[HN Gopher] Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't neede...
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Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now
Author : KoftaBob
Score : 217 points
Date : 2021-09-14 09:10 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| kalaido wrote:
| covid recovered here. The denial of natural immunity is
| unbearable. unscientific and erodes trust.
| [deleted]
| mchusma wrote:
| The whole booster conversation seems like a political game.
|
| If you have a vaccine, then your risk of death is far below that
| of the flu (statistically).
|
| If you don't have a vaccine by now, you want covid instead and
| this booster conversation is irrelevant.
|
| Kids are banned from taking anything.
|
| So I expect booster or no booster, frankly it just won't matter
| much at the population scale.
|
| I also don't understand the mask/booster thing now.
|
| Is it to protect kids? If so, then all that effort is better
| directed at the FDA who has banned them from getting the vaccine.
| I think this is the area where people should have the most anger
| and Biden should frankly push legislation to replace or reform
| the FDA. Their behavior has been atrocious.
|
| Is it to protect the unvaccinated? COVID is not going away, so
| IMO here we just want everyone in this population to get the
| disease as fast as possible to get it over with. Spreading is
| basically "good" for this group.
|
| Is it to protect the vaccinated? This makes no sense, as the risk
| to the vaccinated well below the range we have accepted for
| decades.
| [deleted]
| mattwad wrote:
| The reason for masks always has been to flatten the curve. The
| hospitals are too full for everyone just to get it and get it
| over with, so people without COVID can't get medical help.
| Right now, the CDC recommends everyone older than 2 years old
| should wear a mask indoors. This is not just to protect kids
| but prevent them spreading it.
|
| Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-
| getting-si....
| octopoc wrote:
| There are tons of people coming into the hospitals in my part
| of the US who are completely asymptomatic but panicking. The
| solution to this isn't for everyone to wear masks, the
| solution is for the hospitals to redirect those people to
| their primary care physicians.
| [deleted]
| mgamache wrote:
| Accept the CDCs own study of 169 K-5 schools failed to find
| that masks for children in schools prevent the spread. Adult
| masks and ventilation were supported.
|
| "The 21% lower incidence in schools that required mask use
| among students was _not statistically significant_ compared
| with schools where mask use was optional. "
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e1.htm
| defgeneric wrote:
| Are there real statistics on just how many people are being
| turned away? Hasn't it always been the case that people
| sometimes have to be turned to another hospital? Wouldn't
| reform of the horrible mix of public/private hospitals make
| more sense? It seems to me the risk to the general population
| isn't really that high, it just makes news because it's a sad
| story when someone who had a heart attack can't get admitted
| because some anti-vax moron is taking up space.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > Is it to protect the unvaccinated? COVID is not going away,
| so IMO here we just want everyone in this population to get the
| disease as fast as possible to get it over with.
|
| No we definitely do not want that. There are large deaths of
| the country where vaccinated people are dying of unrelated
| conditions simply because hospitals are too full of dying
| unvaccinated COVID patients. The only way this works is if
| hospitals deny admittance to unvaccinated patients entirely, to
| reserve capacity for all the normal reasons that people need
| hospitals. No one is seriously suggesting this level of care
| rationing though.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| it's really simple: you ration care according to the urgency
| of need. it's no different than any other event that would
| bring more people to the hospital than usual.
|
| i've heard stories like what you're talking about. they don't
| make much sense. hospitals running out of oxygen? get more
| oxygen. that's why we have roads and trucks. not enough beds
| in the icu? build more. i think often about the start of the
| pandemic, before it got over here. i saw a story on the news
| that china had put up several hospitals practically overnight
| to handle the influx of patients. but here there's nothing
| but lame excuses. when i hear that kind of stuff it feels
| like i'm talking to someone that owes me money but doesn't
| have it.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > i've heard stories like what you're talking about. they
| don't make much sense. hospitals running out of oxygen? get
| more oxygen. that's why we have roads and trucks. not
| enough beds in the icu? build more.
|
| Poor? Just get more money! If only every problem had such a
| facile answer!
|
| None of this is remotely as easy as you seem to think it
| is. If it were that easy, they'd already be doing it.
| They're not morons. And as someone else pointed out, "not
| enough beds" is shorthand for "not enough doctors and
| nurses". It'll take _years_ to increase the supply there.
| zaccusl wrote:
| Serious questions:
|
| 1. Where do you get the extra oxygen? There are places
| asking residents to reduce water usage because they are
| running out of liquid oxygen (used for water treatment in
| those places) do to medical uses. Do we have an enough
| manufacturing capabilities to produce enough oxygen to
| satisfy demand? Can this easily be increased?
|
| 2. "Beds" is not accurate. Often hospitals at 100%+
| capacity still have physical space (i.e. "beds"), but who
| staffs the beds? You need doctors, nurses, and custodial
| staff. Where do those come from? Traveling nurses are a
| thing and places like Florida and Texas are hiring hundreds
| (thousands?). What is they supply of these nurses? What
| about doctors?
|
| 3. Where do the dead go and how do you deal with it? At the
| beginning of the pandemic NYC has to use refrigerated
| trucks. Now Texas and Florida (and presumably other out of
| control places) are also using refrigerated trucks to store
| the dead. This is probably one of the easier logistical
| issues because presumably we could just freeze the
| thousands of dead people every day until morgues and other
| resources could catch up.
|
| I don't think this is so simple as "get more oxygen" and
| "add beds".
| [deleted]
| samtheprogram wrote:
| Where are people dying because the hospitals are too full of
| unvaccinated patients dying of COVID-19?
| Frondo wrote:
| In Southern Oregon, people with cancer or who are at risk
| of heart attack or stroke are being made to wait for care,
| because the hospitals are filled with unvaccinated COVID-19
| patients:
|
| https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2021/09/absolutely-
| he...
|
| In another rural region (Idaho, maybe?) there was just
| that, someone who had some treatable condition who was
| unable to be seen for all the unvaccinated COVID patients,
| and who died from the condition. I couldn't find the
| article, but it was just published on some authoritative
| news service a few days ago, in case you'd like to look for
| it.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| I mean the government and these private hospitals had a
| year and a half to build capacity. Last I checked
| building capacity was supposed to be the rationale for
| the whole "flatten the curve" thing back in March of
| 2020.
|
| Why are hospitals "full" when they had all this time? Why
| is society supposed to be punished for a failure of
| leadership to do what they said?
| supercheetah wrote:
| Doctors and nurses don't get built in a year.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| That seems like such an excuse. A year and a half is
| plenty of time to get creative. Pull people out of
| retirement. Let nursing students do more. Pay truckloads
| of money to all of them. I dunno. Figure it out. These
| folks are supposed to be the "experts"... what have they
| been doing this whole time?
|
| Saying "no it cannot be done" is just not a valid excuse.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > what have they been doing this whole time?
|
| Working on the most cost-effective, life-saving way to
| manage the pandemic: encouraging everyone who is able to
| to get vaccinated. Unfortunately, they had to work
| against an absurd scenario where an equal-opportunity
| virus has been politicized.
| shapefrog wrote:
| > Pull people out of retirement, Pay truckloads of money
|
| So take the most vulnerable age group (old people) - and
| stick them on the front lines, looking after fat lazy
| middle aged people who are too lazy to get a 50cc jab.
|
| They are retired doctors, they are not retards.
| mythrwy wrote:
| On the twitter!
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Alabama, for one:
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/13/us/alabama-heart-patient-
| icu-...
|
| There is a finite healthcare capacity (largely based on the
| number of doctors and nurses). Once it's exceeded, people
| start dying who otherwise could've been saved had the full
| amount of healthcare resources been available.
| MontagFTB wrote:
| I believe a serious issue with your "protect the unvaccinated"
| statement is it overlooks the amount of pressure they exert on
| our shared medical system. If your hospital beds are overrun
| with unvaccinated Covid patients, there is less room for
| others.
| drewg123 wrote:
| As I mentioned on another thread, I just spent a few days in
| the hospital with an appendicitis. The hospital was swamped
| with COVID patients. It took 16 hours for me to be admitted
| to the hospital, which I was told was quite long for this
| hospital. My hospital roommate waited nearly 30 hours. The
| non-covid floor that I was on was severely understaffed, with
| nurses caring for 2.5x as many patients as normal. The
| nursing staff was run ragged.
|
| I'm not sure exactly what we should do. We can't just refuse
| to treat the unvaccinated (I half suggested this before,
| which I regret), but we need to maintain our ability to care
| for other people. I didn't make a conscious decision that
| landed me in the hospital. My roommate didn't decide to let a
| spider bite his foot. The stage 4 cancer patient whose
| "elective" surgery was postponed didn't decide to get cancer.
| The heart patient who can't get an ICU bed didn't decide to
| have a heart attack.
|
| I could imagine having regional FEMA/national guard run COVID
| hospitals. But where would the staff come from? There are a
| limited supply of trained medical staff.
|
| I'm just not sure what we can do that's humane and fair to
| everyone besides just provide incentives to get vaccinated.
| We probably need WWII level propaganda to convince the
| unvaccinated.
| ds206 wrote:
| So your assumption is that all the covid patients were
| unvaccinated?
| kimmeld wrote:
| Not an assumption. Just the data showing this to be true
| almost universally across the US. Statistically,
| breakthrough cases also skew older. Locally where I live
| >95% of patients in the hospital with COVID are
| unvaccinated.
| zaccusl wrote:
| It's a safe assumption that MOST are unvaccinated based
| on all available data. But of course not ALL
| (statistically speaking).
| wang_li wrote:
| We could address the hospitalization issue by doing a better
| job of deciding when to hospitalize. It seems that more than
| half of the cases of those who are taking spaces in hospitals
| are asymptomstic, mild, or incidental.
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/57-percent-vaccinated-
| covid-19-203448...
| frumper wrote:
| They're in the hospital for other reasons.
| kritiko wrote:
| That study is based on VA data and not reflective of the
| general population. It seems very problematic to talk as if
| that's true for all hospitals.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _hospital beds are overrun with unvaccinated Covid
| patients, there is less room for others_
|
| Was in Jackson Hole for Labor Day weekend. They border Idaho,
| whose voluntarily unvaccinated have filled its hospitals. In
| four days I met as many nurses and one doctor who quit out of
| frustration. They could no longer empathise with their
| patients, each describing a visceral anger at tending to ICUs
| of COVID patients, all unvaccinated.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I was there too. I was also in Boise, and Twin Falls, ID.
|
| I went to no less than 20 doctors or nurses in the space of
| 2 weeks
|
| Not one doctor mentioned anything about quitting or being
| short-staffed.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Not one doctor mentioned anything about quitting or
| being short-staffed_
|
| This likely comes down to self selection. You were in
| Idaho, I in Jackson. Also, relatively-rural Driggs versus
| denser Boise having different rates of spare hospital
| capacity as well as vaccination. (Or seeing a doctor at
| their office versus off duty.) Given Idaho was flirting
| with crisis standards of care, I think it's objective to
| say they have a problem.
| drewg123 wrote:
| 20 doctors/nurses in 2 weeks? I hope you were taking a
| survey or selling medical equipment, and you were not
| ill.
| cloverich wrote:
| This is definitely one of the reasons I bailed after
| Medical school. Unvaccinated COVID patients are new, but
| that kind of decision making is not. Once I realized
| medicine was as much begging people to make good
| decisions as it was actually helping people, I just
| didn't think I could spend a lifetime doing that.
| Anecdotally, the few physician contacts I've kept are
| regularly posting about how much they are working. Which
| is impressive, because to them working 60+ hours a week
| is not considered too much.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I don't understand their frustration.
|
| There's not much they can do for a patient once that
| patient is admitted to the ICU.
|
| Hospitals should have been setting up Covid wards, or
| tents. The hospital had enough time. Other than intubation
| there's not much. I guess if you are important enough you
| get those coveted antibodies that were donated, or blood
| thinning drugs if you have blood clots in your lungs.
|
| I've never met a doctor who quit over ethics. I've seen
| many who quit over ego disutes, or pay.
|
| In medicine there's something called Professional
| Deniability. American doctors gave it in spades.
|
| I'm all for getting the idiots vaccinated, but don't buy
| the caring doctor quitting because he/she has a moral
| dilemma.
|
| (I think American doctors are good, but caring no. Ethical
| just enough to keep them out of a Malpractise suit.)
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Hospitals should have been setting up Covid wards, or
| tents.
|
| They have, at least where I am. As demand goes up,
| they've even shut down whole clinics to reserve them for
| COVID patients.
|
| > The hospital had enough time.
|
| They definitely did not have enough time to train and
| hire new nurses and doctors.
|
| They are not quitting out of ethics, ego or pay. They are
| quitting because they are overworked (more patients per
| doctor), and putting their own lives at risk because
| people made a choice not to get vaccinated.
| adamrezich wrote:
| > Hospitals should have been setting up Covid wards, or
| tents.
|
| didn't this happen basically everywhere already, and most
| if not all of ended up being unneeded at the time? our
| local civic center converted into a temporary emergency
| covid care facility months ago and it was never used, so
| they shut it down. now the local healthcare corporation
| CEO is claiming the ICUs are full again. well if that's
| truly the case, we could easily set up the emergency care
| facility again, our mayor and governor have shown they're
| more than willing to help when the situation arises. so,
| at least here in my neck of the woods, something doesn't
| add up.
| [deleted]
| floxy wrote:
| Percentage of 65+ people in Idaho with at least one covid
| vaccine dose: 93.2%
|
| Percentage of 65+ people in Wyoming with at least one covid
| vaccine dose: 89.2%.
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-
| trac...
| CountDrewku wrote:
| >They could no longer empathise with their patients, each
| describing a visceral anger at tending to ICUs of COVID
| patients, all unvaccinated.
|
| Did you ask them if they treat obese people the same way?
| macintux wrote:
| If obesity could be prevented with a simple shot, and was
| otherwise overwhelming our healthcare system, that might
| be a useful question.
| dham wrote:
| I mean you could get Osha to start banning foods or do
| whatever with the jurisdiction they have now. Tax sugar
| out of existence. Then government subsidize all healthier
| foods. I mean the amount of money we spent no Covid we
| could have done all this....
|
| But wait are you saying people should be able to make
| their on decisions? Obesity effects only a single person.
| Nope obesity is transmissible. I've seen too many couples
| where 1 is skinny and the other is obese or overweight.
| They both become overweight.
| macintux wrote:
| No one in the history of the world has died from obesity
| two weeks after simply spending time with another obese
| person.
| dham wrote:
| Yes but if we sent everyone a Peloton in March 2020 and
| required use of it how many people would we have saved by
| now? Just pay people to use it which seems more ethical
| than paying people to take the vaccine.
|
| Pandemics come and go. We might as well use fear to pass
| policies now like we did after 9/11
| merrywhether wrote:
| There's a serious disconnect between public health experts and
| the general public, and the experts have continued to not learn
| that lesson over the last year plus. It's mind-boggling.
|
| Earlier in the summer, we lifted mask mandates "because the
| vaccines were preventing disease", and regardless of the
| technical facts behind that decision, the perception was
| reality for the general public. Now they are trying to walk
| that back to "vaccines prevent serious disease" in the face of
| delta breakthroughs but the baseline had already been set.
|
| Not to mention the fact that experts continue to pedantically
| stick to their definition of serious disease as "needed oxygen
| in the hospital", once again out of touch with the layperson's
| opinion that a week of debilitating sickness at home followed
| by a month of weakness until full recovery seems pretty
| "serious" and something people do not want. Boosters are
| appealing because laypeople don't want any serious-by-their-
| definition disease and experts seemingly are incapable of
| acknowledging or understanding that, let alone their part in
| creating confusing messaging (partly to appease a 3rd set of
| people who ironically don't really want to hear from them at
| all).
|
| Public health officials need to understand that their primary
| job is managing public perception of a situation first and
| foremost. They can go push their glasses up and pedantically
| spout off technical corrections behind closed doors as much as
| they want, but in public they have to connect and empathize
| with normal humans.
|
| Part of this probably comes from medicine's continued
| promulgation of their air of expertise (read: superiority) that
| they've affected for a long while, but things like compassion
| and bedside-manner at lower importance. I worked in medicine
| and studied public health, and this status-over-all-else
| attitude was one of the reasons I left.
| ikrenji wrote:
| vaccines are and always were effective, its just 90+ % of
| people would need to take them to kill covid once and for
| all. but people are dumb so its not happening
| sseagull wrote:
| > Public health officials need to understand that their
| primary job is managing public perception of a situation
| first and foremost. They can go push their glasses up and
| pedantically spout off technical corrections behind closed
| doors as much as they want, but in public they have to
| connect and empathize with normal humans.
|
| So what should they have said in the beginning? If they don't
| give technical reasons, they will be accused of talking down
| from their ivory tower, dictating policy with a 'just trust
| us' attitude, or of being biased/political.
|
| But if they give technical reasons, people will nitpick
| those, especially if the data is incomplete or evolving.
|
| There were lots of people being correct and nuanced, but they
| were drowned out (partly for political reasons I suspect).
| merrywhether wrote:
| > So what should they have said in the beginning?
|
| Probably something like "Masks aren't proven to help yet,
| but unless covid is unlike any other respiratory disease
| they probably won't hurt." Yes, this could've caused a rush
| on them (though maybe that would've alleviated some of the
| need in hospitals?) and we would've had to deal with that,
| but lying to people in the name "for their own good" is not
| empathizing with them.
|
| Getting too deep into technical reasons in the middle of
| such an event is not understanding the definition of
| teachable moment. Most people aren't open to learning deep
| knowledge when their fear or other emotions are up, but it
| can take real skill to avoid diving into details as an
| expert. And I have some sympathy for people getting
| metaphorical microphones shoved in their face, but that
| just goes back to my point about public health (and medical
| people in general) needing to know that their job is as
| much soft skill as hard.
| clairity wrote:
| you're somehow making a dissonant "people are too stupid
| for their own good" argument couched in a "don't talk
| down to the people" argument. but this dichotomy is
| wholly unnecessary.
|
| the simpler reframing is to tell people the truth, and do
| it so it's not overwhelming to folks ("having empathy")
| who have many competing attention-grabbing issues in
| their lives (i.e., they're busy, not stupid).
|
| and regarding masks, the simple truth is, they don't help
| in most common situations (i.e., out in public, where
| distancing does all the work), and it's extremely hard to
| get folks to use them in the one common situation where
| they can be effective: social/family gatherings. masks
| were never going to be an effective mitigation for this
| one reason alone, but because of their visible,
| performative value, became immediately politicized.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| > Public health officials need to understand that their
| primary job is managing public perception of a situation
| first and foremost.
|
| Actually, public health officials need to maintain the trust
| of the public, or no one will listen.
|
| And you won't be trusted if everything coming out of your
| mouth is a lie, no matter what your intentions.
| dTal wrote:
| Actually, it's both. Parent is arguing a consequentialist
| ethical framework - public health experts have a primary
| duty of care to the population, and their actions should
| promote this goal.
|
| Your position of "you won't be trusted if everything coming
| out of your mouth is a lie" is fully compatible with this
| framework.
|
| Considering the other person's mental model and
| incorporating their terminology when communicating with
| them, even when they're a bit wrong, isn't "lying" - it's
| basic empathy.
| beamatronic wrote:
| Agree 100% with your comment, there has been a breakdown when
| it comes to technical definitions. The medical professional's
| definition of "airborne spread" for example. By their
| textbook definition, "airborne spread" was impossible and it
| got into the definition of what a droplet is.
| Steltek wrote:
| The CDC seems dangerously close to a no-win scenario.
|
| Present truth and facts backing policy: Not managing public
| perception correctly.
|
| Tell public what needs to be done but omit details: Conserve
| N95's with "masks don't work" all over again.
| junon wrote:
| This. Even here in Germany it's a "damned if you do, damned
| if you don't" scenario. It's entirely polarized.
| shapefrog wrote:
| You cant tell the truth because it will just be 'fuel for
| the anti-vaxers'. Not telling the truth being also fuel
| for the anti-vaxers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If you don 't have a vaccine by now, you want covid instead
| and this booster conversation is irrelevant_
|
| Friend's mother visiting from Jamaica. People in her country
| are dying while they wait for first shots. The voluntarily
| unvaccinated in America are idiots. The author's point is there
| are billions of unvoluntarily unvaccinated around the world to
| whom these doses could go.
| runarberg wrote:
| While I agree that the rational course for anybody who is
| able to get vaccinated is to get vaccinated, people may still
| have reasons--however irrational--that are not idiotic.
|
| Lets say you are a person who has had substandard health care
| all your life. And justly see the medical system as something
| not catered for people like you. You know the history of
| inhumane medical experiments being conducted on your
| ancestors as early as a generation ago. You also know that
| the medical profession has had severely wrong and racist
| theories about health care for your ethnicity.
|
| Now the medical profession asks you to trust them and accept
| the vaccine.
|
| Now I am not that person, and where I'm from the health care
| system has proven it self to be extremely valuable for me
| personally and those who I love (and coincidentally has one
| of the highest vaccination rate in the world). But if I put
| my self in other's shoes I can easily understand how vaccine
| hesitancy is only natural.
|
| Now what to do about it: Respect peoples concerns, e.g. don't
| call them idiots for these concerns. Try to understand and
| educate. If people still don't want the vaccine, don't panic.
| Keep giving vaccines out for free to those who want it (and
| please include poorer countries). Perhaps if enough people
| are vaccinated worldwide it will slow the spread and mutation
| rate of the virus enough that we won't have more of the mass
| waves of new variants and the vaccination status of each
| individual becomes irrelevant.
| odessacubbage wrote:
| please give '''my''' shot to a high risk person in jamaica or
| iran or brazil. i don't need it, they do.
| ufo wrote:
| Thankfully, the most high risk people in Brazil have gotten
| two shots by now; we're moving towards giving a first shot
| to every adult, and starting second shots for everyone. The
| vaccination campaign was botched by negligence and
| corruption from the Bolsonaro government, but by now the
| doses are finally arriving.
|
| We're also having the same discussions about third dose...
| Currently, the order is to give a third dose for the
| elderly (70+) and immunocompromised.
| junon wrote:
| > i don't need it
|
| Yes. You do. Even if you're asymptomatic, the virus will
| still mutate with a small chance of becoming another
| variant, and if you're unvaccinated in such a case, that
| means you'll spread it to others.
|
| By not being vaccinated, you run the risk of spreading a
| variant around that is a "breakthrough variant" - a
| mutation of the disease that is hardened against a
| particular vaccine brand.
|
| Thus, you _will_ be contributing to _healthy_ people
| getting sick despite being properly vaccinated.
