are people coming to this
| discussion from the perspective that their freedom to do
| whatever they want is absolute regardless of impact to
| others, but it 's not.
|
| It's a balance. For sure the measures/restrictions on
| freedom need to be proportional to the risks but this is
| not about individual risks. If you drive a tank and
| there's zero risk to you you still can't drive drunk.
| cltby wrote:
| > this is a completely absurd assumption
|
| lol this "assumption" is empirically >99.9% true for
| vaccinated adults (which presumably describes the parent).
| Fear of covid appears to harm reason and numeracy far more
| than the disease itself.
| [deleted]
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| So, the expert in the article agreess you shouldn't sit at home
| 24/7 for the next year:
|
| > Even with delta, the goal is not to go back to a lockdown
| mindset, though, says Malani. "My hope is that people who are
| fully vaccinated should really feel like this risk is
| manageable."
|
| > "Feel good about spending time with your friends, or having a
| small dinner party, but make sure everyone is vaccinated," she
| says
|
| But you probably should still be wearing masks in crowded
| indoor locations and avoiding/reducing large gatherings.
|
| Since it's all statistical, it's not all of nothing, going to
| an occasional large gathering isn't the same as might as well
| go to one every day, you can prioritize ones important to you.
|
| But it's up to you. The important thing is if you do get sick
| or know you're sick, please quarantine to avoid infecting
| others.
|
| The annoying thing is, all the risks are proportional to how
| much covid there is in the community. If we could get rates
| down, then we wouldn't have to worry so much. So it's not just
| about what we are willing to risk personally, it's about trying
| to change social behavior to get risks much further down, so
| everyone in the community can do more stuff safer!
| Jabbles wrote:
| - sit at home 24/7
|
| - wear a mask
|
| These 2 things seem rather different in magnitude.
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| I've been seeing this a lot amongst anti-mask arguments.
| Antimaskers unironically equate wearing a mask to some type
| of life-altering, oppressive action. It's absurd.
|
| Amongst all of our social responsibilities as human being,
| wearing a mask is probably the easiest, most bare-minimum
| thing imaginable, right up there with "don't litter". And
| just like I don't respect people who litter, I don't at all
| respect people who don't wear masks in crowded places.
|
| edit: wowfunhappy deleted their comment, but previously it
| said that the reason they don't wear a mask is because "it
| fogs up my glasses and is hot and sweaty", and went on to say
| that such hardships "affect [them] psychologically". This is
| exactly what I'm referring to in the first sentence of my
| comment. Absurdity.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I can accept that there may be a continuum of taste in
| terms of how onerous wearing a mask is. But I don't really
| know how it can be _that_ bad when my six year old managed
| it all year last year for school.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| The damn thing fogs up my classes when it's cold, and is
| hot and sweaty when it's warm. When I speak, I frequently
| have to repeat myself, and I can't casually take a sip of
| water or eat a snack.
|
| And while this part pertains more to other people wearing
| masks--I honestly feel like universal masking affects me
| psychologically. I have a huge amount of trouble
| recognizing people's faces when their masks are on--I
| didn't even recognize my sister when I ran into her on the
| subway--and I'm not able to read anyone's expressions.
|
| I'm not an anti-masker, and I wore one diligently
| throughout 2020 and early 2021, but I'm just not willing to
| do it forever! Wearing a mask is by no means torturous, but
| I really do think it is life-altering. Similar to social
| distancing, masks change every single interaction I have
| with others.
|
| I'm aware that masks protect others in addition to myself,
| but where does my responsibility end? I wear a mask on
| public transit, and I'll wear a mask any time someone asks
| me to put one on. But I'm not going to wear one otherwise,
| and I'm significantly less likely to go into a store if
| there's a sign on the front that masks are required. I
| think I should be able to make that choice, and other
| people can make the opposite choice.
|
| ---
|
| Edit: Re your edit, sorry about that, I actually deleted
| the above comment from downthread in order to post it here
| instead, and our actions seem to have crossed.
| craftinator wrote:
| You whiny little entitled shit. People are losing their
| lives and loved ones due to this virus, and you're
| complaining that taking an easy precaution against spread
| is too hard because you " can't casually take a sip of
| water or eat a snack."
|
| You quite well can wear one forever. The reason we are
| still plagued with this virus is because assholes with
| your same arguments stopped wearing masks early on, and
| wouldn't get vaccinated when that became available. So at
| some level, your attitude is why we have 1000 people
| dying per day again. Glad your personal comfort is worth
| that, and I hope you get it!
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I didn't stop wearing masks early on, I got vaccinated as
| soon as possible, and I've pleaded with everyone I know
| to get themself vaccinated as well. Please don't lump me
| in with COVID deniers.
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| >The damn thing fogs up my classes when it's cold, and is
| hot and sweaty when it's warm. When I speak, I frequently
| have to repeat myself, and I can't casually take a sip of
| water or eat a snack.
|
| Wow. I'm so sorry you have had to go through this
| _horrificness_. After reading your comment, I am now
| convinced that it is completely reasonable that other
| people should have to catch covid and die so that you don
| 't have your glasses fogged up or have to repeat yourself
| occasionally. Thank you so much for opening my eyes to
| these tragedies. In fact, we should probably repeal all
| laws that require people to wear clothes in public, since
| shirts and pants also forcibly oppress everyone into
| being hot and sweaty. I'll contact my congressman.
|
| To be more serious, do you seriously think others don't
| face these same issues with wearing a mask, and yet they
| do it anyway with no problem? My glasses fog up all the
| time. I get over it. I have to repeat myself every now
| and then. I get over it. Are you really so fragile that
| you can't deal with these things like every other human
| being on Earth is capable of doing?
| cltby wrote:
| At this point, the burden of the disease falls almost
| exclusively on unvaccinated adults. For everyone else,
| the risk is same order-of-magnitude as the flu. It's
| pathological and innumerate to obsess over COVID when we
| unthinkingly accept similar or greater risks. If you're
| afraid, stay home. Don't saddle the rest of us with the
| cost of your neuroses.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Educating people on the benefits for yourself and others
| of wearing a mask is good.
|
| Snarky condescending comments like this just alienate
| people and do nothing to help. They are also against the
| site guidelines.
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| We're long past the point where "educating people" is
| going to help. The people left who still refuse to mask
| up are not doing it because of lack of education, and
| it's time to publicly shame them for their selfishness
| and arrogance, just like we shame drunk drivers or
| litterers.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Public shaming works best if the people being shamed care
| about the regard of those doing the shaming. It works
| very poorly when the topic is polarized and the shaming
| can be easily brushed off. The more hyperbolic and over
| the top you make this shaming, the easier it is to brush
| off.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I'm really, honestly trying my best to have a reasoned
| discussion about this! But I don't know where the
| misunderstanding is, somehow I'm looking at the same
| numbers for breakthrough infections as you are, and I'm
| seeing a very different story.
|
| To be clear, I wore a mask religiously for 15 months, and
| got vaccinated as soon as I could.
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| There is no such thing as a "reasoned discussion" with
| someone who genuinely thinks that "my glasses get fogged
| up :(:(:(" is a legitimate thing to even bring up in a
| discussion where we are talking about _people dying_. The
| fact that you even bothered to bring up something as
| asinine as your glasses fogging up in this discussion
| tells me all I need to know about you.
|
| I don't care if you're vaccinated. I don't care if you
| previously wore masks. Those actions don't somehow
| absolve you of your _current_ responsibility to continue
| wearing your mask. You don 't get any "credit" for
| previously doing the bare minimum expected of you. That's
| not how this works.
|
| I don't care if it's harsh. I don't care about downvotes.
| I don't care about changing your mind, because you're
| clearly too far gone. I have no respect for you.
| cesarb wrote:
| > The damn thing fogs up my glasses when it's cold
|
| Check the nose clip of your mask. Fogging your glasses
| might mean it's not sealing correctly around the nose, so
| that the hot humid air from your breath is being directed
| upwards towards the interior of your glasses, and also
| allowing unfiltered outside air inside the mask when you
| inhale.
| tvb12 wrote:
| I wear safety glasses and a mask at work. I pull my mask
| up a little so that I can catch the edge of it between my
| nose and the glasses. I haven't had any issues with
| fogging.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I did some research on this last winter, when I was
| literally struggling to go outside--I walked straight
| into a lamp post at one point! I'm not going to be able
| to find the article now, but what I read it's largely
| dependent on the shape of your nose and face. I seem to
| have lost the lottery.
| prirun wrote:
| When I was at Mayo Clinic, one of the eye doctors put
| tape at the top of my mask to seal it. He did the same to
| his because he wore glasses. This prevents fogging up
| glasses (or eye exam equipment).
|
| I'd suggest using paper tape for this because the skin
| around the eyes is very delicate and regular medical tape
| is a bitch to get off. They used medical tape, and I felt
| like it was ripping my lower eyelids off when I removed
| it!
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Yeah, believe me I've tried this. :(
|
| Last winter, I even bought a mask from
| https://zerofogmask.com/?v=7516fd43adaa, which you heat
| up with a hair drier before wearing for the first time so
| it molds to the shape of your face. It admittedly worked
| better than a normal mask, but only partially and only
| for a few uses, which wasn't economical at $20 each.
| Plus, it was particularly uncomfortable.
| playguardin wrote:
| Get the virus get over and move on. Feel free to wear a
| mask but I will not wear one for you.
| quantified wrote:
| Especially because a lot of outside doesn't need a mask. If
| you live in a dense urban core, it might. If you live in
| light urban, or suburban/rural, you can mask when stepping
| into the store or whatever.
|
| Don't forget that masks are to protect others at least as
| much as yourself.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _masks are to protect others at least as much as_
|
| I had a different underestanding: I thought masks are to
| protect others, overwhelmingly, and there might also be
| some protecting power for yourself, in a much lesser
| amount.
|
| The concept is consistent with "since you can, limit
| dispersing the droplets".
|
| I unfortunately do not have bookmarked articles about this
| though. Do you have any good source (e.g. to state that
| masks have a protecting power for the wearer comparable to
| that for the others)?
| unearth3d wrote:
| You're correct, that is our understanding in NZ, mask
| wearing is almost entirely about protecting others by
| limiting the projection range of droplets. It works if
| everyone wears a mask.
| dv_dt wrote:
| And wearing a mask is not just direct individual risk
| reduction either. Preventing spread reduces opportunities
| for the virus to mutate, which reduces the larger systemic
| risk that a new mutation is created that is even more
| adapted to bypassing vaccines and masks.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Don't forget that masks are to protect others at least as
| much as yourself.
|
| That seems to depend on the mask itself, some masks
| explicitly state that they offer no protection to the
| wearer and only serve to provide protection to others
| _from_ the wearer.
|
| This article, for me, highlights one of the major problems
| of this entire response. Various establishments keep trying
| to present a rather black-and-white binary view on these
| subjects.
|
| They're doing a particularly poor job of explaining the
| spectrum of risks and protections that are available and
| how to apply that knowledge to your own individual
| circumstances.
| snupples wrote:
| The mask is to protect others as much as it is to protect
| yourself. You can be contagious and spread it for up to two
| weeks without symptoms. It's unfortunate that wearing a mask is
| such a hardship for you.
| [deleted]
| vl wrote:
| But how exactly paper ill-fitted masks protect against
| aerosol-spread virus?
| nkozyra wrote:
| In an ill fitted mask? Not well. The suspension of the
| virus in aerosol is precisely why masks have any efficacy
| in the first place, since the viruses themselves could
| easily permeate without it.
| shkkmo wrote:
| By reducing the number of aerosol particles that escape the
| mask and thus reducing your chances of infecting someone
| else.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| If the standard is zero transmission, then they are
| useless. But that isn't had has never been the claim. N95
| is better than simple masks, but they are more expensive,
| initially were in short supply, and uncomfortable.
|
| But this is all about statistics. Simple masks reduce the
| chance of catching it by some small amount (say 15%) and
| reduce the emission of virus particles by something like
| 50% (it all depends on the mask). This doesn't mean the
| odds are cut in half; it means the exponent of the spread
| of the virus is cut in half.
| nvr219 wrote:
| Here you go chief:
| https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-
| abou...
| cltby wrote:
| The disease is significantly (primarily?) spread via
| aerosol. Against which officially sanctioned masks are a
| pretty marginal intervention.
|
| https://uwaterloo.ca/news/media/study-supports-
| widespread-us...
| craftinator wrote:
| It's a simple and easy way to reduce chances of spreading
| it to another person. It diverts airflow from directly
| forward, changing the distance outward that aerosols from
| your mouth go. Since, as you point out, this virus is
| spread via aerosols, this impacts the chances of
| spreading it, by reducing the contagion radius around
| you.
| cltby wrote:
| Simple and easy and, given the miniscule risks to all but
| the unvaccinated, completely unreasonable to impose on
| others.
| playguardin wrote:
| This has always been the case. Think of all the lives we
| could have saved if we had all worn masks the last 50 years.
| Or better yet if no one ever left home the past 50 years.
| Good on you for a drastic life change for some low
| probability theoretical good for "humanity". Me? I'm out and
| about living life you nerdy bitch!
| mrob wrote:
| This has to be the biggest mistake of the whole pandemic.
| Exhalation valves dramatically improve the comfort of masks.
| A cloth mask might give 50% protection, and a surgical mask
| about 75%, but even after you double the effects to account
| for filtering both on exhalation and inhalation, that's still
| only 75% (1-(1-.5)^2) and 94% (1-(1-.75)^2), which is worse
| than the 95% you could expect from a correctly fitted N95
| mask with exhalation valve.
|
| If you protect yourself then you also protect others, because
| you can't infect others unless you are infected yourself.
| This focus on filtering exhaled breath just results in people
| wearing masks incorrectly to avoid the problems of valveless
| masks, making the numbers even worse than the previous
| calculation. It's also much easier to motivate people with
| self-protection than altruism, especially when the people
| they're helping often don't reciprocate. We've had more than
| long enough to solve the production problems by now, so N95
| should be the minimum standard.
| craftinator wrote:
| As former military ( I assume that background is the reason
| for this), I just cannot understand what the deal is over
| masks. I can literally forget that I'm wearing a fitted
| surgical mask. They feel like nothing. What is so damn hard
| about wearing them? I hear so many grown adults whine and
| complain and dramatize having to put one on, and it just
| blows my mind.
|
| Maybe I am, unknown to myself, a superhero, and my power is
| not having a hard time wearing a mask. Or maybe I'm not a
| spoiled entitled brat. Not sure anymore.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Protect who though? Who do masks protect at this point?
| People who are vaccinated? They have no need to worry. People
| who are unvaccinated? They made that choice.
|
| There is literally no reason for a vaccinated individual to
| wear a mask. Vaccines work. They are the ticket out of this.
| Not masks.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| I can't stand this intimation that you're an asshole for not
| wearing a mask. If other people want to be precautious, they
| can get vaccinated and wear a mask and do the social
| distancing. It's not my problem.
| Ekaros wrote:
| My understanding is that masks at least cloth or surgical are
| vastly more about others than yourself.
| throwaway20371 wrote:
| And I want to be able to climb a mountain, drink alcohol, taste
| pizza, and live past age 70. All of those things can go out the
| window with a severe case of COVID-19, and potentially even
| with an asymptomatic case, due to the long-term effects of
| scarring on multiple organs, and unknown long-term neurological
| effects.
|
| I know humans always prioritize short-term goals over long-
| term. But personally, I am fine with wearing a mask or staying
| in for a year, to ensure my health for the next 70 years.
|
| I also wear condoms when having sex with strangers. Crazy, I
| know, but somehow getting a lifelong disease just doesn't seem
| worth the momentary pleasure.
|
| All you have to do is listen to the stories of young people who
| are now on a breathing machine _for life_. If that doesn 't
| scare the fucking bejesus out of you, I don't know what will.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| All respiratory viruses can have long term effects. I've had
| super annoying colds that refused to go away for like 6
| months. Covid is no different.
|
| So many people are so absolutely petrified over covid. It's
| like they suddenly woke up and realized that respiratory
| viruses can suck and people die of horrible illness. None of
| this is unique to covid.
|
| It's life. There are no guarantees. What we are doing now is
| not living. Vaccines were it. Time to return to actual
| normal.
| throwaway20371 wrote:
| > Covid is no different.
|
| Covid-19 is literally a neurological disease. It causes the
| body to attack itself, like an autoimmune disease, which is
| what is leading to the incredibly high number of severe
| cases leading to death. And all of the long-term, quality-
| of-life-impacting side-effects that have nothing to do with
| respiratory viruses.
|
| This has been reported for _over a year_.
|
| > It's life. There are no guarantees.