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| Calling the unvaccinated idiots is about as effective as
| calling the obese, alcoholics, people who don't take their
| medication, etc, idiots.
|
| Apparently we have sympathy for people who fail to make good
| health choices except for the unvaccinated.
|
| Not effective at all.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > obese
|
| Requires lifestyle change
|
| > alcoholics
|
| Requires lifestyle change
|
| > people who don't take their medication
|
| Requires lifestyle change
|
| > Vaccine
|
| Requires a choice and a half day off.
|
| There is a BIG difference there.
| refurb wrote:
| What you call lifestyle changes I call "need to make a
| decision". Patients make terrible healthcare choices all
| the time. If we're going to hammer them on vaccines let's
| go all in, huh?
|
| Obesity causes massive costs and burden on our healthcare
| system yet I don't see people calling them idiots.
| function_seven wrote:
| > _What you call lifestyle changes I call "need to make a
| decision"._
|
| Well I'd suggest not downplaying it that way. Going from
| a junk-food-and-soda diet to a healthy one is a huge
| shift in lifestyle. You don't just make a decision one
| day and that's that. You have to make that decision
| several times a day, every day, for the rest of your
| life.
|
| Not getting enough exercise? You don't just sign up for a
| gym membership and consider it done. No, that's just the
| first step. Now you need to show up at the gym several
| times a week, and put the work in over and over again.
|
| An alcoholic doesn't just decide to stop drinking one
| day, then _poof_ they 're cured. That decision is just
| the beginning. What follows is some mix of white
| knuckling in the beginning and an ever-present vigilance
| to maintain sobriety. It's not just "I don't drink
| anymore", but also "I need to come to terms with this
| issue or that relationship", and "I can't hang out at the
| bar every night anymore". It's a long-term project, not
| just a decision.
|
| Getting a vaccination is not like that _at all_. It
| really is a single decision, once made, and never thought
| about again.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| A lifestyle change is something that you need to actively
| pursue forever. It's not just a one time decision and
| action. I can't tell if you're being intentionally
| obtuse, or you actually can't see the difference.
|
| And yes, all the issues listed are ones that can
| (usually) be corrected by action of the person involved.
| But the _level_ of action is on a totally different
| scale.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >I can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse
|
| Given this guy's attitudes towards vaccines, I doubt it's
| intentional.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Obesity is also way more complex than taking a shot. Its
| not as simple as "eat as much as your neighbor". Minor
| systemic differences in metabolism can have huge long-
| term weight implications.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| There's a little bit of an unfair comparison here. You
| _say_ the vaccine is a single choice, but what I see,
| continued boosters, masks, social distancing forever,
| "I'm willing to make a small change in my life to end
| this." And you might say "I'm not arguing for those
| things though" but if you stop at one shot, a year from
| now someone is going to be calling you an anti vaxxer or
| covid denier for not wanting to turn this one shot into a
| lifestyle change. And that's what is expected of us if we
| are being honest, not one quick shot, but a permanent
| lifestyle change. Some people don't even want to start
| down that road.
| justwanttolearn wrote:
| The lifestyle change is a choice that we make. For those
| people that HAVE made these choices, should also have a
| choice into taking a vaccine when they don't need it,
| just to satisfy those that have not taken the choice to
| do the same. Those who are obese, alcoholics or whatever
| can then take the choice to get vaccinated to better
| protect themselves
| RHSeeger wrote:
| The problem is that, by not getting vaccinated, they're
| not _just_ impacting themselves. They're more likely to
| get, to pass it to others, to introduce a variant, etc.
| We're all much safer if everyone gets immunized. Or, at
| least, so the prevailing scientific theory and minds
| indicate... and you can either believe them or chose not
| to with no actual facts to back up your position... and
| be called an idiot ./shrug.
| mrrv wrote:
| The unvaccinated are putting others at risk, including
| kids. I can't say the same about the obese or people who
| don't take their medication.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Obese people take up health care resources that could go
| to keeping kids healthier at lower cost or making those
| resources more available to kids in an emergency.
| justwanttolearn wrote:
| asides from obese people / poor lifestyle choice people
| taking up health care resources, not only from Covid but
| they're also taking up resources from all other ailments
| that comes up BECAUSE they're obese. As well the culture
| today encourages plus size, like it's asking to overwhelm
| the healthcare system
| justwanttolearn wrote:
| obesity spreads too
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa066082 just
| not the way you think they do as a virus
| nradov wrote:
| There is no significant risk to healthy kids.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02423-8
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| If someone were struggling with alcoholism, and I offered
| them an FDA approved shot to remove their addiction to
| alcohol, I would consider them fairly stupid if they
| refused it. Handling diseases and addictions is a long term
| struggle, not similar to a one time choice at all. It is
| orders of magnitude easier to get a covid shot than to rid
| yourself of an addiction.
| 34679 wrote:
| It's not really fair to compare a healthy person to
| someone "struggling with alcoholism".
|
| If you run into a bar shouting about the dangers of
| consuming alcohol while promising an injection that makes
| a person never want to drink again, I would consider you
| fairly stupid.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| That's my point. Falling victim to alcoholism is not an
| apt analogy to getting a covid shot. People don't
| generally choose to become alcoholics. If you really want
| to make your contrived example fit, it would be something
| like a shot that prevents organ damage from alcohol, not
| desire to drink.
|
| If such a thing were available, and people refused, and
| then got alcohol poisoning, then it is arguable that, on
| some level, their stupidity is to blame here.
| refurb wrote:
| I'm glad your not a doctor then?
|
| First off, the vaccine does not eliminate the risk of
| Covid. If you went to an alcoholic and said "this shot
| has a 90% chance of curing you of alcoholism but had side
| effects and you might end up quitting anyways" would you
| still call them an idiot for hesitating?
|
| Type 2 diabetics can prevent most of the complications if
| they adhere to a strict diet and medication regimen. When
| they end up getting a limb amputated do you call them
| idiots as well?
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > If you went to an alcoholic and said "this shot has a
| 90% chance of curing you of alcoholism but had side
| effects and you might end up quitting anyways" would you
| still call them an idiot for hesitating?
|
| Depends on the side effects obviously. If clinical trials
| revealed nothing but rare allergic reactions to shots
| themselves and priors based on established medical
| knowledge predicted a very low chance of anything unusual
| happening over the very very long term, it'd be a no
| brainer. Nobody just quits alcoholism. It's by definition
| a difficult process.
|
| > Type 2 diabetics can prevent most of the complications
| if they adhere to a strict diet and medication regimen.
| When they end up getting a limb amputated do you call
| them idiots as well?
|
| I would call them idiots if they were presented a single
| shot to cure them of type 2 diabetes and they decided not
| to, then lost their limbs.
| nradov wrote:
| There are FDA approved medications which are effective in
| treating alcoholism.
|
| https://www.webmd.com/mental-
| health/addiction/features/fight...
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Those are all drugs which try to make curing addiction
| easier, but it's still hard and you're going to suffer
| withdrawal symptoms and take these drugs for months. Very
| different from this magical hypothetical. Probably taking
| something like one of these is, however, advisable if
| trying to get off alcohol?
| nafix wrote:
| It's highly ignorant to call unvaccinated Americans idiots.
| Over 100 million Americans have already caught and recovered
| from Covid. I imagine many in that group don't see any value
| in getting the vaccine (rightfully so).
| mr_overalls wrote:
| Choosing to risk catching a disease with a 1-2% case
| fatality rate, while refusing an overwhelmingly safe and
| effective vaccine is the definition of idiocy.
| [deleted]
| chitowneats wrote:
| IFR is a better metric than CFR:
|
| https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118
| 6/s...
|
| The overall IFR is misleading, given how age-stratified
| the risk is:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0
| spookthesunset wrote:
| I absolutely adore when publicly available data sourced
| from government agencies gets downvoted.
|
| Since March of 2020 any kind of statement suggesting
| covid isn't as bad as some make it out to be is met with
| fierce vitriol. The number of times I've been called
| "dangerous" for posting well sourced data that clearly
| shows the IFR of covid is _not_ 1-2%...
|
| It's as if people believe that any good news will result
| in others "not taking this serious". They must feel that
| everybody needs to be scared stiff of this thing all the
| time... the result is the average person thinks if they
| catch covid they have a 10% chance of dying, which for
| most age groups is like 1000x off[0].
|
| It's super evil, really. If people were better informed
| about the risk profiles of covid, how many would have
| sacrificed a year and a half of their short life?
| Wouldn't that imply that forcing this "new normal" crap
| by scaring the daylights out of people is a tad misguided
| and perhaps very unethical and immoral? If the only way
| you can get people to comply with your draconian
| interventions is lying to society about the risks of
| covid... well that is pretty fucked up.
|
| Worse, by the way, is peoples risk assessment for covid
| is so completely wrong it makes debating public policy
| impossible. If the average adult thinks they have a 10%
| of dying if they got covid, of course they will want to
| mask little kids at school, of course they'll cheer
| vaccine passports, of course they'll rat each other out
| for sitting on a park bench. If they knew kids were at
| almost zero risk of covid, and their age bracket had
| minimal risks, would they have agreed to any of that?
|
| [0] a fascinating data set: https://covid19pulse.usc.edu/
| baumy wrote:
| I remember when I first saw that USC dataset, it was mind
| blowing. Any public health official worth their salt
| should be absolutely horror struck that the public's
| perception of the risk profile of a disease is off by
| multiple orders of magnitude. Their entire job is to
| accurately inform the public about public health risks,
| and that dataset is proof that they've failed more
| spectacularly than I would have thought possible. They
| should be working around the clock to try to amend their
| failure, and earn back the trust they've thrown away.
|
| Strangely, despite all the pearl clutching about
| "misinformation", this data-backed and quantifiable
| instance of covid misinformation never gets brought up.
| As a result, I now consider government / public health
| institution claims to be politically calculated
| fearmongering or propaganda until proven otherwise, and
| likely not worth my time to pay attention to. I'll update
| my opinion about them if their stance toward "correcting
| misinformation" starts to include misinformation like the
| above as well.
|
| I'm not holding my breath.
| [deleted]
| spfzero wrote:
| If they've already had and recovered from Covid, as in
| the case of this 100 MM, their case fatality rate is
| nothing near that, and may well be lower than that for
| vaccinated-but-never-infected people.
|
| Their choice is this, if they are otherwise healthy and
| young: With protection as good or better than the
| vaccinated, should I get a shot that might lower my
| already minuscule chance of dying or serious disease by a
| further tiny amount.
|
| I could see rational people coming down on both sides of
| that.
| vaidhy wrote:
| Let us assume person x already got covid? The rationale
| for refusing the vaccine is either (a) they believe they
| do not need it or (b) they do so on ideological belief.
|
| If it is (a), evidence shows that covid + vaccine is
| better than either alone and hence no reason to refuse
| the vaccine.
|
| If it is (b), there is perfect justification for calling
| that stancy as an idiotic stance.
| throwawayfear wrote:
| It is true that evidence suggests past infection +
| vaccine is best. But the evidence also shows that
| antibodies from past infection are superior to two shots
| of Pfizer which the majority of people were rolling with
| maskless just fine.
|
| So regarding option a, it's moreso the case that there's
| no legitimate reason TO bother with the vaccine if you
| have those antibodies already. A marginal improvement at
| best over what is already better than two shots of
| Pfizer, is not worth the long-term unknowns to me.
|
| Source:
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-
| cov-2-on...
|
| There is also new evidence that it may be safer for boys
| to just get covid rather than vaccination.
|
| Source:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-
| at-r...
|
| Knowing this, will you still say there's no reason to
| refuse it? Why would you elevate yourself into a position
| where you believe yourself to be an arbiter of this? The
| evidence is clear that the antibodies tens of millions
| already have from past infection are excellent. So stop
| coming up with false dilemmas.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Anecdote to support your statement: A close friend that
| tested positive for COVID last year works at a hospital.
| They saw no value in getting vaccinated since they had
| already been infected and recovered. They were given an
| ultimatum last month of "get vaccinated or find a new job".
|
| Reason has left the building.
| random314 wrote:
| How it would have hurt to get a vaccine?
| pwm wrote:
| Well for one it could go to desperate people in 3rd world
| countries? If you already provably had covid letting your
| now useless shot go to the ones in need is arguably the
| moral choice?
| supercheetah wrote:
| The doses in the countries they're at now aren't likely
| to go to a different country, and are more likely to
| expire before they could be shipped elsewhere, so people
| in those countries may as well get them. For other
| places, the problem is manufacturing and distribution,
| and lifting patent restrictions would help too.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Most of those people don't actually know they had COVID.
| They make up stories that "they've already had it".
| Remember that vaccinated still get COVID, those numbers
| include them.
| chitowneats wrote:
| What evidence do you have for your claim? An anecdote or
| two from your own life? How is that any more scientific
| than what you claim to be decrying?
|
| In the U.S. at least, there is a mass testing regime that
| many must submit to for work, school, etc. Are you
| suggesting those who have tested positive in these
| situations are "making up stories"?
| devwastaken wrote:
| Overwhelmingly people did not have to test for COVID, and
| never did. They had a few "symptoms" and claimed they got
| COVID and it "was no big deal". When in reality they have
| no proof of it. Humans overwhelmingly make up stories so
| reinforce their opinions. And no, most work did not
| require testing, even government work. Even federal
| government work.
| chitowneats wrote:
| "Humans overwhelmingly make up stories so reinforce their
| opinions."
|
| At least we can agree on that. You're doing it right now.
|
| Funny that you put "a few symptoms" in scare quotes,
| given that loss of taste and smell is highly indicative
| of covid and not any other widely circulating illness.
| iszomer wrote:
| There were a few stories that called into question the
| effectiveness of these tests ranging from PCR, antibody,
| antigen, etc.
| jsight wrote:
| Anecdotally, there are people who say it only based upon
| symptoms. I'd even argue that they are probably right,
| but its fair to say that they have any way of validating
| or proving that knowledge.
| chitowneats wrote:
| I agree that if someone is doing this, they do not have
| definitive proof.
|
| The comment I was responding to claimed "most" people are
| making claims without proof. Despite the hundreds of
| millions (billions?) of covid tests that have been
| administered throughout the pandemic in the U.S.
| tharne wrote:
| > It's highly ignorant to call unvaccinated Americans
| idiots.
|
| Agreed. The correct term for them is "immoral". The only
| world in which it makes sense to forgo the vaccine is one
| in which your life is only one that matters. So a healthy
| unvaccinated person is making a perfectly rational
| decision, just a morally bankrupt one.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| How is it morally bankrupt to care about yourself more
| than people you don't know?
| random314 wrote:
| How does getting a vaccine affect a young healthy person
| negatively?
|
| It is immoral for the same reason as refusing to help
| others survive at zero cost to you.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| If you answer my question I'll answer yours.
|
| The vaccine does not come with 0 cost.
| dgfitz wrote:
| > How does getting a vaccine affect a young healthy
| person negatively?
|
| Isn't that a reason people don't want the shot? Because
| they're not sure of the answer to that question.
|
| I got my 2 shots. Had to drive 1.5 hours each way both
| times, find someone to watch my kids and burn up 2
| Saturdays that I could have spent doing something I
| wanted to do that wasn't getting a shot.
|
| To claim there is zero cost is insincere at best.
| paulcole wrote:
| There is some value in fitting in with society and showing
| those who are skeptical that there's nothing to be afraid
| of with a vaccine. And with more mandates going into place
| it's easier to just get vaccinated.
| arcbyte wrote:
| I've said from the beginning of this year that I'll get
| vaccinated as soon as the government gets out of it. At
| this point, the mandates are specifically why I refuse to
| get vaccinated. I caught covid in August so I'm immune
| for the next year at least. So there's no reason for me
| to get vaccinated and every reason not to.
| rspeele wrote:
| > I've said from the beginning of this year that I'll get
| vaccinated as soon as the government gets out of it. At
| this point, the mandates are specifically why I refuse to
| get vaccinated.
|
| Do you find any irony in your decision being controlled
| by the government's policy?
| dgfitz wrote:
| I agree with arcbyte, and I got my second shot in March.
| The amount of government interference as it relates to
| COVID and vaccines is complete bullshit. I hope we look
| back on this in 20 years and feel a deep sense of
| embarrassment for how COVID and the vaccine has been
| managed and used to emotionally manipulate and divide
| people.
|
| When 9/11 happened it united the country. COVID should
| have done the same thing, but it has been used as a
| political tool instead, bringing out the worst in people.
| It makes me quite depressed when I think about it for too
| long.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > When 9/11 happened it united the country. COVID should
| have done the same thing, but it has been used as a
| political tool instead, bringing out the worst in people.
| It makes me quite depressed when I think about it for too
| long.
|
| I've felt this way too. People have made this so
| incredibly, incredibly divisive. I'm not sure what blend
| of fear and tribalism is driving this either. When you
| talk to some people about covid, what comes out of their
| mouth is almost word salad--they are so incredibly
| fearful and panicked that almost none of what they say
| makes sense. The idea that society should completely
| alter everything for this one specific illness (aka "new
| normal") is pretty absurd, yet people will stop just
| short of spitting on your face when you express any
| skepticism at all.
|
| Societies reaction to this is all just so freaking
| bizarre. None of what we are doing adds up or makes much
| sense when you really start asking questions.
| amrocha wrote:
| After 9/11 a significant portion of the US was staunchly
| anti-war, organized some of the largest protests in US
| history, and yet they were ignored by the media and
| demonized as anti-patriotic. On top of that, muslim
| americans have had to endure years of racist attacks, not
| only from individuals but also from the state, in borders
| and airports, ongoing to this day.
|
| If you think it "united the country" then you either have
| rose-tinted glasses on, or you had your opinion validated
| by the pro-war media and never looked elsewhere. The
| difference is that now the media disagrees with you.
| dgfitz wrote:
| That isn't accurate. The media doesn't disagree with me,
| the country is ripped in two over COVID and vaccines,
| there is no denying that.
|
| Why do you say they disagree?
|
| Edit: capitalization
|
| Second edit: I didn't say the WAR united the country.
| You're twisting my comment.
| paulcole wrote:
| > I caught covid in August so I'm immune for the next
| year at least.
|
| Yeah and if you got vaccinated you probably wouldn't have
| caught it in August. Great hill to (hopefully
| metaphorically) die on.
| crackercrews wrote:
| It would be very useful to know what percent of the
| unvaccinated population are not getting vaccinated because
| they already had COVID. What are their demographics,
| compared to the larger demographics of the unvaccinated
| population? And is it worth spending any effort (or White
| House budget paying TikTok influencers) trying to convince
| them to get a vaccine for an illness they have already had?
| gorwell wrote:
| It's not only ignorant of the science, as you point out
| regarding prior immunity, but highly ignorant of history
| and social dynamics. Creating an underclass that is
| considered diseased and "dangerous to us" ends badly, to
| say the least.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_stages_of_genocide
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehumanization
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| In addition, minorities have reason to distrust the
| medical establishment.[0] For all the noise made about
| "voter ID is racist", almost no one has said that
| "vaccine passports are racist". Do we really want to
| create another two tiered system where minorities are the
| outgroup again?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study
| bwship wrote:
| Anecdotally, I decided not to get the vaccine. Three weeks
| ago, my friend who had gotten the vaccine got Covid, and then
| gave it to me. (He also beat me in golf that day which says a
| lot more about my golf than his ability to play while sick).
| But anyway, we both lost our sense of taste and smell, had
| fevers, were achy, him up until about a week ago, me up until
| a couple of days ago. So, perhaps he would have had an even
| tougher go at it had he not been vaccinated, but to me it
| seems we both suffered just about identical outcomes.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Given the R0-value of Covid, the likelihood is fairly high
| that you spread the virus to other people. Your amazingly
| impressive immune system would have absolutely crushed the
| virus with the help of a vaccine, and perhaps you would
| have had 0 symptoms and been totally non-contagious.
| Someone could be in a hospital bed because of your
| decision. Food for thought.
| noobly wrote:
| Last I checked, it's unknown how much (if at all) the
| vaccine reduces spread.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I roll a six sided die. You roll a 20 sided die. We both
| get a 4. I guess they're the same.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Except the 6 and 20 numbers are ones you just made up to
| support your position and make yourself feel warm inside
| but this fact just makes your entire statement
| meaningless and at the center of your grin at your own
| wit is an empty, hollow nothing.
| bwship wrote:
| My dice used my immune system. Yours used whatever the f
| they decided to inject into you. Looks like I won!
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| It is upsetting to me that you appear to believe vaccines
| replace the role of your immune system.
| bwship wrote:
| The whole point of the original comment was that 1.
| someone with the vaccine and someone without both had an
| identical reaction to the virus and 2. just because
| everyone on the pro-vaccine side makes claims that this
| vaccine is safe, there are no long-term studies on it. So
| my point about my immune system was that yes I was
| willing to roll the dice and deal with the virus when/if
| it came to me. And I did. I will get downvoted for this
| on this particular site, because it is way more skewed to
| people that feel that the vaccine is a safe and effective
| measure. But, I didn't roll a 6 sided die while my friend
| rolled a 20 sided die.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| There are no long term studies on COVID. But what
| informatrion we do have suggests it can cause prolonged
| damage.
|
| Including erectile dysfunction.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Don't threaten me with a good time.
| ghaff wrote:
| How do you think a vaccine works?
| bwship wrote:
| Most vaccines contain the actual virus. This vaccine does
| not.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Some of them are traditional inactivated virus vaccines.
| If that's your only point of concern, you should simply
| be advocating for J&J.
|
| All of them still work by teaching your own immune
| system.
| slices wrote:
| the difference with the J&J isn't the payload (spike
| protein), it's the delivery mechanism (adenovirus vs.
| mRNA)
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| That's not quite correct. Neither contains the spike
| protein. The delivery mechanisms are two different ways
| to tell the cells to produce the spike proteins. The
| immune system then learns how to respond to the spike
| protein presence.
|
| The mechanisms are the payloads. They're different
| formats of the spike protein recipe.
| bigbob2 wrote:
| Anecdotally, the CEO of my company just died of Covid.
| bwship wrote:
| Anecdotally, my uncle who was otherwise healthy died
| months after getting the jab. And my sister's husband
| came down with some major fatigue/fever issues recently
| after the jab. So again, I took my chances based on the
| facts I had, yet I will get downvoted because they aren't
| in lock step with most of HN.
| bigbob2 wrote:
| Apparently my comment was also not in lock step as you
| say. I'm not questioning your decision but if we're
| providing anecdotal data points then we should provide as
| many as possible.
| throwaway827171 wrote:
| So, at first you claimed you didn't want to get the
| vaccine because a friend got it and still got sick. Now
| you claimed your uncle died from it and your sister's
| husband got serious sick from it. I wonder why you didn't
| mention that at first to make your point, instead of
| using the much less serious case about your friend. Make
| me skeptical about everything you said.
| bwship wrote:
| No, it wasn't that I didn't want to get the vaccine
| because my friend got sick. The fact was he had the
| vaccine, and got me sick and we both had as close to the
| exact same experience during the sickness. The second
| parts about my uncle and my sister's husband I can't
| really prove they are related to the vaccine, but were
| just in response to the previous commenters. Sorry if
| that wasn't clear.
| thesis wrote:
| Yikes. Idiots? All this condescension all the time.
|
| Maybe some people won't get the vaccine because they already
| had Covid. Israeli study showed that people who had Covid are
| more protected than the vaccinated.
| _kulang wrote:
| Doesn't hurt to get vaccinated anyway. In fact that should
| offer the most protection overall.
|
| And that's besides the point as the recovered may as well
| be vaccinated in the context of this discussion.
| adamrezich wrote:
| somebody's gotta be the control group in all of this,
| I'll take one for the team, in the name of Science
| rattlesnakedave wrote:
| I'm not sure what else you would call someone with such a
| skewed risk assessment that they think taking a vaccine
| that has proven to be incredibly safe and effective,
| provided free of charge, isn't worth their time.
|
| Research has not yet shown how long you are protected from
| getting COVID-19 again after you recover from COVID-19. We
| have a much better idea with the vaccines.
|
| Even more, studies suggest that unvaccinated people who
| already had COVID-19 are more than 2 times as likely than
| fully vaccinated people to get COVID-19 again.
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm
|
| There is NO reason to not be vaccinated at this point if
| you can be.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Alright so I'd like you to draw me a picture of your
| reasoning behind the statement that we do not know how
| long immunity from infection lasts but we have a better
| idea with the vaccines. Because in the world I live in,
| we have had infections longer than vaccines, which means
| more data on immunity from infections than vaccines.
| Where did you get that statement from and why did you say
| it?
| _-david-_ wrote:
| >that has proven to be incredibly safe and effective,
|
| There are no long term studies so calling it incredibly
| safe is misleading at best. What happens if some issues
| start cropping up in 5 or 10 years.
|
| >Research has not yet shown how long you are protected
| from getting COVID-19 again after you recover from
| COVID-19.
|
| So it could be longer than vaccines? Some places are
| already pushing for boosters since vaccine efficacy is
| waning. It seems like we should look into this.
| crackercrews wrote:
| > a vaccine that has proven to be incredibly safe and
| effective
|
| I understand that there have been very few deaths or
| serious injuries from the vaccines. At the same time, I
| am aware of the unexplained menstrual side effects. I
| completely understand why women who plan to have
| children, and parents of girls, don't view the vaccine as
| zero risk.
| random314 wrote:
| Citation?
| crackercrews wrote:
| > But thousands of people in the U.S. think they may have
| had other side effects that drugmakers and doctors never
| warned them about: unexpected changes in their menstrual
| cycles. [1]
|
| 1: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
| shots/2021/08/09/1024190...
| [deleted]
| bgentry wrote:
| >There is NO reason to not be vaccinated at this point if
| you can be.
|
| If you've already had COVID, especially recently, that's
| a pretty damn good reason to not get vaccinated given
| that your immunity is likely far stronger and more
| durable than a vaccinated-but-COVID-naive person. [1]
|
| While getting vaccinated on top _might_ help (there is
| not definitive data on this yet AFAIK [2]), it is also
| not 100% risk-free. So why would you do that if you 're
| already more immune and thus less of a risk / less at-
| risk than the vaccinated population?
|
| For some people it might make sense to still get
| vaccinated after COVID recovery. But for those who choose
| not to, it's not at all fair to say they are all "idiots"
| or that there is "no reason" not to still get the shot.
| That's not accurate based on what the actual science
| tells us at this time.
|
| [1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.2
| 1262415v...
|
| _SARS-CoV-2-naive vaccinees had a 13.06-fold (95% CI,
| 8.08 to 21.11) increased risk for breakthrough infection
| with the Delta variant compared to those previously
| infected, when the first event (infection or vaccination)
| occurred during January and February of 2021. The
| increased risk was significant (P <0.001) for symptomatic
| disease as well. When allowing the infection to occur at
| any time before vaccination (from March 2020 to February
| 2021), evidence of waning natural immunity was
| demonstrated, though SARS-CoV-2 naive vaccinees had a
| 5.96-fold (95% CI, 4.85 to 7.33) increased risk for
| breakthrough infection and a 7.13-fold (95% CI, 5.51 to
| 9.21) increased risk for symptomatic disease. SARS-
| CoV-2-naive vaccinees were also at a greater risk for
| COVID-19-related-hospitalizations compared to those that
| were previously infected._
|
| [2]: https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/why-
| covid-19-vacci...
| random314 wrote:
| None of these studies suggest that getting a vaccine
| increases your risk. It can only decrease it.
| JoshuaDavid wrote:
| Is your claim that the vaccines don't themselves have any
| risks or side effects associated with them? "The vaccine,
| on average, will reduce your risk" is one claim that is
| correct for most people, but "the vaccine can _only_
| reduce your risk " is a much stronger claim that is not
| universally true (if you don't agree, consider whether
| one should get a daily dose of the vaccine).
| noobly wrote:
| What if there's long term effects from vaccination? Seems
| to me we won't know the full risk profile for several
| more years.
|
| I'm not at risk for COVID so it doesn't make sense to
| take on additional unknown risk in this case.
|
| I also believe people should be able to make their own
| decisions, and believe I'm doing my part in exercising
| that right and sticking it to the man (which is more like
| a hive mind today really).
| adolph wrote:
| > not sure what else you would call someone with such a
| skewed risk assessment
|
| You could start with "a person with a skewed risk
| assessment." I've found avoiding pejorative is a more
| effective persuasion technique. Maybe the people around
| you really respond to name calling?
| rangerdan wrote:
| "Safe and effective" yet we don't even have a full year
| of data on it. How are people this clueless?
| random314 wrote:
| Are you talking about 1 year of data post infection or
| post vaccination?
| revax wrote:
| Not with the delta variant.
| CyanLite2 wrote:
| It's to flatten the curve. Approx 10% of vaccinated still
| require oxygen and other medical measures. And with hospitals
| currently at full capacity, boosters are a short-term way to
| keep the hospitalization numbers low until kids can get
| vaccinated and every one else has had their chance before we
| fully open everything up once and for all.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| We've been flattening the curve for a year and a half. They
| had ample time to build capacity. Why is it not built?
| tomerv wrote:
| > Is it to protect the vaccinated? This makes no sense, as the
| risk to the vaccinated well below the range we have accepted
| for decades.
|
| What is the acceptable range? Older people are still dying from
| Covid even after 2 shots. If a third shot can improve someone's
| protection from death due to Covid, say from 70% to 90% [1],
| that sounds like a good reason to take that shot.
|
| The comparison between someone in Israel taking a booster shot
| and someone in a 3rd world country without access to vaccines
| is irrelevant - at least until there's a serious global
| initiative to provide vaccines to everyone around the world.
|
| [1] Original stats talked about 90% protection, but that has
| gone down since then. One of the possible reasons is the need
| for a booster shot. But we still don't know what level of
| protection the booster shot will provide.
| gitanovic wrote:
| As long as they don't impose to me (40 y.o.) to catch a
| plane... fine with me
|
| I am getting very wary of the whole situation.
|
| "As soon as we get a vaccine we are good". Now we have the
| bloody thing, I got injected with it hoping to get back to
| normal: "We need a booster shot"
|
| I was always pretty rational about it, but this is becoming a
| farce
| spookthesunset wrote:
| There is a good chunk of society that absolutely refuses to
| move on.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, They can easily end this by just getting the jab,
| but choose not to. I'm starting to think the anti-mask,
| anti-vax crowd actually loves COVID and stay-at-home and
| all these restrictions. With COVID, these people imagine
| themselves as powerful freedom fighters, knowers of The
| Truth, battling the authoritarian government, standing
| lone against evil, occasionally martyrs for the cause--
| just like Braveheart! Without this imagined COVID
| tyranny, they're just normal schmucks like the rest of
| us.
| pbaka wrote:
| > taking a booster shot and someone in a 3rd world country
| without access to vaccines is irrelevant
|
| It is in a world with limited production capacity, unless you
| think improving the odds of survival from 70%->90% in
| industrialized countries trumps improving 0%->90 in the rest
| of the planet :
|
| - The US factories are barely getting online.
|
| - 80% of the mRNA vaccines production capacity is still
| between Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Spain.
|
| - Viral Vector capacity (non-Sputnik, which Russia licenses
| freely) is also mostly between Netherlands, Germany,
| Switzerland and the UK, with some precursors in India.
| after_care wrote:
| > I also don't understand the mask/booster thing now.
|
| It's to reduce strain on hospitals and healthcare in general,
| but ICU beds in particular. It's one thing for someone to get
| severe covid when the healthcare system knows how to treat it
| and has the capacity. It's another thing to get severe covid
| (or have a heart attack, or be in an auto accident) when
| hospitals are at full capacity. The goal of the US government
| has always been to flatten the curve and never to eradicate the
| disease.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| fwiw, the US has been increasing its vaxxed % by about 3-4
| points per month. Not great, but still improving.
| tzs wrote:
| > If you have a vaccine, then your risk of death is far below
| that of the flu (statistically).
|
| That seems worth checking.
|
| US flu deaths per year over the last 10 years ranged from 12000
| to 61000, averaging 35900 [1]. That's 3.7 to 18.6 per 100k,
| averaging 10.9 per 100k.
|
| Weekly COVID deaths among vaccinated people is 0.1 per 100k
| [2].
|
| The flu season is typically about 8 months. A weekly death rate
| of 0.1 per 100k over 8 months would be 3.5 per 100k.
|
| So...about 1/3 the risk of dying from from flu in an average
| flu year which arguably is indeed "far below".
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_influenza_statis...
|
| [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm
| jayd16 wrote:
| Doesn't seem quite right to compare historical flu rates of
| the general population to mask mandated covid rates among
| vaccinated.
|
| As it is today, it seems like flu deaths are far less
| frequent than covid deaths. Cherry picked link but it _is_
| the cdc.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
|
| >Among the 3,388 PIC deaths reported for this week, 2,785 had
| COVID-19 listed as an underlying or contributing cause of
| death on the death certificate, and three listed influenza,
| indicating that current PIC mortality is due primarily to
| COVID-19 and not influenza.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| You just said it's not fair to compare mask mandated rates,
| but then compare against the flu, which obviously is
| affected by the mask mandates (also mask mandates right now
| in the US are a bit of a joke, have you seen a sports game
| recently?).
| joshuamorton wrote:
| The point is that comparing un-masked flu rates to
| masked-covid rates isn't valid.
|
| Comparing masked-flu to masked-covid is valid.
|
| Of course, if you're doing that comparison, it may also
| be worth mentioning that the flu also has a vaccine and
| if you're vaccinated against the flu too, its less
| dangerous than covid.
| IAmEveryone wrote:
| You can't discount COVID deaths by using yearly flu deaths,
| but then only extrapolating to 8 months. Think of the other
| four months as "low-activity flu-months" and should be
| obvious why. You are intuitively mixing an attempt to
| estimate risk per year and risk per infection, I believe.
|
| I'm also not entirely sure how good surveillance is for the
| flu? I could imagine it being recorded as "pneumonia" or
| "respiratory arrest", especially when it affects poorer
| people, or those not admitted to hospitals.
|
| (please not that the two issues above would pull any
| conclusion into opposite directions, then reflect on the
| relative amounts of hate and love, respectively, before
| deciding that I must be wrong because disagree)
| marricks wrote:
| > The flu season is typically about 8 months. A weekly death
| rate of 0.1 per 100k over 8 months would be 3.5 per 100k.
|
| That's still depressingly high, and the 0.1 rate doesn't is
| before July 17th, so wouldn't really account for the Delta
| variant? COVID is no joke.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| How is 1/3 of a number that the vast majority of people
| don't even blink at "depressingly high"?
| marricks wrote:
| Delta was the dominant variant only by end of July so the
| data set for the 0.1 number could have been based mostly
| on a virus which is 2.5x less deadly.
|
| We're now facing an endemic virus which, even with
| vaccination, approaches (or could get as bad as) the
| deadliness of the flu.
| wyager wrote:
| Flu is under-diagnosed compared to covid because it kills a
| lot of old people and their cause of death is frequently not
| listed as flu. With covid, every death that might be
| attributable to it is counted. So it's probably actually a
| more extreme difference under a fair comparison.
| newbamboo wrote:
| I get so frustrated by this stuff.
|
| Here's where you went wrong.
|
| Your number is not based on efficacy last week. It's
| cumulative!
|
| The vaccine efficacy wanes. For those who get a vaccine 8
| months ago, it's almost worthless now.
|
| The worst part of you logic, you lump all risk groups
| together! A 90 year old is not a 20 year old. Argh! People
| have been doing this, even public health people, since the
| beginning of the pandemic. Teenagers and children have never
| been at risk really. It's not about you, it's about high risk
| groups. Old people, obese people with diabetes over a certain
| age.
|
| I get so very frustrated.
| alexktz wrote:
| > For those who get a vaccine 8 months ago, it's almost
| worthless now.
|
| You need to back this claim up with data please.
| throwaway20371 wrote:
| Good point - another data point that is actually not one,
| but many. There are 13 different COVID-19 vaccines around
| the globe, which work in different ways.
|
| _" The overall age-adjusted vaccine effectiveness
| against infection for all New York adults declined from
| 91.7% to 79.8%."_ - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/w
| r/mm7034e1.htm?s_cid=mm...
|
| _" Two doses of mRNA vaccines were 74.7% effective
| against infection among nursing home residents early in
| the vaccination program (March-May 2021). During June-
| July 2021, when B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant circulation
| predominated, effectiveness declined significantly to
| 53.1%."_ - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e
| 3.htm?s_cid=mm...
|
| _" The efficacy figure, which is based on an unspecified
| number of people between June 20 and July 17, is down
| from an earlier estimate of 64% two weeks ago and
| conflicts with data out of the U.K. that found the shot
| was 88% effective against symptomatic disease caused by
| the variant."_ - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/delta-
| variant-pfizer-covid-v...
|
| _" "As seen in real world data released from the Israel
| Ministry of Health, vaccine efficacy in preventing both
| infection and symptomatic disease has declined six months
| post-vaccination, although efficacy in preventing serious
| illnesses remains high," the companies said in a written
| statement. "These findings are consistent with an ongoing
| analysis from the Companies' Phase 3 study," they said.
| "That is why we have said, and we continue to believe
| that it is likely, based on the totality of the data we
| have to date, that a third dose may be needed within 6 to
| 12 months after full vaccination." ...... Executives from
| Pfizer and BioNtech have repeatedly said people will
| likely need a booster shot, or third dose, within 12
| months of getting fully vaccinated because they expect
| vaccine-induced immunity to wane over time. They also
| said it's likely people will need to get additional shots
| each year."_ - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/08/pfizer-
| says-it-is-developing...
|
| So, while it's true that the effectiveness wanes, the
| same articles also point out that it is still effective
| at preventing severe hospitalization. If you're
| vaccinated, you're more likely after 6 months to get
| COVID anyway, but you are much less likely to be sent to
| the hospital or die.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| It was a horrible marketing mistake to ever imply that a
| vaccine would eliminate COVID by reducing transmission /
| infection. In fact, it'll turn COVID into a manageable
| disease by eliminating the most severe symptoms.
| lamontcg wrote:
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e2.htm
|
| 77% efficacy against infection for Pfizer, 92% efficacy
| against infection for Moderna in the US.
|
| Really wish people would stop saying vaccines have waned
| to uselessness. That just isn't even true for VE against
| infection. All the studies that I see at the lower level
| of ~50% VE against infection are highly problematic
| (there was a study of healthcare workers in San Diego
| where their unvaccinated control was only monitored via
| PCR for infection and only had a 3x increase of
| infections during the delta spike in Jul which suggests
| their unvaccinated controls had a significant amount of
| natural resistance or were taking many more precautions).
| ChrisClark wrote:
| Pretty sure he thinks antibody count is the same as being
| protected. And since antibodies fade over time, he thinks
| the protection fades. But the immune system is immensely
| more complicated with memory cells and such.
| poopypoopington wrote:
| How are you going to get frustrated and then make wild
| claims with 0 evidence?
| mactrey wrote:
| Er, so can you show any numbers to the effect that Covid is
| deadlier than the flu among some Covid-vaccinated
| subpopulation? Even if it's true that Covid "scales"
| (becomes deadlier) as a function of age more steeply than
| influenza does, it's not clear to me that Covid is deadlier
| in any single age group.