|
| There's no guarantee you will get AIDS Or HepC if you have
| unprotected sex. Time to throw away the rubbers, we can't
| stop living life now can we?
|
| Oh, wait. You can still fuck with rubbers. I guess you
| don't have to choose between not fucking or getting AIDS.
|
| Just like you don't have to choose between being a hermit
| and making out with a dozen strangers at a bar. These
| things called "masks" are there to reduce risk without
| forcing us to stop living life.
| aazaa wrote:
| > In my case, it was worse than expected, but, in the parlance of
| public health, it was "mild," meaning I didn't end up in the
| hospital or require oxygen.
|
| > ...
|
| > It was a miserable five days. My legs and arms ached, my fever
| crept up to 103 and every few hours of sleep would leave my
| sheets drenched in sweat. I'd drop into bed exhausted after a
| quick trip down to the kitchen. To sum it up, I'd put my
| breakthrough case of COVID-19 right up there with my worst bouts
| of flu. Even after my fever cleared up, I spent the next few
| weeks feeling low.
|
| "Mild" can mean different things to different people. I doubt
| this description of "mild" fits most people's concept of the
| word, as it sounds like a severe case of the flu. The fact that
| these infections are happening against a backdrop of
| normalization efforts should give anyone who thinks we're out of
| the woods pause.
|
| As the rate of infection increases, so does the risk to the
| vaccinated. It's another demonstration, once again, of how our
| public health system (and the CDC in particular) has failed us:
|
| > ... "quantifying that [chance of symptomatic case in an
| unvaccinated person] in the U.S. is very challenging" because our
| "data is so shoddy."
|
| Some time ago, the CDC stopped counting/sequencing "mild"
| breakthrough cases, so we're flying blind mostly. Maybe it's
| delta the reporter caught. Maybe something else. Who knows?
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/why-did-cdc-stop-counting-mild-asym...
|
| What's clear is that COVID-19 isn't going away any time soon.
| What's also clear is that it shares the tendency that all RNA
| viruses have to mutate at an extremely rapid rate. It has shown
| that it can change much faster than we can adapt.
| rkk3 wrote:
| > I doubt this description of "mild" fits most people's concept
| of the word
|
| Sure they were sick but they did not seriously fear for their
| lives or require medical attention. Obviously being
| asymptomatic would have been more mild but in general this
| seems like a win.
|
| People need to accept some level unpleasantness and risk in
| their lives.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > What's clear is that COVID-19 isn't going away any time soon.
|
| This isn't new information. It was obvious all the way back in
| March of 2020 that covid was here forever.
|
| Life must go on. We cannot live with this myopic fixation on
| exactly one specific form of illnesses. These "experts" have
| already asked enough out if people. We've been asked to put our
| lives on hold for more than 1.7 years now.
|
| Dragging any of this on after the first vaccines came out was
| unethical as hell. Vaccines were it. There is nothing else we
| can do besides attempt to build some myopic hellscape where our
| entire existence is centered around stopping the spread of
| covid.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Well we can get everyone vaccinated so we quit filling the
| hospitals with unvaxxed patients.
| ColinWright wrote:
| Text-only version:
|
| https://text.npr.org/1036356773
| blub wrote:
| Thanks. NPR used to have a pop-up asking if one wants to be
| tracked or go to the text-only version. Now they only offer
| getting tracked or some convoluted guide on "other options".
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| Looks like actual cases will make up a material portion of herd
| immunity. Columbia reports that up to 1/3 of Americans already
| had contracted COVID by the end of 2020:
|
| https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news...
| throwaway20371 wrote:
| _Five reasons why COVID herd immunity is probably impossible_
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2
|
| _Here's why herd immunity from Covid is 'mythical' with the
| delta variant_ https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/12/herd-immunity-
| is-mythical-wi...
|
| _The developer of the AstraZeneca shot says the Delta variant
| has made herd immunity impossible because vaccinated people can
| still transmit the virus_
| https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
| transfire wrote:
| If you feel like you might be getting it, boils some water and
| breath the hot steam through your nose for at least 30 minutes --
| longer the better. The infection generally starts in the nasal
| cavities, so if you catch it early you have a good chance of
| stopping it.
| jpxw wrote:
| Is there any study to back this up?
| VRay wrote:
| What, you think the risk of inhaling scalding steam is worse
| than the possibility that it helps in some way?
| [deleted]
| wyager wrote:
| > Where did I get it? Who knows. Like so many Americans, I had
| loosened up with wearing masks and social distancing, after
| getting fully vaccinated
|
| I'm not a fan of this vaguely hamartiological style of reasoning.
| The narrative structure is like a biblical cautionary tale. The
| author had something bad happen to him, and so he's searching for
| a transgression he committed that he can use to construct a
| punishment narrative.
| shkkmo wrote:
| risk analysis != hamartiology
|
| I don't see any punishment narrative. I think you a reading
| into the article to support your own narrative. Indeed, the
| entire article is about adjusting how one sees the related
| risks given the information that has emerged around the
| vaccines and the delta varriant.
| wyager wrote:
| This article is not risk analysis. It's just a bunch of
| narrative stories.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Never heard the word hamartiological before but it's perfect
| here and describes exactly how I've felt too.
| notanzaiiswear wrote:
| Unfortunately the vaccination can also have side effects, but
| data seems to be hard to come by. When I read "unvaccinated
| people have ten times higher odds of being hospitalised because
| of covid", apart from wondering about the absolute odds which are
| notably missing from the article (ten times more than one in a
| hundred is different from ten times more than one in a million),
| I wonder how many become hospitalized because of vaccines. It may
| well be that the number is low and vaccinated still comes out
| ahead, but it would be nice to know. (Also have to factor in the
| risk of getting Covid to begin with - while they say everybody
| will get it eventually, will that eventually be in time to be a
| variant the vaccine still works against? And why bother with
| masks if everybody will get it anyway?).
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Unfortunately the vaccination can also have side effects, but
| data seems to be hard to come by.
|
| Data is not hard to come by. It is being closely monitored,
| leading to short pauses in administration of the J&J and
| Astrazeneca vaccines while small clusters of rare side effects
| were investigated.
|
| We can very comfortably say it's nothing like the 600k
| Americans dead of COVID, despite more Americans getting
| vaccinated than have gotten COVID.
| notanzaiiswear wrote:
| I think deaths are counted differently, though - everybody
| who dies within one month after testing positive is counted
| for Covid (afaik - at least in some places). For vaccines, I
| am not aware of such rules. So the numbers can not easily be
| compared. That is the problem.
|
| As I said, I am ready to believe that Covid kills more. But
| what if you factor in the odds of infection, and also
| individual odds (age, no co-morbidities, that sort of thing)?
| The odds are very different for somebody in their twenties
| and somebody in their eighties.
|
| "Closely Monitored" - OK so where exactly is the data?
| "Closely Monitored" is just a call to "trust the
| institutions".
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > "Closely Monitored" - OK so where exactly is the data?
| "Closely Monitored" is just a call to "trust the
| institutions".
|
| Submitted to the FDA, first for the EUAs, then for the full
| approvals, and still on an ongoing basis for longer term
| monitoring. They're so careful about reporting _everything_
| that they submitted a lightning strike as a potential
| adverse event. https://metro.co.uk/2020/12/18/covid-
| vaccine-volunteer-struc...
|
| > I think deaths are counted differently, though -
| everybody who dies within one month after testing positive
| is counted for Covid (afaik - at least in some places). For
| vaccines, I am not aware of such rules. So the numbers can
| not easily be compared. That is the problem.
|
| Again, easily addressed. Look at total deaths, for the
| entire country, regardless of cause.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.ht
| m
|
| If vaccines were killing anything like the numbers COVID
| did, you'd see it. Instead, you can see in March 2021 the
| excess deaths largely go away (after being elevated for
| more than a year) for a couple months, as vulnerable
| populations got protected. It doesn't tick back up until
| Delta hits, and even then, the spike is much smaller than
| previous ones.
| notanzaiiswear wrote:
| Good point with the excess deaths (you mean because many
| more have been vaccinated than have been known to be
| infected), but there still is the issue that if you are
| getting the vaccine, you definitely get the vaccine,
| whereas it is not certain that you catch the virus. And
| still age and individual risk seem to matter.
|
| "They're so careful about reporting everything that they
| submitted a lightning strike as a potential adverse
| event."
|
| So how many vaccine deaths were there so far? It doesn't
| seem easy to get the number, even though there clearly
| seem to have been deaths associated with it. When I
| google for it, I mostly get the unreliable VAERS reports
| (7400 deaths so far according to https://www.cdc.gov/coro
| navirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad... ).