| d0mine wrote:
| Good news: it may actually last several _years_ not months:
| "A series of new studies, including two led by Ellebedy,
| suggests that mRNA vaccines like those from Pfizer-BioNTech
| and Moderna trigger the immune system to establish long-
| term protection against severe COVID-19 -- protection that
| likely will last several years or even longer, Ellebedy
| says." https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/30
| /1032520...
| peter422 wrote:
| Vaccine efficacy against infection wanes, but not severe
| disease and death. This is likely due to the difference in
| speed in which the B cells (faster) and T cells (slower)
| wane from the vaccine.
|
| Your claim is frustrating because it is inaccurate and
| misleading.
| belter wrote:
| As this thread seems to be confusing two concepts, maybe
| worthwhile to post again:
|
| "Vaccine efficacy, effectiveness and protection"
|
| https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-
| stories/detail/vaccine...
|
| Vaccine efficacy is found in trials, vaccine
| effectiveness is dynamic depending WHEN you calculate it
| and its found after 'deployment in the field'
|
| "A vaccine's efficacy is measured in a controlled
| clinical trial and is based on how many people who got
| vaccinated developed the 'outcome of interest' (usually
| disease) compared with how many people who got the
| placebo (dummy vaccine) developed the same outcome. Once
| the study is complete, the numbers of sick people in each
| group are compared, in order to calculate the relative
| risk of getting sick depending on whether or not the
| subjects received the vaccine. From this we get the
| efficacy - a measure of how much the vaccine lowered the
| risk of getting sick. If a vaccine has high efficacy, a
| lot fewer people in the group who received the vaccine
| got sick than the people in the group who received the
| placebo."
|
| vs
|
| "Vaccine effectiveness is a measure of how well vaccines
| work in the real world. Clinical trials include a wide
| range of people - a broad age range, both sexes,
| different ethnicities and those with known medical
| conditions - but they cannot be a perfect representation
| of the whole population. The efficacy seen in clinical
| trials applies to specific outcomes in a clinical trial .
| Effectiveness is measured by observing how well the
| vaccines work to protect communities as a whole.
| Effectiveness in the real world can differ from the
| efficacy measured in a trial, because we can't predict
| exactly how effective vaccination will be for a much
| bigger and more variable population getting vaccinated in
| more real life conditions."
| tzs wrote:
| The table from the CDC is split into two parts, one
| covering April 4 - June 19 and one covering June 20 - July
| 17. I used the death rate from the latter.
|
| As far as age groups go, isn't there a pretty high
| correlation between high risk age groups for flu and high
| risk age groups for COVID?
|
| As far as vaccine efficacy goes, the comment I decided to
| try to check the data on was comparing deaths, not
| infections. The mRNA vaccines in the US have had only a
| slight drop in the effectiveness at preventing death.
| IAmEveryone wrote:
| Your frustration could be lessened by being less wrong.
|
| This very article is titled "experts say booster shots not
| needed". Less frustrated people are statistically more
| likely to get that this means the essential benefits of
| vaccination have not (or not yet) deteriorated
| significantly.
|
| As to with data from all age groups, they do so for both
| the value and the comparison. If you feel the need to split
| each population into subgroups, you would need continue
| doing so once you find, for example, what differs from the
| 20-year old that died vs the one that didn't. In the end,
| each person would have their own group, because they all
| differ. But try doing any comparisons, then.
| beamatronic wrote:
| Any kind of equivalence statement to the flu is a well-known
| conservative "dog whistle"
| pfortuny wrote:
| And therein lies the problem: to politicize a perfectly
| testable statement and put intent into it.
| serf wrote:
| that's exactly why you should rethink the concept of a 'dog
| whistle'.
|
| 1 ) painting an individual politically by extrapolating a
| single opinion across their entire persona is irresponsible
| and over-simple.
|
| 2 ) 'conservative' is over-generalized to the point of
| uselessness and ambiguity.
|
| it's a concept (dog whistle) that is used strictly for
| generating rage and calling other individuals to arms so
| that the crowd picks up torches and pitchforks and follows
| your lede in attacking an individual's opinion with as
| little prompting or individual thought as possible.
|
| the classification and announcement of a 'dog whistle'
| makes civil conversation near impossible afterwards, even
| if those who announce it are dead-wrong or working in poor
| faith against an individual.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| In my experience the people who announce 'dog whistles'
| are rarely arguing in good faith.
| dTal wrote:
| >it's a concept (dog whistle) that is used strictly for
| generating rage and calling other individuals to arms so
| that the crowd picks up torches and pitchforks and
| follows your lede in attacking an individual's opinion
| with as little prompting or individual thought as
| possible.
|
| It is not used _strictly_ for that, indeed would be
| ineffective for that purpose were it not also a useful
| word. It means "warning, this seemingly innocent
| reference/argument/line of argument has historically been
| used by people with questionable motives, and warrants
| extra scrutiny".
| kenjackson wrote:
| That is not true at all. I'm fairly progressive and I found
| the analysis done there credible and welcome the
| information.
| tzs wrote:
| Isn't the dog whistle comparing COVID _without_ vaccination
| /masking/distancing/etc to the flu, to downplay the
| severity of the pandemic and hence the need to take any
| action against it?
|
| A comparison of COVID risk in _vaccinated_ people showing
| that vaccination apparently reduces the risk to less than
| that of the average seasonal flu is the opposite of what
| the usually dog whistling people are trying to convey.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Biden should frankly push legislation to replace or reform the
| FDA
|
| That's a very American-centric view. I'm not aware of any
| regulatory bodies (WHO included) which allow vaccination for
| kids under 12.
| zamalek wrote:
| > Is it to protect the vaccinated?
|
| Unfortunately, yes. The unvaccinated are a fertile ground for
| strains to develop. Protecting the unvaccinated is in your own
| best interest. We're going to need new vaccines when the the
| virus evolves in the unvaccinated, but the vaccinated can delay
| that eventuality.
| [deleted]
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Do you know about ADE?
|
| People with a vaccine that doesn't stop infection may have a
| higher chance and time to help develop mutations in order for
| it to survive.
|
| It was extremely dangerous to push an imperfect vaccine, and
| because we know the current ones do not stop infection,
| transmission, or lower the viral load, that might be what has
| happened. IDK, not an epidemiologist.
|
| https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-
| cent...
| [deleted]
| pbaka wrote:
| > Kids are dying
|
| No.
|
| Check the CDC numbers by searching "burden of pneumonia
| influenza".
|
| Minors 0-14 (not just kids) died twice less of covid than
| kids 0-5 are dying every year of classical pneumonias alone
| (influenza, strepto, etc). If you look through the numbers in
| more detail, all the minors 0-15 which died had severe
| comorbidities to begin with.
|
| To add to that, no kids died of pneumonias since Covid began,
| strangely enough (it seems keeping kids at home did that).
| Classical pneumonias on the other hand left 60'000 kids 0-5
| each year with various lifelong lung problems, in the US
| alone.
|
| >FDA should provide an EUA [...] monoclonal antibodies
|
| Already done, there's just not enough manufacturing capacity,
| only approx. 1 factory per northern continent makes it (1
| USA, 1 Switzerland).
| gls2ro wrote:
| Regarding kids I think the approach to be more careful is
| granted: kids immune system does not work the same as in
| adults.
|
| Also overall their health/body works different than adults thus
| lot of medication available for adults cannot be used for kids
| as it is dangerous.
|
| Thus what is beneficial for adults might not be for children.
| tw04 wrote:
| >Is it to protect kids? If so, then all that effort is better
| directed at the FDA who has banned them from getting the
| vaccine. I think this is the area where people should have the
| most anger and Biden should frankly push legislation to replace
| or reform the FDA. Their behavior has been atrocious.
|
| What specifically has been atrocious? The FDA has ALWAYS been
| extremely cautious in approving vaccinations for children. The
| vaccine was just officially approved for adults, they don't
| feel they have the data to do so for kids yet as far as I can
| tell.
| pkulak wrote:
| The FDA initially wanted 2 months of data for under 12, just
| like adults. Then they changed their minds and wanted 6
| months instead. I'm sure they had a reason, but in 70 years
| of vaccines, we've never had a side effect after 2 months. If
| they changed their minds once, they can damn well do it again
| and get this thing out there.
|
| Then there's the objections (and resignations) to the
| booster. The specific reasons being:
|
| > current vaccine supplies could save more lives if used in
| previously unvaccinated populations than if used as boosters
| in vaccinated populations
|
| We all know this, but it's not the FDA's job to factor in
| global supply and distribution. Are boosters safe and
| effective? That's the FDA's job. Will denying boosters in the
| US increase first shots in other countries? That sure seems
| debatable to me. But regardless, it's not the concern of the
| FDA. I don't know what the hell they have been doing, but
| they've been going far beyond their scope lately.
| IAmEveryone wrote:
| I believe part of the difficulty was the lull in infections
| before delta, plus the effectiveness of school closures. If
| nobody is getting sick, you cannot say anything about
| effectiveness.
|
| I don't know if they want proof of effectiveness again, or
| are specifically looking at risk (which would not be
| impacted by the above).
|
| If guess the risk of death is so low among children, you
| need far more data to exclude a risk from vaccination at
| that (small) magnitude. Think of helmets, and how they are
| exactly as comfortable to wear in a car as they are on a
| motorcycle.
| adolph wrote:
| How are they going to model efficacy if child mortality is
| very low already?
| ufo wrote:
| I think the first efficacy data is going to be about
| preventing infections. Data about preventing deaths will
| take longer to obtain.
| adolph wrote:
| Infections in a world where asymptotic spread is possible
| seems tough to measure. Are infections measured by
| symptoms such as cough, fever, etc, or by enough virus
| replication to shed or expel viral enough material to
| infect others?
| ufo wrote:
| Depends on the study design. Infections are detected by
| doing a PCR covid test. However, different studies might
| have different criteria for exactly who gets tested.
| adolph wrote:
| PCR doesn't differentiate between live and dead virus
| molecules, which makes it less than diagnostic for active
| infection without symptoms, right?
| ufo wrote:
| That distinction isn't as important for evaluating
| vaccine efficacy. It wants to measure if the person was
| infected, not if the person is infectious.
| adolph wrote:
| If a trial subject is exposed to virus and the vaccine
| works to trigger an effective immune response, how does
| PCR know the difference between virus molecules
| neutralized by vaccine response and those neutralized
| otherwise?
| ufo wrote:
| In those cases the virus particles don't replicate enough
| to be detected.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > I'm sure they had a reason, but in 70 years of vaccines,
| we've never had a side effect after 2 months.
|
| Have we ever had mRNA vaccines?
| detaro wrote:
| no, but nothing about the mechanism of mRNA vaccines
| suggests they'd be an exception in that regard, since
| mRNA is very short-lived and thus if you'd get long-term
| effects, you'd have them from other delivery methods too.
| Madmallard wrote:
| As Vinay Prasad would say, It is often our mechanistic
| understanding that misaligns with study results. All we
| can do is test.
| beamatronic wrote:
| The risk to the vaccinated increases over time, as the
| protection wears off.
|
| Not to mention, the original version of the virus is gone, it
| has been outcompeted by the variants. The booster should be
| updated to work against the latest dominant variants. Think of
| it as a software update.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > Not to mention, the original version of the virus is gone,
| it has been outcompeted by the variants.
|
| No, that is not true. Also, for note, there are ZERO tests
| for variants so you know. It must be genetically sequenced.
| All the data we have is from sampling. Last report I saw put
| delta at 20% of Covid cases in the UK based on sampling
| sewage water which seems like it could have a high margin of
| error. But I'm open minded if you have a different source.
| peakaboo wrote:
| Why are all your suggestions about protecting people? Don't you
| realise there is a huge profit opportunity?
|
| If big pharma can get billions of people signed up for regular
| booster shots and new vaccines, they will become enormously
| powerful.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Good cause if they are anything like the 2nd dose shots they
| should find a way to compensate people for missing 2 days of work
| with headaches, fever, chills, body ache, etc.
| apetrovic wrote:
| It's like an insurance - you pay with chills now to avoid
| bigger hit later (more serious sickness or death).
| swader999 wrote:
| Or if you are young and healthy pay with a real infection for
| more robust immunity going forward
| newsbinator wrote:
| The compensation is not missing weeks or years due to Covid...
| or in rarer cases, you know, dying.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Yes, not having a place to live is so much better than the
| 99.9% survival rate for someone in my age group.
| newsbinator wrote:
| How would getting covid be in any way preferable for
| someone in your age group than getting the vaccine?
|
| You're guaranteed to get one or the other, likely both.
| kongin wrote:
| But think of the opportunity cost!
|
| If you're under 40 and you spread the virus to your over 50
| boss she has at least an order of magnitude more chance of
| dying than you. You could then move up the corporate ladder
| with her departure.
| _red wrote:
| How about the reverse!
|
| If you're a 8 year old male, you get the shot and die of
| myocarditis, but the 82 yr old overweight cancer patient
| gets an extra 4 months!!! YAY!
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| Myocarditis is about 8x more likely when getting COVID
| than when getting a covid vaccine, so nope, even an 8-yo
| should get shot out of pure self interest. (If their
| chance of catching COVID in the next few years is more
| than 1/8, which it certainly is.)
|
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133462-800-myoca
| rdi...
| _red wrote:
| >Post a study where totals are not separated by age /
| gender even though thats the claim.
|
| Sloppy job.
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/israel-detects-
| link-...
| occz wrote:
| How about you introduce paid medical leave, like the rest of
| the developed world.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I don't know why the US is never serious about these things. We
| don't get a day off to vote, we don't get days off to get our
| mandatory vaccination.
|
| But we get Juneteenth? I'm not from Texas, and where my family
| lived it didn't matter much that slavery was over until the
| 1950s. So an awkward, meaningless gesture towards black people
| for helping the DNC defeat Sanders is prioritized ahead of
| democracy and epidemic disease.
| Thlom wrote:
| If you need a full day off work to vote you have other
| issues.
| bigbob2 wrote:
| Sounds like you're assuming your situation applies to
| everyone.
| Thlom wrote:
| I was referring to societal problems, not the individuals
| problems. Voting should be easy and accessible and not
| something you have to take the day off or several hours
| out of your day to get done. I literally spent 3 minutes
| voting this year on my way out of the vaccination center.
| dfawcus wrote:
| The Lancet article referred to seems to be here:
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
| jrjarrett wrote:
| In the mid 70s I contracted measles. I was only 9 or 10 but I
| think I remember it was because there was a batch of vaccines
| that didn't work, or maybe it was doctors learned we actually
| needed two doses. Whatever; I'd had the vaccination prescribed at
| the time, it didn't work, I got measles.
|
| Fast forward 25 years to when I applied to grad school. There was
| a measles outbreak happening and in order to attend I either
| needed to have a recent vaccination or a blood test proving
| immunity.
|
| Even though I had natural immunity I just went ahead and got the
| additional vaccination. It was faster, cheaper, and I didn't
| care.
|
| The point is, medical knowledge changed. No one made a big deal
| about needing an extra vaccination. No one made a big deal about
| even needing certain vaccinations to do things like go to school.
| Why now?
| sand500 wrote:
| > No one made a big deal about needing an extra vaccination
|
| This is fine when there are plenty of vaccines to go around.
| The point is we should use the vaccines globally on
| unvaccinated people rather than giving existing vaccinated
| populations a booster.
| grillvogel wrote:
| the pfizer authorization is based on 4 months of data
| (https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/08/23/does-the-fda-think-
| thes...)
|
| your 2nd measles vaccine had 25 years of data since your last
| one, they probably had enough time to know that it would be
| fine
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "Trust the science"
| dmix wrote:
| I'm curious what happened to all of the other vaccines that were
| in development, which we heard about in 2020. Now it still only
| seems to be Moderna and Pfizer.
|
| If supply is a major constraint we would benefit from expanding
| the number of options in the market and have more pharma
| production built in other countries.
|
| Although the pharma cartel is a very small community with a few
| mega firms. Making vaccine development an even smaller subset.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| Sputnik V is alive and kicking, but not in the western world.
| Russia is giving licence to produce it, and there are already
| several other countries that produce that vaccine.
|
| There are also two (maybe three) Chinese vaccines that are
| distributed around the world.
|
| AstraZeneca didn't suddenly disappear, despite the bad press in
| some western countries. There's Johnson&Johnson too.
|
| But you are right, Moderna & Biontech/Pfizer are the favourites
| of the media and regulators in the western world.
| cr1895 wrote:
| NYT has a very thorough overview of the vaccines in
| development:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus...
| phonon wrote:
| Novavax is potentially even more efficacious, and should be
| widely available next year. [1]
|
| It's also not mRNA based FWIW. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-
| pharmaceuticals/...
|
| [2] https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/moths-and-tree-bark-how-
| th...
| unanswered wrote:
| > All alone, the spike protein is harmless
|
| (From your [2])
|
| This is a lie. The spike protein has been shown to cause
| cardiovascular issues.
| Volundr wrote:
| > This is a lie. The spike protein has been shown to cause
| cardiovascular issues.
|
| [Citation needed]
| mmillin wrote:
| There was an article posted on HN a few days ago
| indicating such:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28438315
|
| Almost necessarily less harmful than the complete virus,
| but the spike protein isn't entirely harmless it seems.
| shucksley wrote:
| Toxicity is dose dependent. https://www.biorxiv.org/conte
| nt/10.1101/2020.12.21.423721v2....
|
| (of course, as with my previous comments on HN, I expect
| this to be downvoted and deleted. go ahead. I don't care.
| The truth is what it is)
| phonon wrote:
| Water can also cause death, in high enough doses.
|
| _Sola dosis facit venenum._
| scrollaway wrote:
| CureVac (mRNA based) didn't get good enough efficacy results,
| most likely due to the timing with the delta variant. They're
| working on a new version of the vaccine which targets that
| variant specifically and which will be available next year.
| colechristensen wrote:
| They need to make the actual data based argument not just appeal
| to authority.
|
| Booster shots have these benefits, these risks, and these
| tertiary effects.
|
| The argument seems to be that boosters have small increases in
| immunity, very small difficult to quantify side effects likely
| similar, and because of limited global supply and large numbers
| of unvaccinated.
|
| The optimal deployment might be a very few should have boosters,
| and the rest of supply should be directed towards people who want
| but can't yet get vaccines.
| kongin wrote:
| Looking at Israel third dose boosters are pretty much the only
| thing that stopped their deaths from growing in lock step with
| their cases:
| https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccin...
|
| Without them they were headed to the same daily death rate per
| million as the US. How they are at half the death rate.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I'm unconvinced.
|
| The death rate in Israel is lower than the US for many
| reasons -- including a far less obese population, a younger
| population, a higher vaccination rate, and (likely) more
| willingness to do things like mask up voluntarily. They don't
| have an Arkansas.
|
| The cases started falling around when the boosters started
| but it could just be the natural rise and fall. Timing is not
| enough proof for me.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The US has lots of vaccines (tens of millions) already
| delivered to administration sites. Using those for boosters
| won't impact global equity (they will either get used in the US
| or thrown away).
|
| So we could offer boosters to most older folks.
| occz wrote:
| I think this is the correct analysis - the focus should be to
| provide vaccines to the rest of the worlds nations that have not
| yet gotten widespread access to vaccines. This is likely to cause
| the greatest benefit in the form of fewer global deaths, and
| reduced global spread of the disease.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| If they can keep the Moderna, and Pfizer vaccine, at below
| freeing?
|
| I just picture America the "great" delivering vaccines, and
| there's no infrastructure on the other end.
|
| On a selfish note, I wouldn't mind closing all ports of entry
| until this virus is truly under control.
| ctrlp wrote:
| Good luck closing the U.S. southern border.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| That's not really the concern. Foot travel is ridiculously
| slow. This virus travels by air, first class.
| ctrlp wrote:
| People board buses and planes once they cross the border.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Not likely planes. The most mobile people are the
| richest.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I don't understand what closing all ports of entry will do
| (in USA) at this point. The virus is already here and all
| travel to USA requires a negative covid test taken at most 72
| hrs before flight.
| skrebbel wrote:
| And, for a selfish western pitch: reduce the chance that bad
| new variants develop.
| Tepix wrote:
| You are not protected againts new mutations just because they
| originate from another place in the world. You are not
| reducing the chances for new mutations.
|
| Keeping the vaccine to yourself will not help you.
| ericb wrote:
| I think you're misunderstanding the intent of the parent
| post.
|
| They are saying letting vaccines go to the rest of the
| world is still the right course of action even if your
| motives were purely selfish. By reducing the number of
| infections elsewhere, the virus has fewer chances to mutate
| and return to and endanger you.
| emn13 wrote:
| While in principle that's clearly sound - fewer viral
| particles means fewer future variants appears to be the
| consensus opinion - I'm skeptical that the decision to
| recommend boosters after 8 months will have a measurable
| impact on that.
|
| First of all, even under rosy vaccine acceptance
| trajectories that's not going to be many doses vs. the
| unvaccinated population; secondly, you need 1 dose for a
| booster, yet 2 for a full vaccination; thirdly, the data
| for hospitalisations may not be in, but for mere
| infections it is clearly showing a reduction in efficacy
| well before a that 8 month mininum so the opportunity
| cost of not vaccinating half a person will be offset _in
| terms of transmission_ by the booster dose; fourthly not
| all vaccines are easily distributed, and as long as the
| US needs to have a readily available supply to entice the
| unvaccinated stragglers, you might as well use doses
| nearing expiration dates for boosters rather than
| throwing them away; fifth: we 're not at 8 months yet for
| most people, and if the minimum delay is 8 months the
| average might be considerably more such that by the time
| this matters vaccine production should be higher and thus
| the loss relatively less impactful.
|
| Some of those effects might be trivial or zero, but at
| the very least the small number of doses overall affected
| probably isn't. I'd be really surprised if the US reaches
| 100 million booster doses by next spring; and even if we
| did that's just not a huge number if your aim is to
| reduce transmission (as opposed to suffering).
| gitanovic wrote:
| Was going to answer to say exactly this.
|
| The more vaccinated, the merrier the world with less variants
| mythrwy wrote:
| What if it works the opposite though?
|
| Simple evolutionary biology suggests resistance develops
| from roadblocks or mechanisms to stifle. We see it all the
| time in antibiotic resistance, resistance of insects to
| pesticides used in crops, all kinds of areas.
|
| I don't see a reason this case would be different.
| swader999 wrote:
| How will these vaccines that don't produce immunity lead to
| less severe variants? If they mute severity of illness they
| will lead to more severe variants. This is basic.
| dtech wrote:
| They do provide immunity in 95% (conservative) of cases, so
| it massively reduces the population that mutations can
| happen in.
| swader999 wrote:
| They reduce severity of illness, and don't produce
| sterilizing immunity and eliminate transmission. And
| that's the problem, if you pick up a nasty mutation but
| because of vaccine you are able to still function, you
| are more likely to be out and about spreading it.
|
| And when your limited immunity wanes in a few months this
| mutinous bastard copy you pushed on the masses may come
| back to bite you in the ass.
|
| Maybe not though if you got your booster in time and if
| they designed it to match. Better hope your country went
| with the gold subscription.
| technothrasher wrote:
| What data are you referencing to claim that the vaccines
| do not provide some immunity? But importantly, the
| vaccines do reduce transmission. See the below study
| along with others.
|
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2107717
|
| Admittedly, one weakness of the above study is that it
| took place before Delta was widespread. There isn't a lot
| of data yet on how much the vaccines reduce transmission
| with Delta, but the likelihood is that they still do even
| if to a lesser degree.
| jtc331 wrote:
| The original clinical trials didn't measure immunity,
| and, in fact, the claim from day one has been that the
| vaccines were designed to reduce serious disease and
| death.
| swader999 wrote:
| Reducing transmission isn't good enough! If you have an R
| naught above one you're still in trouble. It's common
| knowledge that countries with highest vaccination rates
| have spikes in cases right now. Israel and Gibraltar for
| example. Herd immunity for this was always impossible.
| 13415 wrote:
| As a counterpoint, Portugal currently has 81.10% fully
| vaccinated and 86.85% vaccinated once (meaning they'll be
| vaccinated again in 4 weeks or earlier), and the new
| infections are going down slowly but continuously for a
| while now.
|
| My point is not that you're wrong, but that you were
| cherry picking examples and there can be numerous other
| reasons for spikes in infections such as relaxed measures
| and mask mandates, holiday season, schools re-opening,
| etc. It requires a more careful analysis than yours.
| swader999 wrote:
| Yes, lock down and social isolation does work to prevent
| transmission but it also weakens the healthy immune
| systems and makes the population more fragile going
| forward.
|
| Better to inoculate the most vulnerable, not the entire
| population for a fast mutating respiratory virus.
|
| Polio can't really mutate and it makes a lot of sense to
| inoculate everyone for this.
| fabian2k wrote:
| Israel isn't among the countries with the highest
| vaccination rates anymore, quite a few other countries
| have overtaken it.
| swader999 wrote:
| Ok well you can't beat Gibraltar at 99%. But you look at
| other countries. New Zealand is a good one. Their
| hospitals are getting swamped with kids right now with
| severe RSV. Why? They've had their immune systems
| degraded from some of the most severe lockdowns I the
| planet. And admittedly they aren't in a covid spike but
| the effective lockdown has created other problems.
| nradov wrote:
| This shouldn't be down voted. It appears to be correct
| and is a subject of active concern in NZ.
|
| https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2021/08/02/fight-
| against-...
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I down-voted because that has nothing to do with a
| "degraded immune systems". Many of the more common
| respiratory viruses also died out in New Zealand with the
| quarantine. Kids never got a chance to develop immunity
| to those particular diseases previously and now it's
| coming on in a wave as they are reintroduced. It's not
| that their response is special, in normal circumstances
| kids would have gotten sick and been hospitalized, that
| it's happening all at once is.
| swader999 wrote:
| No, they would have stronger immune systems from repeated
| exposure without the extreme lockdowns NZ introduced and
| less hospitalizations.
|
| Respiratory viruses don't die out, they can persist in
| animal populations indefinitely. Sars Cov2 antibodies
| detected in 40% of NE deer populations for instance. Not
| to mention cats and dogs...
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I assume you have evidence of the claim that by being
| regularly sick your immune system is stronger? Sure, it's
| run into more things it has learned to fight, but just
| because it knows how to fight a catalogue of things it
| doesn't mean that it will be better with the next novel
| pandemic, right?
| nradov wrote:
| The risk is more around autoimmune conditions like asthma
| and allergies. If the immune system doesn't start
| fighting off a variety of pathogens from an early age
| then it might go haywire later.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2841828/
|
| We should be focusing on overall health rather than just
| individual infectious diseases.
| nradov wrote:
| Singapore has an 81% full vaccination rates but is
| experiencing a rise in symptomatic cases.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/seriously-ill-
| cov...
| [deleted]
| meragrin_ wrote:
| > They do provide immunity in 95% (conservative) of cases
|
| So not conservative. Real world data has all of them at
| under 80% now.
|
| https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/covid-19-vaccine-
| compariso...
| orwin wrote:
| I heard against the Delta variant, RNA vaccines help divide
| the chance of contaminating others by at least two, even if
| you're asymptomatic (because basically, the virus last half
| the tine in your body). And also, since you're contaminated
| for less time, there is fewer chance of a variant popping
| out of a vaccinated person.
|
| Take it as someone who heard someone talk about it, did not
| research himself (because i don't really care) and isn't
| really sure of what the truth is. See this comment as a
| clue if this stuff interest you.
| shucksley wrote:
| Halving is not good enough when the infectivity is very
| high.
|
| The Vietnam study showed that 49/69 "trained doctors and
| nurses" gave the virus to each other despite being
| vaccinated. God only knows how many patients they
| infected. see https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abs
| tract_id=3897733 for details.
|
| (But this is HN, and I will be downvoted into oblivion.
| Carry on folks. Keep ignoring the data.)
| Robotbeat wrote:
| But we do not have a limited number of vaccines. At this point
| there has been plenty of time supply chains to produce the
| necessary precursors so we are limited entirely by demand. If
| we are distributing extra vaccines to other countries it is
| because we don't want to not because we can't or because we're
| fighting over a single scarce resource.
|
| There is no evidence that we have to choose between boosters or
| sending vaccines to other countries.
|
| This is the same flawed logic that officials made when they
| spread doubt about the effectiveness of masks early in the
| pandemic, hoping to "conserve" masks for healthcare workers.
|
| The assumption of vaccine scarcity is actually a hidden
| assumption made outside the expertise of those who aren't
| deeply knowledgeable about vaccine supply chains.
| soared wrote:
| Source? Everything I've read talks about that decision being
| very real.
| SamBam wrote:
| Source? Are you suggesting that Moderna and Pfizer have
| factories-worth of unused capacity sitting around idle?
| hef19898 wrote:
| But developing countries pay less, so BionTech and Pfizer will
| have less profits. As cool as having a company like Biontech,
| run by immigrants, founded in Germany they always rubbed me the
| wrong way in terms of PR and business conduct since the start
| of the pandemic. With huge support from German media and
| politics. The continued dissing of Astrazeneca is just one
| example, the push for booster shots is another.
| ChemSpider wrote:
| Fake news alert: Biontech/Pfizer never "dissed" AZ.
|
| They never commented on AZ. You can not blame BT if everyone
| wants "the best" for themselves.
| hef19898 wrote:
| There is active and passive dissing. Like publicly
| confirming deliveries when your competition is announcing
| delays. Or re-publishing your vaccine efficiency numbers
| when those of the competition are in doubt. I guess we can
| agree that this is a form throwing shade, or dissing, your
| competition. Just doing it in a smarter way than saying "AZ
| sucks".
| ChemSpider wrote:
| >Like publicly confirming deliveries when your
| competition is announcing delays.
|
| Sorry but that is nonsense. When in spring 2021 AZ had
| big delays, everyone was nervous that the same might
| happen to BNT. So politics, the public and the press
| asked them about it. At this time we had almost daily
| reports on deliveries because it was THE news item in
| spring.
|
| BNT deliveries were rock solid and mostly on time in the
| EU in spring 2021, while AZ had plenty of delays. And you
| are now holding this against BNT?
| nradov wrote:
| The US and other developed countries have purchased vaccine
| doses from the manufacturers at the negotiated price and then
| donated some of those to developing countries. So did those
| doses at least the profit was the same.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Hum, anyway they are making a lot of effort to sell doses
| around here (Brazil), even with an uncooperative government.
| And they indeed are asking for a smaller price than on the
| developed countries.
|
| I guess the rich countries applying a 3rd dose is a net
| benefit for them, but they seem to be playing the "we will
| sell as much as we can" game, not the monopolizer
| "restricting supplies leads to more lucrative prices" one.
| hef19898 wrote:
| These strategies are not mutually exclusive, are they?
| ctrlp wrote:
| It's fascinating how the vaccine makers have come out of this
| smelling like roses to so many and I wonder how long it will
| last. Not long ago, the NYT could write "the turpitude of the
| pharmaceutical industry is so commonplace that it has become
| part of the cultural wallpaper." [0] Now we all seem very
| happy to accept their products and believe their claims.
| Truly wonderful to behold.
|
| I can recall books and arguments that made a good case that
| big pharma operates most like a mafia. I also recall hearing
| some tthatime ago that drug pharma execs themselves consider
| the vaccine guys to be like the mob, with a habit of
| aggressive shakedowns and pressure campaigns the norm in that
| industry, and thought they gave the industry a bad name.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Yeah, and the one company that did the right thing (TM),
| AZ, by selling the vaccine at cost is the one who's image
| suffered the most. Strange times we live in.
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| Well, I'm assuming people were more critical before covid
| because it's easy to thrown stones when there isn't an
| epidemic going on a millions dying?
| ctrlp wrote:
| Are you suggesting the criticism was/is unfounded?
| refurb wrote:
| No, I'm suggesting it's easy to criticize when you aren't
| immediately benefiting.
| ctrlp wrote:
| Citation https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/opinion/covid-
| vaccine-big...
| raesene9 wrote:
| I'd agree in the ideal world that's exactly what should happen,
| however in reality there are a load of unadministered doses in
| the US (https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/143761701878244966
| 8?s=2...) which will go to waste if not used, so it would seem
| to make sense to use those for boosters where they're
| available.
| swader999 wrote:
| By the time these are distributed the virus will have drifted
| and these legacy doses likely not as effective with the new
| strains.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Which is why we should use them as soon as possible.
| est31 wrote:
| What about sending the unused doses to developing countries?
| Then they wouldn't go to waste.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| The US government, to secure the doses, committed to
| indemnify the suppliers if anything went wrong and not to
| transfer the doses to any country that would not (or in
| some cases, they had to commit to not transferring the
| doses at all). Most countries are refusing to indemnify the
| companies.
|
| So the US government would be in breach of contract and
| could be sued for sending the doses overseas.
| est31 wrote:
| Oh I see, didn't know that. Thanks for explaining! That
| being said, the government could also give the doses back
| to the manufacturers for a small fee who could then sell
| it abroad themselves, because right now it seems to me
| that their production capacities are maxed out and they
| produce less than they could sell.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Oh yes. Or renegotiate the contracts. And, IIRC, Biden
| got around that in the case of Mexico by "loaning" them
| the doses against their preorder that Pfizer couldn't
| fill yet.
| raesene9 wrote:
| yeah ideally that should happen :) Just it hasn't so the
| choice isn't "use locally or send abroad" it's "use locally
| or let them go to waste"
|
| TBF I guess this must be a really complex logistical
| challenge.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Not sure about logistics, so. Sure it i challenging, but
| there are well established vaccination programms run by
| expierenced NOGs in developing countries already. These
| folks would, I guess, be really happy to take those doses
| and set something up. They are also rather capable of
| doing so.
|
| initially, that was part of the EUs over-ordering. Take
| those doses and give them to poorer countries. Good for
| public health, good PR and _really_ good at gaining soft
| power in the world. No idea why that isn 't happening.
| Russia and China are grateful for that I guess, so.
| dalyons wrote:
| I read that it wasn't the logistics of sending them out
| that's challenging; rather it's trying to collect them
| back from the 100k+ pharmacies, hospitals, distribution
| sites etc in the US, most with poor records. The us
| mounted such a large and effective campaign to get them
| out there, would take just almost as large an effort to
| bring them back
| hef19898 wrote:
| True, that is a a challenge, I didn't think of that...
| It's definitely easier to use those doses still sitting
| in central warehouses somewhere. Funny how demand can be
| off so much from estimations. I, and it seems I'm not
| alone with that, really did expect demand for the vaccine
| to be much higher than it turned out to be.
| sradman wrote:
| There is not strong evidence supporting a 3rd booster dose in
| immunocompetent people. We have partly seen a misinterpretation
| of the Israeli data [1] and specifically the single low
| effectiveness value that appears to be the result of Simpson's
| Paradox [2]. Dr. Fauci reported this single value decline from
| the high nineties to the high seventies on Andy Slavitt's podcast
| [3]. Pfizer's CEO has promoted this same data, Israel's 3rd dose
| campaign is well under way, and Fauci's public statements are a
| strong indicator that the U.S. will follow the same path. British
| Columbia's Dr. Bonnie Henry indicated yesterday [4] that the
| Canadian numbers do not yet support a general 3rd dose booster
| but, like the UK, a longer 2nd dose interval due to a First Doses
| First (FDF) strategy may be a factor.
|
| The 3rd dose is safe and will probably provide a small benefit to
| the recipient as Shane Crotty described in TWiV 802 [5]. The
| downside is that these doses are in short supply globally where
| they could make a significant difference.
|
| [1] https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-
| can-...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox
|
| [3] https://lemonadamedia.com/podcast/dr-fauci-answers-your-
| bigg...
|
| [4] (YouTube ~3.5min @36m45s)
| https://youtu.be/93Rnjmr7iCk?t=36m45s
|
| [5] https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-802/
| uselesscynicism wrote:
| I'm fairly convinced that the pharmaceutical companies want
| Uncle Sam to buy and mandate 350 million shots per year and
| that's why the boosters are being pushed and combined with flu
| shots, while Dear Leader figures out the best way to dictate
| the health choices of his subjects without so much as first
| having Congress vote on it.
| NDizzle wrote:
| I don't know how the Israel data is being misinterpreted.
|
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E_F6vV0XoAMbaNO?format=jpg&name=...
|
| https://imgur.com/a/fzMdPFE
|
| I guess ignoring data to push an agenda can be defined as
| "misinterpretation", fair enough. Carry on.
| adevx wrote:
| It's telling that linking to factual hard data is being
| downvoted.
| ipv6ipv4 wrote:
| It's not hard data. It's nonsense. There are so many
| confounding factors that comparing Israel and Sweden is
| non-sensical.
|
| Hard data is easily available directly from the horse's
| mouth [1].
|
| As of today, in Israel, for age 60+, per 100K population.
| Unvaxxed are 4.5X more likely to be seriously ill compared
| to 2 shot vaccinated and 40X compared to 3 shot.
|
| For under 60. The same ratios per 100K are 3x and 10x.
|
| 1. https://datadashboard.health.gov.il/COVID-19/general
| [deleted]
| nullc wrote:
| > a strong indicator that the U.S. will follow the same path.
| British Columbia's Dr. Bonnie Henry indicated yesterday [4]
| that
|
| ...an even stronger indicator is that the Biden administration
| seems to have asked two multi-decade long FDA vaccine approval
| experts to resign following them authoring this report saying
| that the evidence didn't support the widespread use of boosters
| as a public health measure.
| SamBam wrote:
| Link?
| nullc wrote:
| https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/571022-to-boost-or-
| no...
|
| https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/31/biden-booster-
| plan-...
|
| https://endpts.com/breaking-in-a-major-blow-to-vaccine-
| effor...
|
| These are authors of this report.
| SamBam wrote:
| You said
|
| > Biden administration seems to have asked
|
| Nowhere is that reported, or even _suggested_ , in the
| links you posted.
|
| Two researchers resigning in disagreement is seriously,
| seriously different from the administration forcing
| people out.
|
| One is researchers protesting decisions by their own
| senior leadership. The other is the administration
| censoring scientific disagreement.
| [deleted]
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > ...an even stronger indicator is that the Biden
| administration seems to have asked two multi-decade long FDA
| vaccine approval experts to resign following them authoring
| this report saying that the evidence didn't support the
| widespread use of boosters as a public health measure.
|
| What you stated did not occur.
|
| What did happen was that the FDA and CDC got into a
| procedural slap-fight, and because the CDC gave advice first
| and the White House signaled public acceptance of that advice
| before the FDA's panel had a chance to finish two people
| resigned in protest.
|
| Let's break down why the post above is erroneous:
|
| - "Biden administration seems to have asked" no factual
| basis.
|
| - "authoring this report" they never authorized a report,
| that's what they were protesting.
|
| - "report saying that the evidence didn't support the
| widespread use of boosters" since the FDA's Office of
| Vaccines Research and Review hasn't published a report you
| cannot state what is in the report.
|
| What did occur is that the two resigning panelists published
| a review in The Lancet[0] where they essentially said they
| felt more data was needed to approve boosters and that the WH
| approval on the CDC's recommendation was premature (although
| they also said their view may not match the FDA's view as a
| whole so YMMV what the final FDA report says).
|
| By the way I actually agree with the two FDA panelists on
| this one, and think the WH jumped the gun. But regardless of
| my feelings the "Biden had vaccine experts resign to push
| through the booster" comment above is problematic.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/health/fda-
| coronavirus-bo...
| nullc wrote:
| > - "authoring this report" they never authorized a report,
| that's what they were protesting.
|
| You are commenting on a HN story which is literally linking
| directly to the document they authored.
|
| I hope you will delete your misguided and grossly uncivil
| comment in the time that the site lets you do so, and
| consider offering another response when you've actually
| read the article that you're commenting on!
|
| > the FDA and CDC got into a procedural slap-fight, and
| because the CDC gave advice first
|
| The CDC statement is here: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releas
| es/2021/s0818-covid-19-boost... you can see that it is
| unambiguously conditional on FDA approval: "We have
| developed a plan to begin offering these booster shots this
| fall _subject to FDA conducting an independent evaluation
| and determination_ of the safety and effectiveness of a
| third dose of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines ".
|
| > "Biden had vaccine experts resign to push through the
| booster" comment above is problematic.
|
| This is a false and fabricated quotation, which I did not
| say at any point. Your inclusion of it makes it extremely
| hard to see your comment as a good faith attempt to
| communicate.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > You are commenting on a HN story which is literally
| linking directly to the document they authored.
|
| You're conflating the timeline and facts a lot. Here is
| what you stated happened above:
|
| - FDA panelist published a report -> Biden admin asked
| them to resign -> they resigned.
|
| Here is what _actually_ happened:
|
| - CDC published a report -> WH accepted the CDC's report
| -> WH signaled moving forward with boosters -> FDA
| panelists who never got to publish resign -> FDA
| panelists author review paper in The Lancet critical of
| boosters (what this article is about) -> [Future] FDA
| publish their _official_ recommendation
|
| The timelines are completely different (e.g. resign
| before Vs. after publication), what we're talking about
| being published is different (e.g. FDA official report
| Vs. Lancet review), and the whole "asked to resign" is
| nowhere to be seen.