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Why no official numbers?
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety
| /ad...
|
| > During this time, VAERS received 7,439 reports of death
| (0.0020%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine.
| FDA requires healthcare providers to report any death
| after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS, even if it's unclear
| whether the vaccine was the cause.
|
| So, that's an absolute _upper_ limit, which would require
| zero _normal_ deaths (car accidents, other illnesses, old
| age, etc.) in nearly 200M Americans over a seven month
| period of administration.
|
| Confirmed deaths: three so far, from J&J-induced blood
| clots. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloa
| ds/slides-...
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _Data [<<vaccination can also have side effects>>] is not
| hard to come by_
|
| To me, it is.
|
| The best data I have is that of _Safety and Efficacy of the
| BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine ... for the C4591001 Clinical
| Trial Group_ 1, with its laconic "0.6% Severe Adverse Events
| but 0.5% in the control group".
|
| Before being notified of that I have been looking for active
| monitoring databases, but could only find passive monitoring
| ones (VAERS, EudraVigilance, DAEN etc.).
|
| I find it "undesirable" as an understatement that after
| billions of inoculations the original SAE assessment on
| 20'000+20'000 people, not clear about effects and their
| duration, is still the best document. It would have been
| _very_ productive, for collective reassurance, to continue
| the assessment on a larger population, and provide as much
| detail as possible to define the risks and, e.g., their
| demographics.
|
| 1(For reference:
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577)
| [deleted]
| jpxw wrote:
| I don't know a single person who was hospitalised from the
| vaccine, and almost every adult I know has got it.
|
| Conversely, several people I know were hospitalised from COVID,
| one of whom was killed.
|
| Anecdotal, of course, but in the absence of better data, I'd be
| interested in other peoples' experiences.
|
| I'll also note that in my country someone dying of the vaccine
| is a news-making story. Someone dying of COVID isn't, because,
| sadly, it wouldn't be "new" at all.
| notanzaiiswear wrote:
| I know one person who died from Covid, but he was a very
| unlikely case (in his thirties, and there were so far only
| 255 deaths in his age group in my country of 80 million
| people - he also was a news story), one who was hospitalized
| but seems to be fine now, and one who had a thrombosis from
| the vaccination (not life threatening it seems).
|
| Another person I know was close to checking into the hospital
| for fear of heart issues after the vaccination. But it seems
| to have passed - except a few weeks later he now has a
| pacemaker, but officially not related to the vaccination (I
| don't know, not saying it is).
|
| I have no doubt that for certain people the vaccine is
| better. But why do the stories never account for individual
| risk, dependent on age and co-morbidities?
|
| Edit: changed 171 to 255, as 171 was just the male deaths in
| his age group. 255 is men+women.
| ssklash wrote:
| I assume they're getting those numbers from hospitals
| themselves, who see FAR more unvaccinated patients than
| vaccinated. Which really tells you everything you need to know
| about the vaccine and getting vaccinated. Sure, having a
| concrete number to point to is nice, but knowing that your
| local hospital sees _drastically_ more unvaccinated patients is
| far more _useful_ than knowing the average rate nationally.
| notanzaiiswear wrote:
| You "assume" is not really "data", though. I'd like to see
| the data in the articles, and readily accessible on the
| dashboards.
|
| Also not really trusting hospital reports, if they get extra
| money for Covid cases.
| aml702 wrote:
| Imagine getting your news from NPR.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| > I had loosened up with wearing masks and social distancing
|
| Moron
|
| > We had flown across the country, seen friends [without masks],
| stayed at a hotel, eaten indoors [without masks]
|
| Moron
|
| People don't think N95s and social distancing are worth the
| effort and then they act like other people's shitty behavior
| excuses them. They knew all of this but want to feign ignorance
| now because of consequences.
|
| I'm glad they got sick because they can evangelize the correct
| behavior but they knew all along. What a stupid fucking idiot.
|
| Please flag and downvote me Floridamen, you only further prove
| the point.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| "Next, a headache clamped down on the back of my skull. Then my
| eyeballs started to ache. "
|
| Why do I feel like this was written in an alarmist tone with some
| kind of an agenda?
| quantified wrote:
| Probably because anyone who got a solid case of COVID will
| raise the alarm for others and have an agenda of preventing it.
| The 24 hours of reaction I got from shot #2 convinced me that I
| really wanted to avoid a full case.
| [deleted]
| ketzo wrote:
| Have you had COVID? It fucking _sucks_. This vivid description
| is pretty accurate to my experience.
|
| Is it an alarmist tone or an accurate expression of symptoms?
| Why do you immediately take it for an agenda?
|
| Sometimes, if you feel scared while reading something, it
| doesn't mean that the author is _trying to make you scared for
| no reason_ ; it might mean that they are just _describing
| something that is a little scary_.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Totally understood. There is nothing wrong in reporting how
| bad COVID can get.
|
| The reason for immediately taking it for agenda starts with
| the headline "I got 'Mild' case of COVID", then proceeds to
| explain how a 'Mild' case of COVID can make your eyeballs
| ache and make your skull explode in 103 degree fever. This is
| gross mischaracterization of medically agreed upon common
| symptoms of COVID.
|
| The next conclusion is become cynical and try to understand
| what is the purpose of this article and who is its audience?
| I hope I can call out the publication without anyone
| accussing that I have an agenda.
| nvr219 wrote:
| The agenda of reducing the spread of covid? Yes that's the
| agenda... It's a good one!
| systemvoltage wrote:
| You snark, but the agenda of a new source such as NPR should
| be to objectively inform the public.
|
| That means, highlighting the risks of a breakthrough case
| such as the one in the article with the addition of
| probability of getting such a case, using data as a means of
| supporting their arguments about risks post-vaccination, etc.
|
| The entire article is written in a spooky manner, indirectly
| extrapolating a single anecdotal experience written in
| alarmist tone.
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| No mention of testing for flu, only multiple negative tests for
| covid. There is more than one disease.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Everyone I know that suspected they had covid, when they went
| to doctor/hospital/urgent care, they got tested for Covid and
| for the flu. It's pretty standard.
| waiseristy wrote:
| He did a PCR that returned positive
| htlkjlrh wrote:
| Oh yeh, PCR tests are _so_ reliable aren 't they.
|
| Fuck off commie.
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| Multiple negative _rapid_ tests for covid followed by a
| positive PCR lab test, which is known to be more accurate. I 'm
| curious why you didn't mention the positive covid test?
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| What if he had gotten a PCR test for other diseases? If you
| deny science enough, all you see if what you want to see.
| whiddershins wrote:
| There's a lot of conflicting data about the vaccine effectiveness
| against reducing symptoms of breakthrough infections.
|
| It's interesting though, that the author's symptoms sound about
| average for someone of their age group if unvaccinated, which is
| around the same or slightly worse than what all of the people
| under 50 I know who got Covid reported, whether vaccinated or
| not.
| TravelPiglet wrote:
| I know quite a few people 35-55 who went to hospital with
| severe symptoms and a few with breakthroughs this fall. None of
| the breakthrough cases required more than perhaps a day or two
| of rest.
| raylad wrote:
| The #1 thing to do if you have or think you have COVID-19 is
| nasal irrigation. It decreases your chance of hospitalization by
| a factor of 19X:
|
| _Rapid initiation of nasal saline irrigation: hospitalizations
| in COVID-19 patients randomized to alkalinization or povidone-
| iodine compared to a national dataset_
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.16.21262044v...
|
| >Conclusion Patients who initiated isotonic saline nasal
| irrigation after a positive COVID-19 PCR test were _19 times less
| likely to be hospitalized than the national rate_.
|
| Iota-carrageenan nasal sprays can also not only help prevent
| nasal infection, but can help cure it:
|
| _Efficacy of a nasal spray containing Iota-Carrageenan in the
| prophylaxis of COVID-19 in hospital personnel dedicated to
| patients care with COVID-19 disease A pragmatic multicenter,
| randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (CARR-COV-02)_
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.13.21255409v...
|
| > The incidence of COVID19 was significantly lower in the I-C
| group compared to placebo (1*0% vs 5*0%) (Odds Ratio 0*19 (95%
| confidence interval 0*05 to 0*77; p= 0*03).