|
| > This is a false and fabricated quotation, which I did
| not say at any point.
|
| You said this verbatim:
|
| > Biden administration seems to have asked two multi-
| decade long FDA vaccine approval experts to resign
|
| You haven't defended or sourced that. Want to go ahead
| and do that rather than acting offended by my shorthand
| characterization of it?
| tguvot wrote:
| with regards to misinterpretation of israeli data, it's more
| like miscalculation of israeli data:
|
| 1) his calculated efficiency for different age groups is up to
| 40%+ higher compared to numbers that released by israeli
| ministry of health in official presentations. when asked about
| it, he said that he doesn't know how they calculate it and this
| is his numbers
|
| 2) his calculations from the beginning included people that got
| booster shot. Kinda hard to base statistics about efficiency of
| two doses when you get inside it data about people who got
| three
| sradman wrote:
| I think the misinterpretation is mainly by the media and the
| general public. When most of your population is vaccinated
| and most of the serious disease is in the unvaccinated, you
| need to report by rate and vaccination status as the Ontario
| Science Table [1] now does (rather than absolute case
| numbers).
|
| Simpson's Paradox is more of a data artifact that you have to
| be aware of. I didn't know about this statistical anomaly
| before but the takeaway is that if you see a effectiveness
| percentage decrease from 97% to 77% then you should also
| check that the value in each age cohort because each
| individual cohort may surprisingly be above 90%. The Israeli
| data might be fine but I want to see the "age corrected"
| range rather than a single effectiveness number.
|
| The bottom line is that we will get good data moving forward
| from the Israeli 3rd dose program with other quality data
| sets soon to follow from the U.S., UK, Canada, Singapore,
| etc.
|
| What we have not yet seen is any good evidence that the
| vaccinated are contributing to spread, though in the Fauci
| interview he indicated that the R(t) in the unvaccinated was
| non-zero. This is an important question, IMO.
|
| [1] https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-
| dashboard/#riskbyvac...
| tguvot wrote:
| i know. as i said he miscalculated efficiency for age
| cohorts. israeli data for most age ranges is 45 to 25
| percent lower than his calculated 95%-99%+ efficiency. So
| maybe, as paradox it's nice, but as calculation go, they
| suck. and now everybody running around with this site as
| proof that there is no need in booster because efficiency
| is still 95%
| sradman wrote:
| Do you have a link to the full age cohort effectiveness
| numbers? I didn't think these numbers were published yet,
| if they are or don't exhibit Simpson's Paradox then the
| question is what accounts for the discrepancy with the UK
| and Canadian data and the immunological lab research done
| by Shane Crotty and Rockefeller [1].
|
| [1] https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-717/
| tguvot wrote:
| There were presentation with numbers stratified by age,
| but I can't find it now. Unfortunately I still can't
| figure out how to track down everything that ministry of
| health releases over there. Closet one that I found is
| this one https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vpb-120820
| 21/he/files_... . Look at slide 7.
|
| Also, if you we are talking about Simpson's Paradox, we
| need to go deeper. As you can see at same slide, vaccine
| efficiency going down, the further you get away from
| second shot. Hence, age cohort effectiveness is useless.
| You need age/vaccination time frames to judge real
| efficiency
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| How can any healthcare professional, who has probably had
| multiple vaccines in the past, not take this Covid-19 vaccine?
| Isn't this akin to a tech worker using "password" as their PW?
| shapefrog wrote:
| How can any human, who has probably had multiple meals in the
| past, not eat McDonalds?
| [deleted]
| bbarnett wrote:
| This title is misleading. It isn't about them not being needed.
|
| Instead, as per article, it is about how these shots will save
| more lives, if administered to people without access to first
| shots!
|
| If vaccine doses were unlimited worldwide, 3rd shots (according
| to article logic) would by recommended for all.
| mandmandam wrote:
| I really don't understand the vaccines for all push:
|
| A - The benefit for young people seems to be outweighed by the
| risk, for a given time period. The risk of mortality from
| vaccine induced clots in under 40s is twice the risk of death
| from Covid [0] (post relates to AZ but other vaccines has
| similar clot risks). The risk of hospitalisation from
| myocarditis is a multiple of the risk of hospitalisation from
| Corona, especially in young males [1] who have a four to six
| times risk. That alone would be enough to put serious doubt
| into the vaccines for all narrative, but there's also rarer and
| weirder confirmed side effects like Bell's Palsy and Guillain-
| Barre Syndrome.
|
| B - The continued dramatic overlooking of natural immunity,
| which seems to be 6 or 7 times more effective than vaccines
| alone. Misinformation on this subject from vested interests and
| uncritical / complicit media has been rife [2].
|
| C - Better, safer, more effective and more traditional vaccines
| are coming, ie, Novavax.
|
| As a young male with no comorbidities and natural immunity, WHY
| in God's name would I risk taking an mRNA vaccine that has
| _far_ higher odds of sending me to hospital or killing me than
| it has of protecting me from the same by lowering Corona
| reinfection risk?
|
| [0] - https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40328123.html [1]
| - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-
| at-r... [2] - https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101
| snakeboy wrote:
| Speaking as another young male with no comorbidities, I do
| tons of reckless shit that put myself at way higher risk for
| no other reason than to entertain myself and my friends. So I
| figured I might as well get vaccinated if it's a tiny
| societal positive with no non-negligible risk to myself.
|
| > ...the vaccine on the entire adult population [in France]
| would avert 10 deaths from Covid among 18-39-year-olds, but
| would be associated with 21 deaths from blood clotting in the
| same age grouping over the same time period.
|
| There are ~16 million 18-39 year olds in France. So both
| those risks seem vanishingly small.
|
| I'm not saying that marketing of vaccines has been honest
| overall, but that's just my 2 cents about "WHY in God's name
| I would risk taking an mRNA vaccine".
| fabian2k wrote:
| No, other vaccines certainly do not have the same thrombosis
| risk as AZ. We easily have enough data here that we would
| have seen that by now. There is the myocarditis risk for the
| mRNA vaccines, but that is quite a different thing than the
| thrombosis risk for AZ. The myocarditis is not deadly.
|
| The argument for vaccination of young boys is more complex,
| and different expert panels have come to different
| conclusions there. The UK is more of an outlier in this case.
| There is still enough uncertainty here, especially on the
| consequences of the infection itself that it's a really
| difficult decision.
|
| As for point C, there is no reason to believe that Novavax
| would be safer than the mRNA vaccines. It could be, but there
| isn't anything inherently superior here that would
| automatically make it safer.
| fsh wrote:
| This is simply not true. The CDC has published a detailed
| analysis of the vaccine efficacy and known side effects [1].
| This clearly shows that the benefit of being vaccinated
| vastly outweighs the risk due to side effects in all age
| groups >= 18 (only adults were considered in this analysis).
| Even in young males (18-29) they estimate that the risk of
| hospital admission due to COVID is an order of magnitude
| higher than the risk of myocarditis (which usually does not
| require hospital admission).
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e4.htm
| aiilns wrote:
| I only skimmed this now, don't have the time to read it,
| but a few things to keep in mind:
|
| 1. Do they take into account the underreporting in VAERS?
| That could mean far higher adverse effects than those
| reported.
|
| 2. Are there any calculations regarding how the situation
| changes? As new variants emerge (like Delta), as immunity
| from vaccination wanes etc, how much will a vaccine prevent
| severe illness and death? Real world data seems to suggest
| vaccine efficacy isn't as great as previously thought.
|
| 3. Another point to keep in mind is that there are
| therapeutic solutions and as time goes on, hopefully better
| medications will be readily available, getting covid-19
| will result in less severe illness and death.
|
| I'm not against vaccination, I just think that these are
| all things we should consider.
|
| Perhaps scientists have considered all this very carefully
| and have reached the conclusion that vaccination for all is
| better for the individual as well as for the society - I
| haven't looked deeply to find these answers. However, if
| all this has been carefully considered they &
| journalists/media really fail to communicate the science
| well.
| foota wrote:
| Bullshit. The CDC reports ~3,500 people below 30 dying of
| covid, as opposed to a rate of 7 in 1 million developing a
| blood clot (which isn't implicitly fatal), or 2,800 if
| everyone were vaccinated.
|
| Aside from that, vaccination helps everyone by helping to
| prevent the spread of the virus.
| swader999 wrote:
| Except that it doesn't prevent spread. If you are less
| symptomatic because vaccine limited the severity, you will
| be more likely to be functioning socially and spreading it.
|
| Also, a million doses to kids will likely result in one
| less ICU admission but create six myocarditus cases. What's
| the five year average outcome for those six kids?
| m0llusk wrote:
| Myocarditus tends to be brief and harmless, especially if
| induced by vaccine.
| swader999 wrote:
| We don't have enough data and time to say that yet.
| himinlomax wrote:
| > Except that it doesn't prevent spread
|
| That's right, it doesn't prevent it, it reduces it. Just
| like wearing a seat belt does not prevent dying in a car
| accident but reduces the risk.
|
| You're just splitting hair.
| swader999 wrote:
| I'm not saying it doesn't reduce individual risk for a
| period of time. It does.
|
| But vaccinating entire populations for a respiratory
| virus that mutates and stays infectious is a recipe for
| never ending boosters and has a strong possibility of
| creating more lethal variants because these will thrive
| in the vaccinated less severe masses when normally they'd
| be bed ridden, symptomatic and easily contained through
| contact tracing (See sars 1)
|
| You better hope they dial the targeting for the boosters
| and the timing of them correctly because when you're
| short lived immunity wanes from the previous dose you may
| be facing a more tuned up lethal version that was kept
| circulating by all these vaccinated persons.
|
| Vaccines for the most vulnerable are very appropriate
| here but not for the individuals that have very low risk.
| It would be better to unlock this population and let them
| develop stronger natural immunity while dealing with the
| edge cases with monoclonal antibodies and other promising
| viral therapies.
| foota wrote:
| The fact is that the majority of cases are still coming
| from unvaccinated people though, this hypothetical
| widespread infection of vaccinated people you're
| suggesting isn't happening.
| swader999 wrote:
| Right now in my area 1 in 4 new cases are in fully
| vaccinated people. Why is Gibraltar experiencing a surge
| in cases with 99% of its population fully vaccinated? Its
| a leaky vaccine and this has huge implications for
| producing variants that are more deadly. See the article
| I posted on Marek's vaccine in chickens.
| himinlomax wrote:
| This is completely at odds with what the experts say.
| They could be all wrong, or you could be. What are your
| credentials in virology/immunology?
|
| And do you have examples of vaccinations favoring the
| apparition of variants for other diseases? As far as I
| know, that's never happened. On the contrary, I've seen
| researchers point to immunocompromised patients as
| possible sources for variants, as the infection lingers
| in them. On the other hand, vaccines, even when they
| don't work to prevent the infection do shorten it, so by
| that logic they should reduce the apparition of variants.
| swader999 wrote:
| Shortening it if it doesn't bring the R naught below 1
| doesn't have much advantage.
|
| Look at what happened with a vaccine that was applied to
| the poultry industry that didn't prevent transmission and
| had similar mutational characteristics to SarsCov2:
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-
| vaccine-m...
| mythrwy wrote:
| Do we have any hard data on that or is it just something
| people say?
| ajross wrote:
| > This title is misleading. It isn't about them not being
| needed.
|
| It also implies a level of consensus that doesn't exist.
| "Vaccine experts", as a whole, don't hold this opinion. This is
| about two specific dissenters in the FDA.
|
| It's not a completely cut and dry subject. There are tradeoffs
| with all such decisions, such as the value of a booster in one
| individual vs. a first injection to another in a different part
| of the world, etc... It's not an unreasonable position.
|
| But it's not a _consensus_ position either. The typical
| recommendation seems to be that boosters are valuable.
| oytis wrote:
| It's not just a couple of dissenters, the official position
| of WHO is the same - we need to vaccinate the whole world
| before booster shots and vaccinating children in the rich
| countries.
|
| As I see it there _is_ a consensus among scientists and
| healthcare professionals, but not among politicians who see
| booster shots necessary to keep their national economies up.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Not needed and needed more somewhere else are different.
| kongin wrote:
| >At 6 months post-vaccine, 70% of the infection-naive NH
| residents had neutralization titers at or below the lower
| limit of detection compared to 16% at 2 weeks after full
| vaccination. These data demonstrate a significant reduction
| in levels of antibody in all groups. In particular, those
| infection-naive NH residents had lower initial post-
| vaccination humoral immunity immediately and exhibited the
| greatest declines 6 months later. Healthcare workers, given
| their younger age and relative good-health, achieved higher
| initial antibody levels and better maintained them, yet
| also experienced significant declines in humoral immunity.
| Based on the rapid spread of the delta variant and reports
| of vaccine breakthrough in NH and among younger community
| populations, boosting NH residents may be warranted
|
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.15.21262067
| v...
|
| That study suggests that 16% of the elderly have no
| immunity to covid 2 weeks after vaccination and 70% after 6
| months.
|
| Not to put too fine a point on it, but we might as well not
| vaccinate anyone over 60 if we're not going to be giving
| them boosters every 3 months or so.
| fsh wrote:
| Neutralizing antibodies are only part of the immune
| response. Not having a detectable level does not at all
| imply having "no immunity". Antibodies are expected to
| disappear over time, but cellular immunity is much more
| long-lasting.
| [deleted]
| zarzavat wrote:
| How do they propose to get Pfizer shots that have to be stored
| at -70 C, to areas in developing countries that need first
| doses?
|
| As far as I can see, the vaccine that is actually suitable for
| developing countries is the AstraZeneca one, and this isn't
| often used in the west because of the blood clot issues.
| fsh wrote:
| They will use insulated containers with dry ice, same as
| everywhere else. This might not work in the middle of the
| jungle, but most developing contries actually have roads and
| trucks.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Roads and trucks are not a problem but most third world
| countries also have an abundance of corruption and general
| apathy towards rules, good luck running a cold chain to all
| corners of such a country.
| Tepix wrote:
| The cooling requirements for Pfizer shots were loosened, it
| no longer needs -70degC. I don't know the new number, i think
| it's around -25degC.
| XorNot wrote:
| The problem with this sort of analysis is that the logistical
| concerns of shipping vaccine doses are immense. For one thing,
| single "doses" don't exist - both Pfizer and Astrazeneca are
| distributed in multi-dose vials. If you as a patient are given
| a dose at the end of the day, and no one else is available
| right then and there to receive it, then that's anywhere from 1
| to 5 doses which are _literally_ thrown away.
|
| As vaccination rates rise, the mere existence of vaccine stocks
| in countries with high vaccination rates means doses will be
| wasted - i.e. keeping the bare minimum on hand to vaccinate
| people as they need it means we have quite a lot of surplus
| doses which will otherwise definitely be wasted.
|
| Hence the analysis of boosters: if there's any benefit at all
| to high risk groups (i.e. healthcare providers who
| overwhelmingly now were vaccinated about 8 months ago), then
| that's a productive use of local vaccine capacity which _has_
| to exist in some form (i.e. new people are hitting "vaccine
| recommended" age every day).
| swader999 wrote:
| And this virus mutates which also limits the shelf life.
| invalidname wrote:
| Right. The problem is that those guys are pretty hard to
| convince with facts. I took my 3rd shot because otherwise this
| would go in the garbage. In that sense it does increase my
| protection and reduces the overall burden on the system so it
| does help.
| detaro wrote:
| "those guys are pretty hard to convince" about giving supply
| to unvaccinated populations is a fairly shitty take while
| sitting in one of the short list of countries that has had
| enough vaccine to supply everyone who wants one.
| andrewingram wrote:
| Yeah, the underlying take is that booster shots may not be the
| most effective use of the constrained vaccine supply if we wish
| to get the pandemic under some semblance of control. But
| someone just reading the headline could easily walk away with
| the impression that booster shots don't have any benefit.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| why are you baking in the assumption that boosters are needed?
| stkdump wrote:
| I can already see this backfiring later when that assessment
| changes due to more information or increased supply, like it did
| with the mask messaging.
| swader999 wrote:
| It's a long read but shows what you allude to:
| https://www.juliusruechel.com/2021/09/the-snake-oil-salesmen...
| shlant wrote:
| stop posting unfounded claims and conspiracy theory trash
| blogs
| blagie wrote:
| The paper is thoughtful. The reporting on it is reckless. An
| accurate headline would be: "Vaccine experts: Widespread booster
| mandates aren't needed now," or perhaps "recommendations"
|
| There's a line between:
|
| * Mandatory.
|
| * Recommended.
|
| * Allowed.
|
| * Banned.
|
| If I am flying to do humanitarian work in Vietnam tomorrow, I
| absolutely need a booster shoot. Right now, the only way to get
| that is to go to a state which doesn't require ids for vaccines,
| and get a shot.
|
| The article discusses that boosters are clearly still appropriate
| in some circumstances:
|
| "Boosting could be appropriate for some individuals in whom the
| primary vaccination, defined here as the original one-dose or
| two-dose series of each vaccine, might not have induced adequate
| protection--eg, recipients of vaccines with low efficacy or those
| who are immunocompromised2 (although people who did not respond
| robustly to the primary vaccination might also not respond well
| to a booster)."
| neximo64 wrote:
| Not quite sure why you absolutely need the booster shot, could
| you explain more there? Is that personal preference. Having
| both almost entirely eliminates the risk of hospitalisation
| from the other strains.
| causi wrote:
| People who got vaccinated five or six months ago are seeing
| their immunity rate drop to around eighty percent. That's
| double the risk compared to a fresh vaccination.
| nradov wrote:
| Do you have a citation for that 80% number?
| causi wrote:
| The Pfizer vaccine loses 6% effectiveness every two
| months.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/28/pfizers-ceo-says-covid-
| vacci...
| nradov wrote:
| That article indicates the Pfizer vaccine loses 6%
| effectiveness every two months within a six month period.
| It doesn't say anything about what happens after six
| months.
| standardUser wrote:
| Studies have primarily observed a modest decline in
| effectiveness among older people and the immunocompromised,
| which is why some jurisdictions have recommended boosters
| for these people (Israel, California). There is a reason
| boosters have not been approved anywhere for the general
| population, and that is because so far the data does not
| indicate they are necessary.
| causi wrote:
| Necessary and useful are two vastly different things. My
| state is throwing expired vaccine into the garbage. I'd
| take a booster even if it only made me five percent
| safer.
| treesknees wrote:
| This is the part I don't understand. There is an
| oversupply of vaccines, why not let me go get my 3rd shot
| if it's already here? I understand the desire to take
| those "extra" vaccines and ship them to other countries,
| but if the vaccine is already distributed out around the
| country, it would be more expensive and hazardous to
| collect them back up safely than to just administer
| boosters to those who want it.
| ufo wrote:
| The vaccines that are already distributed were
| distributed considering the original plan of only two
| doses per person. More vaccines would need to be ordered
| to get enough for a third dose.
| treesknees wrote:
| Right, but if you order enough to give 100 people 2 doses
| (200 doses) and only 50 decide to get the vaccine, you
| have 100 doses left over.
|
| The COVID vaccines have essentially a 6-month shelf life
| before they are considered expired [1]. So if the example
| doses above were delivered several months ago, the period
| for collecting and transporting them to another country
| is pretty small.
|
| Instead of throwing away this unused vaccine, it could be
| given to people who are willing to participate in a
| booster study or would like to have it, without making
| the booster mandatory. Obviously a mandate wouldn't work
| for the excess supply sitting around.
|
| [1]https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-
| international/unused-co...
| shotta wrote:
| The meme of people sticking themselves with every needle
| they can get ahold of is real?
|
| I think this is a bad idea, to make this booster decision
| on your own. Talk to your doctor first.
| causi wrote:
| I never said I was making a booster decision on my own. I
| said I'd be willing to accept a booster shot even if it
| only somewhat increased my immunity.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Is that entirely true even for people who have a life
| outside their own home? I would assume being constantly
| bombarded by the viruses outside would keep their immunity
| higher than expected?
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Not all reporting there are good journalists out there.
|
| Headline from RTL: Gezondheidsraad: derde prik alleen zinvol
| voor mensen met afweerstoornis
|
| Listen to the experts, write down what they say. Basic
| journalism.