|
| _Carrageenan nasal spray may double the rate of recovery from
| coronavirus and influenza virus infections: Re-analysis of
| randomized trial data_ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34128358/
|
| > The increase in recovery rate was 139% for coronavirus
| infections, 119% for influenza A infections, and 70% for
| rhinovirus infections.
|
| Here's a list of all the nasal sprays containing one branded
| iota-carragenan ingredient in every country in which they are
| licensed:
|
| https://www.carragelose.com/en/portfolio/launched-products
| raylad wrote:
| Why am I downvoted for posting useful information referencing
| published placebo-controlled studies?
| vwoolf wrote:
| https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/01/28/bullshit-a.
| ..
|
| What you're saying is almost certainly wrong, even if you are
| cargo-culting the form of papers
| https://sites.cs.ucsb.edu/~ravenben/cargocult.html.
| raylad wrote:
| Did you read the papers? Specifically what do you find
| suspect in them?
| SinParadise wrote:
| sorry, this works too well. Only the best horse Ivermectin and
| finest Hydrochroloquine for me, coupled with a FDA approved
| vitamin protocol.
| [deleted]
| marricks wrote:
| It's depressing how all these stories just reinforce the idea
| that the US could never suffer another lockdown.
|
| We have exploding cases and even a brief lockdown would greatly
| decrease them, but the political will to try and stop it has
| completely dried up, likely from business interests.
| laurent92 wrote:
| Lockdowns cause obesity, suicide both in short-term and long
| term, and we don't have figures on whether the lack of exercise
| and sadness causes more cancer but it could. I personally have
| lost all of my friends due to anger issues, I only have my
| workmates left, if I ever lose my keys. There has also been
| visibly more attacks in France since the lockdowns started
| (bethroatings, I mean). Pro-lockdown people never seem to
| include the human aspect of it.
| [deleted]
| kelnos wrote:
| Is the hospitalization rate and death rate among vaccinated
| people really that high? Or is it at or below flu rates? I
| think that's what should be driving lockdown decisions.
|
| If the rates of hospitalization and death are still high for
| unvaccinated people, I don't see why we should suffer more
| restrictions for people who refuse to protect themselves.
| hrfbi wrote:
| I don't have a business and I don't want to be shut in home. If
| you want to then lock yourself down, thanks.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| No one wants to do chemotherapy or have tumor excisions, but
| you need to or you suffer a worse fate.
| angelzen wrote:
| Not a good analogy. Many doctors chose to bypass
| chemotherapy and tumor excisions. Chances are the gain is a
| handful of years of utmost misery. If that.
|
| https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2014/05/How-
| do...
|
| > "dying patients continue to be hospitalized and subjected
| to ineffective therapies that erode their quality of life
| and their personal dignity" while doctors "have a striking
| personal preference to forego high-intensity care for
| themselves at the end-of-life and prefer to die gently and
| naturally."
| josephcsible wrote:
| Chemotherapy is actually an excellent analogy. We don't
| give chemotherapy to everyone just because a few people
| might have undetected cancer.
| infinityplus1 wrote:
| Cancer does not spread rapidly through air. Also,
| chemotherapy is done after you get cancer. It is not a
| preventative measure.
| jessriedel wrote:
| > The vaccines aren't a forcefield that ward off all things
| COVID. They were given the greenlight because they greatly lower
| your chance of getting seriously ill or dying.
|
| > ... there were reassuring findings earlier this year that the
| vaccine was remarkably good at stopping any infection, even mild
| ones. This was a kind of bonus, we were told.
|
| Isnt this false? If I recall, there was not enough data in early
| clinical trials to tell how effective the vaccines were at
| preventing severe illness and death, and the vaccines were
| largely approved based on reducing the risk ratio of infection
|
| EDIT: pretty sure I'm right. See data below.
| alexpw wrote:
| It is true/correct. It's much easier to measure
| hospitalizations rather than infection, and the #s in the real
| world confirmed the advertised effectiveness from the trial,
| for Alpha.
| jessriedel wrote:
| I think you're wrong. For instance, this website about the
| emergency use authorization for the Moderna vaccine says, for
| equal sized vaccinated and control groups, that
|
| > Vaccine efficacy against hospitalization due to COVID-19
| was 89% (95% CI: 13%, 89%). Deaths were also uncommon, 6 in
| the vaccine group and 7 in the placebo group.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/recs/grade/covid-19-modern.
| ..
|
| In other words, there was not nearly enough data to tell
| whether it was effective at reducing deaths, and only weak
| data on hospitalizations.
|
| Do you have a cite that describes it otherwise? If not,
| please edit your comment.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Willful ignorance, confirmation bias, etc. Unthinking people
| are the bedrock of this world and they will twist themselves
| into knots to assuage their guilt.
| ummonk wrote:
| " To sum it up, I'd put my breakthrough case of COVID-19 right up
| there with my worst bouts of flu."
|
| Exactly. I see no reason why I'd take strong measures to avoid
| getting exposed to it (now that I and 90% of adults around me are
| fully vaccinated) when I never did the same for the flu.
| Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost sight of what
| constitutes a normal disease burden.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| > have lost sight of what constitutes a normal disease burden.
|
| I don't think so. This is only "mild flu" for vaccinated
| people. We still have kept sight that people who can't be vaxed
| can die, and people who ignorantly chose not to vax are killing
| people because they clog the ICUs and prevent people from
| getting non-covid life-saving care.
|
| So we haven't lost sight, people just choose not to see. You
| just can't teach some people to be unselfish and considerate.
| ummonk wrote:
| The people who can't be vaxxed have extremely low death
| rates. It's possible RSV is actually a bigger danger to them
| than covid (and increases in youth suicides due to lockdowns
| appear to be higher than the number of lives saved from
| covid).
|
| As to ignorant people filling ICUs, that's not a risk where I
| live in SF that has near universal vaccination and relatively
| low hospitalization rates. The UK and Denmark have
| demonstrated you can love on with life after high vaccination
| rates are achieved.
| IncRnd wrote:
| > and people who ignorantly chose not to vax are killing
| people because they clog the ICUs and prevent people from
| getting non-covid life-saving care.
|
| Honest question - would you provide information for that
| please? The two articles I've seen on that were both
| completely retracted within a few days of publication. I know
| unvaxxed people, and I want to have all available information
| before conversing with them.
| rdtwo wrote:
| The hospitals are clogged because the basic in person care
| is crippled by covid prevention practices. So instead of
| going to your pcp to deal with an ear infection or bladder
| infection the only place you can go is hospital as now any
| time you have covid like symptoms you have to get a covid
| test to get access to care.
|
| Similarly you can't get care if you have a slow growing
| cancer or need minor surgery. All these people are going to
| have negative outcomes
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They don't put people simply pending a COVID test in the
| ICU.
|
| Mississippi was recently down to six ICU beds in the
| entire state: https://www.wlbt.com/2021/08/04/just-6-icu-
| beds-available-en...
|
| Arkansas got to zero: https://apnews.com/article/health-
| arkansas-coronavirus-pande...
|
| This isn't explicable with your hypothesis.
|
| You can absolutely go to your PCP for a COVID test, and
| get your ear infection treated while you're there.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Not here you can't. They specifically ban anyone with
| covid like symptoms from entering which is like
| everything.
|
| Besides what are the outcomes for using ICUs for covid. I
| bet long term outcomes are pretty dismal, that might be a
| good time to say unless you are healthy and under 55 if
| you need icu it might just be your time. Rationing care
| is a ethical and practical thing to do.
| IncRnd wrote:
| Thank you, but I was asking for actual verifiable
| information that hospitals are getting clogged due to
| non-vaccinated people. I asked for two reasons. 1) That
| is not at all the case with the hospitals near me. 2) The
| recent articles I've seen make this assertion were
| immediately retracted due to the people they relied upon
| not telling the truth.
|
| So, before I speak with some of my unvaxxed friends, I
| wanted actual information to support, otherwise they
| could (correctly) say not to bring them unfounded
| assertions.
| Igelau wrote:
| > The hospitals are clogged because the basic in person
| care is crippled by covid prevention practices.
|
| They also seem to be suffering from the labor shortage.
| Only secondhand anecdata from friends in the medical
| field, but nurses seem to be getting harder to hire and
| retain right now.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > Exactly. I see no reason why I'd take strong measures to
| avoid getting exposed to it (now that I and 90% of adults
| around me are fully vaccinated) when I never did the same for
| the flu.
|
| Because it's up to 10x more deadly than influenza, particularly
| for vulnerable populations.
|
| https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...
| ummonk wrote:
| The flu is equally if not more deadly in populations without
| preexisting immunity (e.g. isolated tribes). Once people
| acquire immunity (preferable through multiple doses of
| vaccination), it's really not any different than the flu.
| nkozyra wrote:
| Do you live in an isolated tribe? Otherwise, I don't see
| how that's particularly relevant to your comment.
|
| In most populations, today, COVID is significantly more
| dangerous and deadly than influenza.
| ummonk wrote:
| I now have antibodies and memory cells against covid
| (because I'm fully vaccinated), so covid is not deadlier
| than the flu for me.
| javagram wrote:
| Your link does not seem to support that Covid-19 is 10x more
| deadly than influenza in a vaccinated person, like the poster
| you are replying to. It's 10x more deadly if you haven't been
| vaccinated but the vaccines are showing 10-20x decrease in
| hospitalization and death, bringing the risk more into flu
| range.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Somewhere along the line we went from "flatten the curve" to
| "no one can ever get sick again". So we all took a vaccine that
| we were told prevents (edit - should say "protects" not
| "prevents")us from getting sick but then we are told
| unvaccinated people can get vaccinated people sick. The logic
| doesn't make any sense.
|
| The messaging has been really inconsistent throughout this to
| the point where you sort of start feeling like the experts
| don't really know what they're talking about either.
| matwood wrote:
| > So we all took a vaccine that we were told prevents us from
| getting sick
|
| At no point have I ever seen anyone claim the vaccine is 100%
| effective.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Should have used "protects" instead of "prevents" - bad
| word choice on my end.
| abraae wrote:
| > to the point where you sort of start feeling like the
| experts don't really know what they're talking about either
|
| Speak plainly. Waffling language like this is commonly used
| by conspiracy theorists who don't want to come out and say
| anything clearly and plainly, because it could quickly be
| shot down by the actual facts. Instead they use speech
| patterns like this to create a hazy word cloud that breeds
| uncertainty.
|
| Do you really think the experts don't know what they are
| talking about? Say so then. Enough with the snarky
| insinuation.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Where do you start?
|
| Closing the boarders unnecessary/racist to everyone closing
| their boarders.
|
| Masks won't help to everyone must wear a mask. Wear 2 of
| them.
|
| Flatten the curve to no one can get sick.
|
| The vaccine won't arrive for a long time to everyone should
| get the vaccine.
|
| Herd immunity won't work until we get to 70% vaccinated.
|
| We need 70% vaccinated to we need 80% vaccinated.
|
| The vaccine will keep you safe to the non-vaccinated are
| making the vaccinated unsafe.
|
| We won't force anyone to get a vaccine to you can't
| participate in society without a vaccine.
|
| From 2 shots to this will be a yearly shot like the flu.
|
| From there's no way this was the result of a lab leak to
| this was possibly a lab leak.
|
| I understand the situation changes but maybe they should
| just admit they don't really know but they think such-and-
| such might be helpful and people wouldn't distrust them.
| jpster wrote:
| > Somewhere along the line we went from "flatten the curve"
| to "no one can ever get sick again".
|
| You're right -- I haven't heard "flatten the curve" rhetoric
| since the earlier days of the pandemic. Taking the vaccine
| helps prevent healthcare systems from crashing. In highly
| vaccinated areas, is it accurate to now say, "Mission
| accomplished"? I don't think so, given that children under 12
| can't be vaccinated. And yet we are sending them back to in-
| person learning in droves....
|
| +1 about the inconsistent messaging and logic.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Children aren't at risk of covid. Flu and pool drowning is
| greater risks...
|
| In my opinion these public health "experts" have a moral
| obligation to tell people to stop worrying about kids. I
| honestly don't understand why they haven't cheered the fact
| kids aren't at risk. It's good news!
|
| The cynical side of me thinks they want to let people
| remain scared so they gobble up kids vaccines when
| released. Which is pretty ethically challenged but par for
| course with these "experts".
| endemic wrote:
| My kids get flu shots every year.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| > Somewhere along the line we went from "flatten the curve"
| to "no one can ever get sick again".
|
| Oh please, no public health official has ever said that, and
| you know it.
|
| The problem is the curve _isn 't flat_, thanks to 1) Delta,
| and 2) vaccine hesitancy. There's a reason ICUs in the
| American south are at or over capacity.
| nemo44x wrote:
| That was the #1 trending topic on Twitter last year for a
| long time. Public officials supported it. I think the woke
| call what you're trying to do, "gaslighting".
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| Well, then you should be able to find some excellent
| examples of public officials (I'll welcome comments from
| the CDC, WHO, state level health authorities, or similar
| expert organizations) making the claim that "no one can
| ever get sick again"! I look forward to the voluminous
| citations supporting your claims.
|
| As an aside, I find it amusing yet entirely unsurprising
| that you're of the persuasion to believe the term "woke"
| is somehow a pejorative. But nice work throwing around
| what you believe to be insults.
| nemo44x wrote:
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/article/flat
| ten...
|
| "The gentler curve results in fewer people infected at
| this critical moment in time -- preventing a surge that
| would inundate the healthcare system and ultimately, one
| hopes, resulting in fewer deaths. "What we need to do is
| flatten that down," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of
| the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
| Diseases, during the coronavirus task force briefing at
| the White House on a Tuesday evening in early March. "You
| do that with trying to interfere with the natural flow of
| the outbreak."
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| Nowhere in that quote does Fauci say "no one can get sick
| again". He's _literally_ talking about flattening the
| curve and the reason for doing so.
|
| Either your reading comprehension is lacking or you need
| to try harder.
| nemo44x wrote:
| It was the implication. We've done that. But now they
| have changed the rules to no one can get sick again.
| Their actions speak for themselves, wokey.(I mean that as
| a compliment)
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| Oh the _implication_! Well, you got me there. Obviously
| we can 't just read what he said and take it at face
| value...
| depingus wrote:
| > were told prevents us from getting sick
|
| I never heard this. I belive many people jumped to this
| conclusion on their own. Because they associate vaccination
| with immunization.
| Sevii wrote:
| People believe this because most vaccines are sterilizing.
| If you get the measles vaccine you can't get measles again
| ever. The Covid and flu vaccines don't work that way.
| javagram wrote:
| Re: measles, this isn't necessarily the case.
| Breakthrough infections have been known and discussed
| before.[0] The measles vaccine efficacy is estimated at
| 97% implying 3% chance of a breakthrough.
|
| However, Covid-19 vaccine efficacy against infection was
| originally 93-95% but has dropped to 60% or less against
| the Delta variant. A lot of discussion seems to ignore
| this. To get back to the 90% plus efficacy we'll need the
| vaccine to be re-tuned against delta, which no one seems
| in a rush to do for some reason...
|
| [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31039835/ "In an
| outbreak of measles in Gothenburg, Sweden, breakthrough
| infections (i.e. infections in individuals with a history
| of vaccination) were common. [. . .] Sixteen of 28
| confirmed cases of measles in this outbreak were
| breakthrough infections."
| [deleted]
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Can I interest you in
|
| _Katherine J. Wu (The Atlantic) - We're Asking the
| Impossible of Vaccines // Complete protection against
| infection has long been hailed as the holy grail of
| vaccination. It might simply be unachievable._
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steri
| liz...
| ASinclair wrote:
| > Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost sight of what
| constitutes a normal disease burden.
|
| Alternatively this pandemic may have permanently shifted what
| we consider to be a normal disease burden. Maybe we shouldn't
| accept tens of thousands of Flu deaths every year if there are
| some relatively simple changes we can make to reduce them.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost sight of what
| constitutes a normal disease burden.
|
| Having relatives in the healthcare sector and hearing stories
| during bad flu waves (2020 was not the first year in recent
| memory where people needed to be treated in makeshift tents[1])
| we do indeed have lost sight of the disease burden, but
| probably not in the way you imagine.
|
| I was lucky to spent the first few months of the covid-19
| pandemic in Japan, and I can tell you I did not see overrun
| hospitals at any point because people by and large take hygiene
| and avoiding the spread of infectious disease seriously.
|
| [1]https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-
| patie...
| nradov wrote:
| I am skeptical whether you have drawn the correct conclusion
| from your experience in Japan. There seems to be something
| else going on beyond just taking hygiene seriously.
|
| https://noahcarl.substack.com/p/why-have-there-been-so-
| few-c...
| jlokier wrote:
| I don't know what policy around flu should be, but I'd like to
| share my data points about flu, for those who think flu is no
| big deal.
|
| The last _two_ times I had flu (first age 36, then a few years
| later), I was unable to work for an _entire month_ each time.
|
| For most of that time I struggled to get out of bed, and
| couldn't think much. I was too weak and tired, so I slept most
| of the time or did low energy activities, and relied on other
| people to bring me food. The first one meant I missed
| Christmas: My partner went to an all-day get together with our
| mutual friends, and I stayed home in bed, too ill to go.
|
| My other flu story would be, a good friend and former employer
| got flu one day when he was visiting his wife and children (he
| normally worked in another country to them). Few days into it,
| he lay down on a sofa and died. I don't know the rest of the
| story, but I miss him. I think my life would be different if he
| were still around.
|
| These experiences certainly gave me more respect for flu as a
| killer.
| istorical wrote:
| The last two times you had flu with severity great enough to
| alert you that you had flu.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Those two experiences you want to avoid in the future, and
| which define you behaviour (modelled on the impact of the
| bullets you may get, not on the non-impact of the bullets
| you may miss).