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| Why do you "absolutely" need a booster shot? Are you
| immunocompromised? How do you know what your level of
| protection currently is?
|
| Even if you did a test to look at your antibody titers,
| antibody titers aren't the end all and be all of immunity
| (think T-cells).
| blagie wrote:
| Well, I'm not flying to Vietnam tomorrow, so I'm not claiming
| I personally need a booster shot.
|
| However:
|
| - Vietnam is an epicenter right now, so my odds of catching
| COVID would be high.
|
| - They are well beyond hospital capacity, so if I do have a
| serious case, it's uncertain I'll receive quality care (and
| if I do, I'm taking a bed from someone else)
|
| We don't have full data, so the right way to think about this
| is with expected outcomes based on best available data. Best
| available data, in this scenario, places the likely reduction
| of risks of COVID19 as a much greater risk reduction than any
| potential risk of vaccines:
|
| - We do have multiple studies about how immunity wanes over
| time from vaccination. Those provide better ground-truth data
| than theoretical arguments.
|
| - We also have some estimates of breakthrough rates, and
| severity of infection
|
| We don't have good data on long COVID post-vaccine, so that's
| a place we need to make an educated guess and rely on
| theoretical arguments.
|
| You can plug whatever sane numbers you want, but in this
| scenario -- humanitarian work in an epicenter with limited
| hospital capacity -- a booster shot makes sense.
|
| For other scenarios -- for example general population --
| whether a booster makes sense is still often within the very
| large error bars of the limited data, and reasonable people
| can disagree, much as the authors of the Lancet article and
| the CDC currently do. Once more data rolls in, we'll know.
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| > We do have multiple studies about how immunity wanes over
| time from vaccination. Those provide better ground-truth
| data than theoretical arguments.
|
| I believe the studies you're referring to are those that
| address efficacy against symptomatic infection, not severe
| illness. Unless you're in a high-risk group because of age
| or comorbidities, with two doses of an mRNA vaccine within
| the past 8 months, to my knowledge all studies to date
| indicate that the average person's protection against
| severe illness and hospitalization is exceedingly high.
| This is probably related to the T and B cell immunity
| created by your body's response to the vaccines, which are
| more difficult to measure than antibody titers.
|
| I traveled to/from a hotzone in Asia at the beginning of
| the pandemic and from Asia to the US and back to get
| vaccinated. My opinion as an expat and avid traveler is
| that if you have any concerns about your ability to receive
| adequate care in the case that you get sick, you should
| reconsider travel at this time. Since the vaccines clearly
| do not provide sterilizing immunity and everyone's immune
| response is different, there really are no guarantees,
| especially if you're going to be in environments where your
| exposure is high (both in terms of number of contacts and
| contacts that could lead to exposure of high viral loads).
| paulmd wrote:
| This is my clear (amateur) conclusion as well. The
| exposure amount and dose varies, exposure in high-density
| hot zones is high risk and the cumulative dose does seem
| to pose some additional risk, as does the risk that you
| may not be able to receive a high level of clinical care
| in various areas.
|
| I'm not necessarily talking about adventures in southeast
| asia there either.
| blagie wrote:
| Now we're getting into value systems.
|
| - How much do you value your life?
|
| - How much do you value the trip?
|
| - How much do you worry about spending two weeks in a
| hospital?
|
| - How much do you mind memory lapses and brain fog from
| long COVID?
|
| From what you wrote, it's clear we have at least somewhat
| different value systems. Since you're an avid traveler,
| you should realize that's good, common, and healthy.
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| The subtle implication of your comment seems to be that I
| value my life and health less than you do? If so, I think
| that's unfair. But I'm happy to roll with it. If, in the
| face of substantial evidence that two doses of one of the
| mRNA vaccines remain highly effective at preventing
| hospitalization and death 8 months on, you still cannot
| tolerate the potential that you could end up in a
| hospital in a developing country, suffer from long COVID
| following infection and/or die, logic dictates that you
| should reconsider travel.
|
| You might strongly believe or suspect that a booster will
| provide meaningful additional protection to you, but the
| ongoing booster debate reflects the fact that at the
| current time, there is no conclusive proof that a booster
| will definitely reduce risk in healthy already vaccinated
| individuals, nor has any potential risk reduction that
| booster proponents believe exists been conclusively
| quantified.
|
| Put simply, just because one believes that they have
| meaningfully increased protection from a booster does not
| necessarily mean that they actually do. Science will
| eventually tell us but the data isn't in yet.
| blagie wrote:
| I don't think you've traveled so much if you think that's
| the implication, or at least not for long enough to soak
| in how values differ between cultures.
|
| No. That's not the implication.
|
| I don't know you well enough to tell you what the
| differences in our value systems are.
|
| Since you do ask, if I were to speculate, I would guess
| you value your life and comfort more than I value mine. I
| was never fearful of dying of COVID, or of
| hospitalization, even pre-vax. Americans place an
| exceptionally high value on their own life and comfort
| relative to most cultures. I've also been in several
| hospitals in developing countries, and that's also not
| something which has really concerned me.
|
| On the other hand, I suspect I am much more concerned
| about long COVID than you are.
|
| And no, we don't know much for sure about COVID, but we
| have to work from best available evidence. If there's
| e.g. a 50% chance that a booster shot increases
| protection from 30% breakthroughs to 15%, and a 50%
| chance it does nothing, that means I've reduced my odds
| of breakthrough by (30-15)*50% = 7.5%.
| NoPie wrote:
| I think you are trying to overanalyse and overrule the
| experts here.
|
| Experts are saying that with the regards to the whole
| population currently community wide booster shots are not
| needed. It may not apply to each individual case (such as
| immunocompromised etc., or people with very specific risk,
| like those going to Vietnam) but this was never to be meant
| an individual assessment. Many people are confusing these
| two things. Even though it does not apply for majority of
| readers, trying to imagine a different situation for a
| specific individual is not necessary.
| blagie wrote:
| That's unfair. I'm trying to overrule bad reporting, not
| experts. The experts made a nuanced point which seemed
| reasonable, and the reporters screwed it up.
| matz1 wrote:
| The odds of catching covid is high but the chance you are
| going to need hospitalization due to covid are very low.
|
| It doesn't make sense to lose the benefit gained from the
| humanitarian work just because the very low chance becoming
| seriously sick from covid.
| theptip wrote:
| Mostly in agreement - I would note that the Lancet article
| gives a few arguments with citations as to why the vaccine
| efficacy decreases might be statistical artifacts, and so I
| think you may be a little over-confident on your bullet
| there. But I agree that there is data on both sides, and
| strongly agree with your general approach of accounting for
| the possibility that vaccine efficacy could be waning in
| your risk model and updating behavior accordingly.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _Vietnam is an epicenter right now, so my odds of
| catching COVID would be high._
|
| ho chi minh is an "epicenter" according to Vietnamese
| authorities (who have always taken a much stricter, "zero-
| covid-adjacent" approach to managing covid). While there is
| always risk, the case-rate is roughly the same as Germany &
| France (neither of which are in lockdown) & much lower than
| other western states like the US & UK. The entire country
| is in lockdown because this is an all-time high by
| Vietnamese standards (Vietnam have fared similarly to NZ in
| terms of case-rates before now), despite case-rate in e.g.
| Ha Noi being low, further mitigating risk factors.
|
| So no I don't think the odds of catching it would be
| significantly higher than wherever you currently reside,
| unless your humanitarian work is specifically treating
| covid patients, in which case of course you should get a
| booster but the destination country is completely
| irrelevant.
|
| Points about hospital capacity are obviously still
| relevant, but that's not necessarily going to be impacted
| by boosters as much as vaccination in general: full
| vaccination rate in Vietnam is only ~5% due to supply
| issues that are only exacerbated by over-subscription to
| boosters in western states.
| emn13 wrote:
| The most important trend (IMHO) they point out is that
| effectiveness vs. severe disease does not drop or barely drops.
| They claim: _To date, none of these studies has provided
| credible evidence of substantially declining protection against
| severe disease, even when there appear to be declines over time
| in vaccine efficacy against symptomatic disease._
|
| However, the graph they provide doesn't seem to be based on
| data that appears reasonably chosen (that could be my
| limitaiton, sure).
|
| They refer to appendices (which are here: https://www.thelancet
| .com/cms/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02046-8/...), and specifically
| table S4 appears to be the basis for their graph D. In it, they
| split same-paper sources into early vs. late effectiveness with
| respect to hospitalization. Four sources are relevant.
|
| - #5: _Health IM of. Two dose vaccination data. 2021. 2021_ - I
| can 't find this source.
|
| - #41 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34401884/ - ...but this
| paper has huge error bars and additionally the average
| effectiveness jumps up and down just to underline that the
| source not only claims to be noisy but appears to be so too.
| There's just not enough clean data here for any conclusion (wrt
| to a declining efficacy vs. severe disease).
|
| - #42 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8389393/ -
| this paper seems to have solid data, but it simply doesn't
| include data on when people were vaccinated, and it uses
| definitions like this: _" Hospitalizations among persons with
| breakthrough infection were defined as new hospital admissions
| among persons fully vaccinated on the reporting day."_ - in
| other words, a mixture of people that are vaccine-protected,
| and those that have had the jab but not the time to become
| protected. And the paper does not track how long ago people
| were vaccinated - so how does the lancet article then try to
| split this into early vs. late groups? Presumably by calendar
| date, which I don't think is reasonable; at least not
| reasonable enough.
|
| - #43
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262423v...
| - and I'm just going to believe they copied the results
| correctly, but notably that paper concludes: "The efficacy of
| the vaccine against severe disease for the 60+ age group also
| decreases; from 91% to 86% between those vaccinated four months
| to those vaccinated six months before the study. The
| corresponding efficacies for the 40-59 age group are 98% and
| 94%. Thus, the vaccine seems to be highly effective even after
| six months compared to the unvaccinated population, but its
| effectiveness is significantly lower than it was closer to the
| vaccination date."
|
| So when they say this: _" Given the data gaps, any wide
| deployment of boosters should be accompanied by a plan to
| gather reliable data about how well they are working and how
| safe they are. Their effectiveness and safety could, in some
| populations, be assessed most reliably during deployment via
| extremely large-scale randomisation,17 preferably of
| individuals rather than of groups."_ - that makes sense; I can
| understand that.
|
| But this on the other hand: _" To date, none of these studies
| has provided credible evidence of substantially declining
| protection against severe disease, even when there appear to be
| declines over time in vaccine efficacy against symptomatic
| disease."_ - seems to be contradicted by their own sources.
|
| Given the data they themselves cite and in addition the many
| more sources demonstrating that protection from infection wanes
| (not just antibody levels), it seems implausible to assume that
| protection from severe disease won't wane significantly as
| well, even if they're right in saying we don't know for certain
| or by how much.
|
| However, even the waning already demonstrated in the #43 data
| set represents approximately a 50% increase in the number of
| hospitalizations _and_ an increase in transmissibility after
| less than 8 months. Saying it 's "still very high" is surely
| true, but the way they paint boosters as somehow plausibly
| unnecessary smells like motivated reasoning to me.
|
| They clearly make the case for greater third world vaccination;
| as an ethical argument that makes sense. But the claim that
| boosters likely won't be useful strikes me as being a little
| creative with their sources.
|
| Furthermore, while the article goes to great lengths to
| question the utility of booster shots, it does not similarly
| make the case that _avoiding_ booster shots will actually
| materially increase vaccinations elsewhere. And while that
| seems plausible at first glance, there are also reasons to
| think that 's not really true: e.g. are the boosters going to
| be diverted from production or will they simply be usage of
| already distributed shots that weren't taken up by the vaccine
| hesitant (which could be logistically impossible to
| redistribute in time)? How many people will be both eligible
| and willing to take a booster, and how does that compare to the
| number of exported doses - it might not amount to much? Is the
| timing of the boosters early enough that there will still be a
| significant export crunch? Is there really a tradeoff here at
| all, or will by the time boosters are used in significant
| numbers (say 100 million) other production be ample too?
|
| I don't think the article really makes a very thoughtful case,
| at all. It doesn't really support the notion that boosters will
| impact supply elsewhere by the time they're deployed, and it's
| claiming evidence supporting booster utility is slim, but it's
| not quite as slim as they make out, and again - by the time
| boosters are widely used, if the evidence we _do_ have so far
| continues to build in that vein - there will be ample evidence
| then.
|
| Sure, there is a plausible future in which boosters have
| unexpectedly low utility, yet high uptake, and are mostly doses
| from new production as opposed to older, already locally
| distributed doses, all while third-world vaccination remains
| highly supply constrained. That's a future to avoid. But the
| paper doesn't make the case it's a likely future, nor even that
| it'd be hard to see it coming and thus needs action today.
| mzrk wrote:
| > If I am flying to do humanitarian work in Vietnam tomorrow, I
| absolutely need a booster shoot.
|
| You are saying that like its a shot of espresso... What is
| yourthough process to think that is good idea to take N-shots
| of vaccine that clearly is not working as it was prommised... I
| dont remember any1 talking about 3 dose in Jan/Feb. Narration
| was you take 1 shot of J&J or 2 Pfizer or other
| mercy_dude wrote:
| > " recipients of vaccines with low efficacy or those who are
| immunocompromised2 (although people who did not respond
| robustly to the primary vaccination"
|
| How do we measure it? Like is there a way to know through
| antibody tests?
| exhilaration wrote:
| If you want to know whether you need the booster or not, and
| you're in the US, the spike antibody test ("COVID-19 Blood
| Spike Protein AB") falls under Covid testing, so if you have
| insurance it's covered with no out of pocket expense. You can
| get it at most urgent care clinics, and then you can find out
| exactly what your antibody levels are.
|
| I got my Moderna 2nd shot in February and my antibody levels
| are 1483 (out of 2500) so I am satisfied and not in any hurry
| to get the booster.
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| 1. Determining how much real-world protection you have
| against infection, hospitalization and death is a lot more
| complex than antibody titers. Everybody is different, every
| infection is different and even in the healthy population,
| everyone's immune response to the vaccine will be somewhat
| different. My understanding is that it's entirely possible
| a person with antibody levels lower than yours might be at
| lower risk than you in the real world because of their
| health compared to yours, the strength of their immune
| system compared to yours, etc.
|
| 2. Antibodies are only one part of the immunity equation.
| In the long run, T and B cells are probably just as
| important if not more important than antibodies. This is
| another area where it's reasonable to expect that YMWV when
| you get vaccinated.
|
| 3. My understanding is that in the context of vaccines
| these tests are used primarily to assess whether an
| individual had an immune response to the vaccines, not to
| make a meaningful determination of how much protection they
| have (because there's no "formula" for this).
|
| 4. It appears from the Delta-related data that any
| relationship between antibody titers and risk is influenced
| by variants.
|
| 5. We shouldn't rule out environmental factors in the
| protection equation. For example, if you work in an
| environment where you're exposed to high viral loads on a
| regular basis, it seems possible that you could be at
| higher risk than somebody who isn't even if you have higher
| antibody titers.
| nradov wrote:
| There is more to immunity than antibody tests. Antibody
| levels typically drop after a while, but memory cells remain
| active.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Even if there is a good answer to "How do we measure it?" it
| might cost more to know than it does to administer a third
| shot.
|
| There remains an argument (or a "rebuke," as the article puts
| it) that first world countries that are well placed to
| administer booster shots to the fully vaccinated should
| instead contribute to faster vaccination worldwide, even on a
| self-interested basis in order to reduce the cases where new
| variants can emerge.
|
| But that is a tenuous argument. A simple first question
| unanswered in the article is: How much of the unvaccinated
| population lives where vaccines requiring ULT freezers can be
| distributed? It may be that every place well equipped to use
| those kinds of vaccines will do best to get their total
| vaccination rate as high as possible and administer booster
| shots to reduce breakthrough infections, so normal activity
| can resume. Supply chain disruption is not a trivial problem.
| Having safe workplaces is not a luxury.
| exabrial wrote:
| Booster shots and vaccine mandates aren't about public safety or
| helping people, its politics, generating attention, and
| ultimately getting votes.
| moviewise wrote:
| The CDC has a pdf (downloadable) presentation about the data
| being used to decide on COVID booster vaccines:
| https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/108332/cdc_108332_DS1.pdf
|
| The UK government has data showing that about 2X more fully
| vaccinated people are dying from COVID than the unvaccinated
| (1,091 fully vaccinated vs. 536 vaccinated), even though the
| unvaccinated account for 3X more patients coming in for emergency
| care (6,492 fully vaccinated vs 14,319 unvaccinated) p.21:
| https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-...
|
| A summary and analysis of the data can be found here:
| https://notobiggov.medium.com/angry-about-anti-vaxxers-15a15...
| brigandish wrote:
| > The UK government has data showing that about 2X more fully
| vaccinated people are dying from COVID than the unvaccinated
| (1,091 fully vaccinated vs. 536 vaccinated), even though the
| unvaccinated account for 3X more patients coming in for
| emergency care
|
| Because of the demographics of those 2 groups (old are more
| likely vaccinated, middle aged and below are less likely) and
| their risk profiles - it takes 150 people in their 40's to be
| vaccinated to have the same impact that 1 person in their 80's
| being vaccinated will.
| krolley wrote:
| I saw the same comment on a different thread today, so I
| decided to have a sceptical look at the summary and analysis
| link. From that link:
|
| > Here is the pro-vaccine argument: "It isn't the absolute
| number of deaths that should be compared as there are 20 times
| MORE people vaccinated over age 50 (where most deaths occur)
| than unvaccinated. The UK has a 95% vaccination rate for people
| over 50. The _rate_ of deaths is much, much lower in the
| vaccinated population. The rate of death is the number who have
| died in a population (vaccinated or unvaccinated) relative to
| the size of the population, usually expressed as number per
| 100,000 people. With 20,000,000 vaccinated people over 50, the
| death rate is 3.2 (per 100,000 people), but for the 1,000,000
| UNvaccinated people, the death rate is 32 (per 100,000 people)
| -- ten times higher. In other words, the vaccine is 90%
| effective against death, consistent with what was found in the
| original clinical trials." Of course, the chart also shows that
| people who are UNvaccinated are twice as likely to need
| overnight hospitalization than vaccinated people (4,033 vs
| 2,204), and thus this is one of the strongest justifications
| /reasons to get vaccinated.
|
| I'm glad what appears to be an anti-vax article was actually
| showing both sides.
| refurb wrote:
| But that would somewhat makes sense? Those at highest risk of
| Covid would be vaccinated, those at lowest risk unvaccinated.
| moviewise wrote:
| Yes. Also this: "It isn't the absolute number of deaths that
| should be compared as there are 20 times MORE people
| vaccinated over age 50 (where most deaths occur) than
| unvaccinated. The UK has a 95% vaccination rate for people
| over 50. The _rate_ of deaths is much, much lower in the
| vaccinated population. The rate of death is the number who
| have died in a population (vaccinated or unvaccinated)
| relative to the size of the population, usually expressed as
| number per 100,000 people. With 20,000,000 vaccinated people
| over 50, the death rate is 3.2 (per 100,000 people), but for
| the 1,000,000 UNvaccinated people, the death rate is 32 (per
| 100,000 people) -- ten times higher. In other words, the
| vaccine is 90% effective against death, consistent with what
| was found in the original clinical trials."
| refurb wrote:
| This is the challenging part is that there are multiple
| factors which impact risk and benefit from the vaccine. And
| those are dependent up the population examined - the
| vaccinated (likely higher risk), hospitalized (likely
| higher risk), etc.
| epmaybe wrote:
| I think this reporting is dancing around the issue, that the
| vaccine supply is most concentrated in countries that have
| essentially reached their maximum vaccination percentage. By not
| providing access to those developing or smaller countries, larger
| countries are shooting themselves in the proverbial global foot.
| I don't think countries like the US and Canada aren't trying to
| do that, I just think these experts would like more of a
| conscious effort.
|
| I also think this advice feels like a slap to healthcare workers
| like myself who desperately want to continue taking care of
| patients as safely as possible. When your coworkers can spread
| virus more easily due to less immunity, being unvaccinated, etc,
| it would be more reassuring to continue to have stronger immunity
| to continue seeing patients. I don't have the luxury of waiting
| for a patient to test negative before seeing them in the
| emergency room or clinic.
| ianhawes wrote:
| If you are continually exposed to COVID-19, wouldn't you
| effectively be "re-upping" your immune system every time there
| is additional exposure?
| leeter wrote:
| No, exposure to the virus is like exposure to combat. You may
| not die, but the likelihood goes up the more time you spend
| exposed to it and the more of it you get exposed to. To keep
| with that metaphor a vaccine is like a war game, it won't
| kill you but it's not the real thing either. But if you've
| done it you're better off than if you hadn't.
| ds206 wrote:
| This doesn't make sense. Do you have a source that says
| repeated exposure increases your odds of serious disease?
| leeter wrote:
| Repeated exposure increases your chances of _disease_ not
| serious disease. Increased Viral load increases chances
| of serious disease. Apologies if that didn 't come across
| clearly.
| [deleted]
| Ambolia wrote:
| Seems more an acknowledgement that zero-Covid is never ever
| going to happen. At which point not sure if vaccinating outside
| of risk populations or to control hospitalizations if they are
| too high makes any sense.