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| > now that I and 90% of adults around me are fully vaccinated
|
| I'm curious, where did that 90% figure come from?
|
| Around here, of the eligible population, about 1 of every 3 has
| no shot at all, one 1 out of 4 with just a single shot. If you
| look at the full population, including minors and other
| ineligible groups, the numbers are even worse.
|
| That means if I go to the grocery store, I'm absolutely gonna
| be in proximity to _someone_ unvaccinated at some point along
| the way.
| sprafa wrote:
| Assume he's in a EU country/US state with high vaccination
| rate.
| dehrmann wrote:
| In Santa Clara county (Silicon Valley), 87.6% residents
| over 12 have has one dose, 82.4% are fully vaccinated. I
| have no idea if people eager for boosters are getting
| double counted.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Minors aren't at serious risk, and 99% of the remaining
| unvaccinated population has made a conscious choice to live
| dangerously.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| No, some large percentage of the remaining unvaccinated
| population have decided to put people like my
| immunocompromised mother-in-law at risk through their
| actions.
|
| I'm genuinely sick of this "I got mine jack" attitude
| toward vaccination. Getting vaccinated _isn 't just about
| you_. Unfortunately we apparently have a good solid 20-30%
| of the population who care only about themselves. But, who
| should be surprised. This is just American radical
| individualism coming home to roost.
|
| And that's ignoring the fact that with Delta there's early
| indications that it's leading to an increase in the number
| of younger folks hospitalized or worse.
| nradov wrote:
| I encourage everyone to get vaccinated if they can, but
| the Delta variant is so contagious that your
| immunocompromised mother-in-law is likely to be exposed
| eventually no matter how many people are vaccinated.
| There will be no significant herd immunity effect.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-
| immu...
|
| The Delta variant causes more younger people to be
| hospitalized just because there are more infections
| total. There is no reliable evidence that Delta causes
| more severe symptoms.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| You are conflating two things. This guy's illness was about the
| same as worst bout of flu -- that doesn't mean that's
| necessarily typical, but let's say it is.
|
| Currently, in most of the USA, your chances of getting covid
| are probably a LOT higher than that of getting the flu. Way
| more people are getting covid than getting a bad case of the
| flu.
|
| So it's not quite the same.
|
| If the chances of getting the flu were always this high,
| including the chances of really severe disease or death for
| some (say, those with organ transplants)... we probably would
| have been doing something different.
|
| But I agree with you we shoudln't have to, don't need to, and
| _can 't_ sustainably simply shut down life forever.
|
| I find the experts advice reassuring. IF you are vaccinated:
|
| > Even with delta, the goal is not to go back to a lockdown
| mindset, though, says Malani. "My hope is that people who are
| fully vaccinated should really feel like this risk is
| manageable."
|
| > "Feel good about spending time with your friends, or having a
| small dinner party, but make sure everyone is vaccinated," she
| says.
|
| For now I am wearing a mask at the store (not that big a deal),
| and avoiding large public unmasked gatherings. In part because
| I want to try to help get community transmission rates a lot
| lower so we can then do more.
|
| But I agree I'm not gonna do it forever.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Perhaps we were _too_ lackadaisical about flu.
|
| I've certainly enjoyed not getting the usual bouts of cold and
| flu my kids would bring home from school every winter.
|
| I hope at least one lesson we take from COVID is "people should
| be able to take sick days rather than coming to work/school
| sick".
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| People can do that, stay home when sick. Then they just have
| fewer vacation days. At least, that's how it works for me. I
| suppose we could think of it as an incentive to remain
| healthy.
| javagram wrote:
| Sick time should be separate from vacation time for that
| reason. Otherwise, people have an incentive to come into
| work while sick so that they can use their paid time off
| for holidays and vacation when they aren't ill.
|
| On the other hand, I guess there are some people who when
| given a separate bank of sick time feel it's ok to use it
| as a 2nd pool of PTO. My workplace gives a separate set of
| sick time though and it's always seemed a better way of
| handling things to me.
| mbg721 wrote:
| For office workers, the whole remote experiment of the
| last year seems to be the equilibrium. You can still
| "come to work" even if you feel like death, you're just
| allowed to do it from home until you're not contagious.
| nradov wrote:
| That's quite a privileged perspective. Many low wage, non-
| union workers don't have that flexibility.
| rejectedandsad wrote:
| It's perfectly fine for that to be ones risk tolerance and to
| take mitigation steps. It's not to mandate them by government
| fiat.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We've been quite comfortable with vaccine mandates for
| decades. My kids needed proof of MMR, DTaP, and several
| others to be able to attend school. Colleges have similar
| requirements. Hand washing is mandated "by government fiat"
| in many scenarios, as are quite a few other OHSA or public
| health scenarios - try working on a construction site
| without a hard hat, for example.
| josephcsible wrote:
| In 2019 or earlier, when have you had to show an ID and
| proof of vaccination to enter any building other than
| your own house? And for schools, didn't you used to have
| private schools or homeschooling as an option to avoid
| these kind of mandates? And hard hats aren't really
| comparable, since you can take them back off at the end
| of the workday.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > In 2019 or earlier, when have you had to show an ID and
| proof of vaccination to enter any building other than
| your own house?
|
| I live in upstate New York - one of the more aggressive
| states for COVID measures - and have not yet had to do
| this, a year and a half into the pandemic.
|
| (I did, however, have to prove my vaccination status and
| present ID when I became a naturalized US citizen quite a
| few years ago. https://www.uscis.gov/policy-
| manual/volume-8-part-b-chapter-...)
|
| > And for schools, didn't you used to have private
| schools or homeschooling as an option to avoid these kind
| of mandates?
|
| These still exist.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > These still exist.
|
| But they don't get you out of the mandates anymore.
| Adults who already finished school used to never have to
| tell anyone their vaccination status to participate in
| society.
| URSpider94 wrote:
| Not entirely true. Certain classes of jobs, like working
| in health care, have always mandated vaccination.
| Additionally, when most vaccines are given in childhood,
| making sure everyone is vaccinated in grade school has
| the effect of ensuring that most adults are vaccinated.
| No need to keep re-checking throughout life.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Again, I literally had to prove my vaccination status to
| be allowed to stay in the US. In 2009... and I've yet to
| present my COVID card anywhere in upstate NY.
| pandaman wrote:
| Non-citizens do not have the right of citizens, you might
| have known already, but one can be denied the green card
| and/or not allowed into the country for having a
| communicable disease like AIDS or TB. If I follow your
| logic, it's okay to have AIDS, TB, leprosy, etc.
| passports too?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > If I follow your logic, it's okay to have AIDS, TB,
| leprosy, etc. passports too?
|
| If they start spreading exponentially via aerosols, sure.
| pandaman wrote:
| But people with AIDS are not allowed into the country
| already, why you add conditions? Does the Constitution
| say anything about aerosols? Besides, TB spreads with the
| aerosols so we should have the BCG vaccine mandates,
| right?
| andrewclunn wrote:
| The recognition that the medical establishment is still unsure of
| many things regarding a still developing situation is a good
| first step. The next is to realize that the misinterpretations of
| their knowledge and understanding are the direct result of
| misrepresentation of events and facts by media outlets.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| So did I a few weeks ago. I was vaxxed in April. And then caught
| it in early August. Three days of sweating and chills, a week of
| coughing and loopy-head. Positive PCR test. 3 weeks later and I
| still have a chest-cough I can't shake.
|
| Of course, if I didn't have the vaccine, I probably would be in
| an overflowing hospital close to death.
| qeternity wrote:
| Very similar to you. Had double Pfizer. Felt like crap on a
| Sunday, felt worse on Monday so skipped work and took a lateral
| flow test which came back negative. Same symptoms but for maybe
| 5 days. Lost my sense of taste on day 3 which was also the day
| I tested positive (I didn't take a test on day 2). I stopped
| testing positive a few days later, but taste was lost for maybe
| a week.
|
| I had a cough for maybe 10 days, which has just subsided. I
| can't tell if I have brain fog, as my cough was really
| preventing me from sleeping well.
|
| One interesting observation: I was pretty ravenous the entire
| time. I had a fever and was sweating like a pregnant nun in
| church, but I never lost my appetite. If anything, it
| turbocharged.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _taste was lost for maybe a week_
|
| All comforting data, as I have second degree acquaintances
| who have not recovered taste and smell 17 months after
| infection. I think it would be quite desirable to have stats
| with comparisons of these details (duration of adverse
| events) in all relevant different cases.
|
| (Your <<sweating like a pregnant nun in church>> will remain
| with me and I must thank you.)
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Which vaccine? Collecting anecdata ...
| ralusek wrote:
| Assuming that you're between 18-49 years old, the CDC puts the
| infection fatality rate for that age group at 0.15%. So,
| unvaccinated, you would have a 99.85% chance of not dying.
| Being vaccinated, of course, further improves your odds.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...
|
| The younger you are within that bracket, your odds improve even
| more. If you have no comorbidities, even better.
|
| Basically, I wouldn't be worrying about death as any given
| young individual, but at a population scale, COVID is quite
| deadly. I'm personally much more worried about the other
| reported effects and lasting tissue damage.
| nradov wrote:
| Your numbers are way off. The CDC estimate of fatality rate
| in the 18-49 age group is 0.06%. And that's highly dependent
| on co-morbid conditions.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
| updates/burd...
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > Assuming that you're between 18-49 years old
|
| That is a huge range of ages and varying risk levels - in
| effect, you are over-averaging.
|
| ****************
|
| For a 45 year old caucasian male with no comorbidities non-
| smoker
|
| 0.16 (95% CI: 0.14 - 0.17 ) times the risk of dying from
| COVID-19 compared to the average risk for the US population
|
| absolute rate of mortality of 1.3 (95% CI: 0.6 - 2.8 ) per
| 100000 individuals in subgroups of the population with a
| similar risk profile to yours during the period of 09/11/2021
| - 10/01/2021. This estimate is calculated based on the CDC's
| Ensemble mortality forecast data..
|
| _95% CI: Error bounds with 95% confidence.
|
| ****************
|
| For an 18 year old caucasian male with no comorbidities non-
| smoker
|
| 0.02 (95% CI: 0.02 - 0.02 ) times the risk of dying from
| COVID-19 compared to the average risk for the US population.
|
| absolute rate of mortality of 1.3 (95% CI: 0.6 - 2.8 ) per
| 100000 individuals in subgroups of the population with a
| similar risk profile to yours during the period of 09/11/2021
| - 10/01/2021. This estimate is calculated based on the CDC's
| Ensemble mortality forecast data..
|
| _95% CI: Error bounds with 95% confidence.
|
| ****************
|
| Calculated using JHU's COVID-19 Mortality Risk Calculation
| https://covid19risktools.com:8443/riskcalculator
| hvocode wrote:
| I'm getting a little tired of articles or chats with people where
| you get the impression that people think the vaccines will create
| some sort of covid-proof bubble around them. This is the only
| explanation I can find for people acting surprised that
| vaccinated people get sick. The whole point was to prime the
| immune system so that when exposed, the likelihood of extreme
| effects would be drastically reduced. That's it.
|
| (E: I don't get why people downvote this - all of the benefits of
| vaccination are precisely due to what I describe. Lower
| likelihood of individual bad outcomes, which reduces burdens on
| healthcare, and ideally, reduces community spread by reducing the
| amount of virus that replicates in an individual and can be
| passed on. This is why I was one of the first in line when I
| could get the vaccine. Perhaps daring to critique people with
| unrealistic vaccine expectations is unacceptable?)
| ianai wrote:
| Right. It's like a hardware update for an immune system.
| TobTobXX wrote:
| But all the regulations around us create this covid-proof
| impression.
|
| Eg. where I live, hospitals consider introducing vaccination
| requirements for visitors. But that somehow defies logic. The
| vaccine only reduces symptoms (and might thus save yourself, or
| others, when extended with the hospital-bed-limit-thought), but
| it wouldn't stop you from transmitting the disease if you are
| infected (and vaccinated) but you aren't aware.
|
| So I don't even blame the public, but rather the regulators.
| They ought to know better.
|
| Edit: I might need to support this claim.
|
| The most trustworthy source I found was this article by the JHU
| [1] (2021-08-02). While there are many that claim different
| numbers (ranging from stopping roughly 60% to 0%), for
| transmission, no one claimed that virus infection is
| influenced.
|
| [1]: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/new-data-on-
| covid-19-trans...
| thephyber wrote:
| The vaccine does a reasonable job at reducing transmission in
| the aggregate. It lessens the average viral load, shortens
| the average time a person is infectious, etc.
|
| Treating transmission as a boolean ignores the large-but-
| not-100-percent improvement. Better to treat it as a
| distribution.
|
| I don't see what you are blaming regulators for.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| No. Vaccine reduces viral load and transmissibility, but in
| close contact situations you're still going to transmit it.
| uh_uh wrote:
| > The vaccine only reduces symptoms (and might thus save
| yourself, or others, when extended with the hospital-bed-
| limit-thought), but it wouldn't stop you from transmitting
| the disease if you are infected (and vaccinated) but you
| aren't aware
|
| Are you sure about that? Even this article refers to a study
| which says that vaccinated people are 5 times less likely to
| test positive than non-vaccinated. _Some_ asymptotic
| transmission will still occur in the vaccinated but it's
| reasonable to expect that it happens to a lesser degree. I'd
| be very curious to see studies that claim that there's no
| difference in asymptomatic transmission between the
| vaccinated and unvaccinated.
| matwood wrote:
| Correct. Whenever people talk about the vaccine not slowing
| spread they forget that vaccinated people are 5x less
| likely to catch covid to start with. They only seem to
| focus on viral loads of break through infections.
| nwvg_7257 wrote:
| This is NOT true.
| https://www.nytimes.com/article/breakthrough-infections-
| covi...
|
| "after an outbreak among vaccinated and vaccinated workers at
| the Singapore airport, tracking studies suggested that most
| of the spread by vaccinated people happened when they had
| symptoms"
|
| The vaccines substantially help to reduce spread. Doesn't
| eliminate it, but obviously something a hospital would want
| to require.
| choeger wrote:
| To the contrary, I don't think that's plausible. In the whole
| COVID-19 decision the question of the initial load has not been
| discussed well enough, IMO.
|
| If you think about the virus passing your various layers of
| protection it is clearly a numbers game, IMO. A mask, even if
| imperfect, might reduce your initial viral load below a
| threshold that allows your immune system to kill all infected
| cells very quickly so you don't develop strong symptoms. The
| same goes for distance.
|
| So I don't see any reason to _not_ expect a certain "sterile"
| immunity after a vaccination. The way I see it, the vaccination
| should prevent some of the low-load infections completely,
| regardless of the virus variant.
| javagram wrote:
| > I'm getting a little tired of articles or chats with people
| where you get the impression that people think the vaccines
| will create some sort of covid-proof bubble around them. This
| is the only explanation I can find for people acting surprised
| that vaccinated people get sick.
|
| No, it's because until the Delta variant became the most common
| variant, the vaccines essentially did create a covid-proof
| bubble around the recipient. The trials for Comirnaty and the
| Moderna vaccine both showed >90% effectiveness against PCR
| positive infections, not just against hospitalization and
| death.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > The trials for Comirnaty and the Moderna vaccine both
| showed >90% effectiveness against PCR positive infections
|
| I don't believe the official trials for Moderna and Pfizer
| measured PCR positive infections at all. (They involved
| thousands of people, it was a time when PCR test were
| difficult to obtain; they remain expensive at that scale).
|
| I have not heard of Comirnaty, not sure about that.
|
| There may have been pre-delta studies that showed PCR
| infection effectiveness (Cite?), I don't think they were the
| official trials.
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