| belltaco wrote:
| That's like saying back in the 70s and 80s that we cannot
| eliminate deaths and injuries from car accidents so it's
| useless to have seatbelt and air bag campaigns and laws.
|
| >outside of risk populations
|
| Depends on how you define risk, 59 children have died just in
| Texas from Covid so far. Risk goes up with age.
|
| Every single additional vaccination helps the situation.
| Ambolia wrote:
| That would only be an analogy if car accidents mutated to
| overcome seatbelts. Also car accidents can kill everybody,
| Covid not so much if you are young, have healthy lungs and
| are not overweight.
| jsight wrote:
| Interestingly, seat belts and air bags are still
| controversial among some (few?) folks.
| jMyles wrote:
| > 59 children have died just in Texas from Covid so far
|
| Obviously you realize this is a controversial, at best,
| assertion.
|
| What's your reasoning for why John's Hopkins wasn't able to
| find a single pediatric death _from_ COVID-19?
| detaro wrote:
| Because the study you reference only looked at data from
| early-ish in the pandemic, doesn't cover delta-variant or
| anything else that happened in the past year? (It's also
| not that difficult to find claims from John Hopkins that
| deaths in children have happened, so you obviously
| realize that the "wasn't able to find a single pediatric
| death" is a controversial, at best, assertion?)
| peteradio wrote:
| More like saying we should only wear seatbelts when we are
| in the fucking cars!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _not sure if vaccinating outside of risk populations or to
| control hospitalizations if they are too high makes any
| sense_
|
| Based on this logic, flu shots are useless. As is any
| treatment without guaranteed success, _i.e._ most medicine.
|
| (Note: prioritising vaccinating when hospitals fill up is
| programmatically, repeatedly peaking the healthcare system.
| It will do to it what repeatedly flooring the gas and hard
| braking will to a car.)
| xienze wrote:
| > Based on this logic, flu shots are useless
|
| If you believe the reports stating that the flu has
| basically been eliminated since the start of Covid-19, it
| seems the shots are indeed pretty useless! All it took was
| some half-assed masking and social distancing measures,
| that half the country swears the other half isn't doing.
| Who knew?
| logifail wrote:
| > flu shots are useless
|
| (I've been struggling with the following sentence for
| several minutes but here goes): flu vaccines aren't widely
| distributed - never mind recommended - for healthy young
| people.
|
| Countries appear to prioritise flu vaccine for older and/or
| more vulnerable people.[0]
|
| [0] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/flu-
| influenza-vac...
| belltaco wrote:
| On that page NHS seem to make a cost tradeoff for free
| flu vaccine since they have to pay the costs.
|
| From the CDC
|
| >Who should get a flu vaccine this season?
|
| >Everyone 6 months and older should get a flu vaccine
| every season with rare exceptions. Vaccination is
| particularly important for people who are at higher risk
| of serious complications from influenza. A full listing
| of people at Higher Risk of Developing Flu-Related
| Complications is available.
|
| >Flu vaccination has important benefits. It can reduce
| flu illnesses, doctors' visits, and missed work and
| school due to flu, as well as prevent flu-related
| hospitalizations and deaths.
|
| >Different flu vaccines are approved for use in different
| groups of people.
|
| >There are flu shots approved for use in children as
| young as 6 months old and flu shots approved for use in
| adults 65 years and older.
| logifail wrote:
| > From the CDC > > Everyone 6 months and older should get
| a flu vaccine every season with rare exceptions
|
| According to the Nuffield Trust[0], international flu
| vaccination coverage varies widely.
|
| It appears from the chart the US is only reaching 65% -
| 70% of their over-65s with annual flu vaccine.
|
| How much does it cost to get the annual flu vaccine in
| the US?
|
| [0] https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/adult-flu-
| vaccinat...
| sgc wrote:
| Around here it's free and the pharmacy gives you a $5
| coupon for getting it. They definitely see it as an easy
| way to get people through their doors.
| ghaff wrote:
| Well, I assume it's covered by insurance but probably not
| actually free if you don't have insurance.
| sgc wrote:
| No insurance required. It's a loss leader to get people
| into the store.
| toast0 wrote:
| > How much does it cost to get the annual flu vaccine in
| the US?
|
| As with all things in the US healthcare system, nobody
| knows how much anything costs.
|
| That said, annual flu vaccine is included under mandatory
| no direct user cost vaccinations in insurance plans
| covered by the Affordable Care Act (although your insurer
| can pick and choose what locations they'll cover).
| logifail wrote:
| > As with all things in the US healthcare system, nobody
| knows how much anything costs
|
| Once things are opaque one has to start wondering about
| motivations, financial incentives and <groan> the
| underlying politics.
|
| Getting the vaccine into another wealthy & healthy child
| "for free" vs getting the vaccine into one poor & elderly
| adult ("but who will pay?") would appear to have very
| different outcomes, at least based on what we thought we
| knew about seasonal flu. The wealthy & healthy child
| might end up being off school for half a day less
| (maybe). It's almost certainly a bigger deal for the poor
| & elderly adult.
|
| Perhaps it's just a lot easier to convince the healthy &
| wealthy family to take their kids to the pharmacy and
| have the insurer (cough) foot the bill?
|
| Side note: the EU doesn't seem to be that keen on
| vaccinating healthy youngsters against seasonal flu[0]
|
| "The immunity that is elicited by influenza vaccines is
| not as long lived as the immunity following natural
| influenza infection. This is especially so for
| individuals in the so-called risk groups, hence people
| have to be vaccinated annually [..]
|
| The main strategy of immunisation programmes in Europe is
| to directly or indirectly protect the more vulnerable
| individuals"
|
| [0] https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/seasonal-
| influenza/prevention-...
| hef19898 wrote:
| They are easy o get, readily available and reasonably
| well distributed (nowhere near Covid-numbers so). I only
| took them when I was working at a retirement home years
| ago, more for the residents then for myself. I was, as
| not being in constant contact with residents, not
| required to take the shot (if memory serves well, nit
| that it would have made a difference anyway), care
| personal and those being in regular contact with
| residents were obliged so. One of the reasons I don't get
| the discussion about obligatory Covid shots for health
| care professionals...
| jsight wrote:
| I don't see how that follows from his statement. Maybe
| something more like "based on this logic, flu shots should
| be targetted at high risk populations or to control
| hospitalizations". Doesn't France already do something like
| that with the flu vaccine?
|
| Given the risk variability with coronavirus, I'm not sure
| that it would make sense to approach it the same way, but
| targeting highest risk populations still seems very
| different from "prioritising vaccinating when hospitals
| fill up".
| hef19898 wrote:
| If zero-covid doesn't work (it won't IMHO), necessary
| immunisation levels can be reached either by
|
| a) have enough people vaccinated
|
| or b) have enough people infected
|
| Not sure why people come to the conclussion option b) would
| be a good idea...
| moistrobot wrote:
| If zero-covid doesn't work, then necessary immunization
| levels can't be reached. It's endemic. Everyone will get it
| at one point or another.
|
| It's now just a risk management question for individuals
| kurthr wrote:
| I mostly agree, but these experts need to calculate how many
| shots this really is (~150Mil) and then look at how many shots
| are still needed in the rest of the world (~10Bil). So if
| everyone who had a single shot also got a booster, it would
| increase this time by 1.5 (or less since distribution and
| production rates increase with time)?
|
| Prioritizing the elderly in developing nations (rather than the
| wealthy and politically connected) and speeding vaccine
| production (likely Adenovirus rather than MRNA due to
| encapsulation and cold-chain bottlenecks) would have order of
| magnitude larger effects on deaths than preventing booster
| shots. The number of wasted shots is closing in on the number
| likely to be administered.
|
| Delaying immunization school children for the school year
| (barring much higher than expected immune side effects in
| unpublished data) is likely going to be another own-goal for
| the FDA/CDC.
| hanselot wrote:
| I fail to see why Dr Robert Malone is being ignored during this
| pandemic.
|
| If we are going to invoke the "my piece of paper is bigger than
| yours argument", I think he wins.
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| sounds like another policy/politicized blanket statement not
| based on science. Have they tested levels of anti-bodies? Why
| is Israel with its early high vaccinations levels doing third
| shots?
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >sounds like another policy/politicized blanket statement not
| based on science.
|
| Or, it is public health advice based on science, looking at
| what they believe would be the most effective policy
| globally. They aren't saying it does or doesn't affect the
| level of antibodies. They aren't arguing that it is effective
| or ineffective at boosting an individual's immunity. You seem
| to be fundamentally confused about what they are talking
| about.
|
| >"Even if boosting were eventually shown to decrease the
| medium-term risk of serious disease, current vaccine supplies
| could save more lives if used in previously unvaccinated
| populations than if used as boosters in vaccinated
| populations"
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-
| cases.h... looking at the map above tells me people in rich
| western countries are dying from covid at 2-8x rates of
| people in the developing countries with some
| exceptions(Brazil, Peru, Mexico). How on earth do you make
| any morality based policy calls based on this data?
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >How on earth do you make any morality based policy calls
| based on this data?
|
| Well, you make those calls by looking more deeply into
| data than a country level map. In the US, the majority of
| states are at or near the point where vaccine supply is
| higher than demand. [1] The people that wanted vaccines
| got vaccines and the majority of the unvaccinated are
| that way by choice. We also know that over 98% of covid
| hospitalizations are those very same unvaccinated [2],
| showing that even with breakthrough infections, the
| vaccine is still very effective at preventing "serious"
| cases of covid. At The same time, we have a 25% reduction
| in the estimated available vaccines worldwide through the
| end of the year and poor countries that are reliant on
| vaccine aid delivered by rich nations have received a
| fraction of what was pledged. [3]
|
| Giving boosters to people in rich countries that are
| already highly protected and not at risk of significant
| illness and death while failing to send aid to provide
| any protection at all to the most vulnerable population
| is not exactly a morality based policy. Using vaccination
| rates of people that have access to vaccines and choose
| not to get them (and are dying based off that choice) as
| justification for this is ignorant at best, immoral in
| itself at worst.
|
| [1] https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/supply-vs-demand-
| which-stat... [2]
| https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/unvaccinated-
| covid... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021
| -09-08/global-va...
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| Why would you assume that vaccine hesitancy is uniquely
| American and immutable phenomena? Why would you assume 2
| shots of vaccine is enough for life when a new variant
| pops up every month? As an official, how would you pick a
| country to send vaccines to when most of the world has
| lower infections and death rates? How would you ration
| your vaccines when FDA may authorize them for younger
| kids any day? What about vaccine mandates? Those are
| supposed to up the demand, right?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I'm just not sure what it means to say that global policy
| is based on science. They didn't run an observational study
| a sample of other globes to see which decisions correlated
| with better performance; they used their scientifically-
| informed expertise to a degree, but they also made a series
| of judgment calls about what policy goals we should have
| and the likely consequences of various actions on
| geopolitics. Why are vaccine experts the right people to
| make those calls?
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >they used their scientifically-informed expertise to a
| degree, but they also made a series of judgment calls
| about what policy goals we should have and the likely
| consequences of various actions on geopolitics.
|
| Yes, that is exactly what they did, specifically because
| we don't have other globes lying around that we can run
| randomized controlled trials on global events. Just
| because we don't have perfect data on something, doesn't
| mean that expert opinion based on detailed information is
| no more valid or valuable than any other opinion.
|
| >Why are vaccine experts the right people to make those
| calls?
|
| They aren't making a call. They are providing their
| expert opinion in vaccines and vaccinations, on a topic
| related to vaccines and vaccinations, to inform policy
| makers that do make those calls. It is for policy makers
| to consult various data sources and experts in related
| fields to make an evidence based and evidence informed
| decision.
| incrudible wrote:
| > Why is Israel with its early high vaccinations levels doing
| third shots?
|
| Desperation. This is a case of politicians overpromising on
| something they could not deliver. Science will have to take a
| back seat.
| oezi wrote:
| Efficacy of Pfizer Biontech wears down after 6 months. So
| because they were early, they are the first to need
| boosters.
| cameldrv wrote:
| > I don't have the luxury of waiting for a patient to test
| negative before seeing them in the emergency room or clinic.
|
| Agreed that it makes total sense for HCWs to get a booster, but
| also why are you seeing patients before they test negative?
| Every patient could be getting a $5 antigen test as they walk
| in the door. The fact that this is not being done is just one
| more missed opportunity.
| Thlom wrote:
| The US has not met their maximum vaccination percentage.
| According to the graph I get in Google the US is stuck on
| around 50% fully vaccinated. Considering the head start they
| had on most of the world and the vaccine supplies this can't be
| described as anything other than a complete and utter failure
| on all levels.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Funny, how everyone complained about sow start of vaccination
| campaigns. Only to forget that reaching roughly 70% fast was
| the goal, not being the first at 10%.
| [deleted]
| delecti wrote:
| > Considering the head start they had on most of the world
| and the vaccine supplies this can't be described as anything
| other than a complete and utter failure on all levels.
|
| That's probably why the GP comment described it as
| "their"(our) maximum vaccination percentage. The vaccine and
| virus have both been politicized too much, and too many
| people are obstinately refusing it as a result.
| bedhead wrote:
| It feels like more and more people whom I would consider
| very partisan (either side) simply act out of spite
| nowadays. Whatever the other side wants, well, we're just
| going to _unconditionally_ fight it. You saw this
| accelerate after Trump won with "Resist", an ethos that
| literally means to defy regardless of circumstances. And
| now you see the right's version of "Resist" by avoiding
| vaccinations. Why? Because screw them, that's why. This is
| just more the feeling I get about society. It's very
| frustrating.
|
| I also think places like the CDC made enormous tactical
| errors by doing things like celebrating certain political
| protests, or changing language from "mothers" to "birthing
| people", etc. They tried to score cheap political points
| while sowing seeds of total distrust in the process. Just a
| massive mistake, all downside no upside.
| Akronymus wrote:
| From what I remember, it started with saying you'd be
| stupid to take "the trump vaccine". (In less pleasant
| language)
|
| To me, it seems to have been politicized by the left
| first. This in combination with the RAPID flip of the
| coverage/opinion from the left after Biden took the
| presidency seems like a pretty good explanation for a
| good part of the rights defiance.
| evgen wrote:
| NO ONE was calling it 'the Trump vaccine.' No one. No one
| on the left was polarizing response to Covid other than
| complaining that the current government was downplaying
| the severity. Even when it was apparent to the entire
| planet that this was a serious pandemic the right was
| pretending nothing was wrong. Then it was not really a
| problem because the first places it hit were large urban
| centers (aka Democratic-voting areas) so maybe this
| wasn't so bad after all and we can just wait for 'herd
| immunity' was the claim of the Trump crowd.
|
| You have a serious problem with reality and the truth if
| you think that people on the left waited until after the
| election to start pushing for a vaccine and for trying to
| take active steps to contain and control Covid spread.
| iszomer wrote:
| Outside of social media, iirc, there was footage of
| certain political figures such as then Gov. Cuomo
| publicly rejecting the vaccine deployment in his state,
| during Trump's administration. Since people relied on
| social media more often than cable TV, I suppose there
| were lots of amplified "lost in translation" moments.
|
| A simple keyword search of "Trump vaccine" on reddit
| yields massive cognitive dissonance and a sociopath would
| conflate their bias from all the subreddits the keywords
| are found.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| "Raise your hand if you would NEVER trust a vaccine
| pushed by a bleach-injection, snake-oil selling conman"
|
| -@mmpadellan (BrooklynDad_Defiant!)
|
| https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1306308110458511360
| ?la...
|
| "I've been saying this shit for months.
|
| No surprise here.
|
| If you take Donald Trump's rushed "vaccine" you're an
| idiot."
|
| -@donwinslow (Don Winslow) https://twitter.com/donwinslow
| /status/1315830184084336640?la...
| evgen wrote:
| A few random people on rose Twitter? Seriously, that is
| the best you can find? Thanks for proving my point for
| me.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"A few random people on rose Twitter? Seriously, that is
| the best you can find? Thanks for proving my point for
| me. "
|
| So I'll re-quote the parent comment you made: >"NO ONE
| was calling it 'the Trump vaccine.' No one."
|
| Emphasis on the 'NO ONE', that you asserted in all caps
| and then bothered to repeat as it's own sentence. I
| literally just provided you two examples of people on the
| left insinuating as such.
|
| >"Seriously, that is the best you can find?"
|
| I suppose pundits and left-leaning influencers who
| regularly reach the top of the trending feed on Twitter
| don't count. Would you rather I find nobodies? I would
| dredge up quotes from columnists or campaign trail
| statements that allude to the vaccine being untrustworthy
| because of it's association with Donald Trump, but I
| sense you're just going to ignore them and further
| proclaim that I've proved your point - somehow.
| Akronymus wrote:
| >NO ONE was calling it 'the Trump vaccine.' While most
| didn't say trump vaccine directly, they alluded to trump
| being the main push behind it.
|
| >. No one on the left was polarizing response to Covid
| other than complaining that the current government was
| downplaying the severity.
|
| It apparently was racist to close the border for china.
| MANY people called trumps response overblown, until
| suddenly it was way too little.
|
| >Even when it was apparent to the entire planet that this
| was a serious pandemic the right was pretending nothing
| was wrong.
|
| "The right" was much faster to react than the left. That
| includes initial response and calling for opening back
| up.
|
| >Then it was not really a problem because the first
| places it hit were large urban centers (aka Democratic-
| voting areas) so maybe this wasn't so bad after all and
| we can just wait for 'herd immunity' was the claim of the
| Trump crowd.
|
| I have a hard time finding any source on that. Could you
| link me any?
|
| >You have a serious problem with reality and the truth if
| you think that people on the left waited until after the
| election to start pushing for a vaccine and for trying to
| take active steps to contain and control Covid spread.
|
| I am not saying that EVERYONE on the left was like that,
| just that I first started seeing the politicization come
| from the left. Quite an important difference.
|
| These are examples that took me just a few minutes to
| find again with people who flipped their opinion quite
| hard, along with that, trump has been pro vaccine for a
| long time.
|
| https://twitter.com/santiagomayer_/status/129788766548059
| 340... https://twitter.com/santiagomayer_/status/13894246
| 3249149543... https://twitter.com/taradublinrocks/status/
| 13026569683775488... https://twitter.com/taradublinrocks/
| status/14211889001778667... https://twitter.com/CheriJaco
| bus/status/1334201006108839936 https://twitter.com/CheriJ
| acobus/status/1421641394645577732 https://twitter.com/ton
| yposnanski/status/1304144185419800579 https://twitter.com
| /tonyposnanski/status/1386686118691844100
| https://twitter.com/Martina/status/1298300531614658561
| https://twitter.com/Martina/status/1414910318782861323
| https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1306762734076342273
| https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1429803419108249606
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| The one that made me the most upset was how large
| gatherings were bad, unless one was protesting about
| racial injustice. In which case, don't worry, those
| protestors had masks on.
|
| Well, if merely having a mask on in a thousands large
| march is okay, why not just allow all sized gatherings
| provided one is wearing a face covering?
| delecti wrote:
| An outdoor, fully-masked gathering is meaningfully
| different, and the people pushing against COVID
| restrictions were also pushing back against mask
| guidance. In reality, indoor masked gatherings were
| fairly safe, but the practical distinction was between
| outdoor masked or indoor unmasked.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| >And now you see the right's version of "Resist" by
| avoiding vaccinations
|
| "I love our people, so I want our people to take the
| vaccines." - Trump
|
| "As a boy, I fought polio. Today, America's been polio-
| free for 40 years -- thanks to vaccinations. We'll beat
| Covid-19 with vaccines, too. Protect yourself and your
| family. Get vaccinated." - McConnell
|
| "Democrats and the media scoffed when @realDonaldTrump
| said we'd have a safe and effective vaccine this year,
| but he kept his promise!" - Kevin McCarthy, House
| minority leader
|
| All of Republican leadership is urging people to get the
| vaccine. Anti-vaxxers think they're on the side of
| Republicans but, come midterms in 14 months, they're
| going to figure out that they're not on _anyone 's_ side.
|
| Edit: I would love to hear from anyone old enough to
| remember what happened during a time in history when a
| large coalition of people thought they had representation
| in one party or the other but actually had no
| representation in either party. What happened during the
| subsequent election?
| scottLobster wrote:
| Yeah, and it didn't help when during the BLM protests,
| when social distancing was being trumpeted in all
| contexts, a number of doctors (can't remember if the CDC
| endorsed it or not) came out and said the massive crowds
| at the protests were acceptable because "race issues are
| health issues too" or something to that effect. That's
| obviously hypocritical to anyone with half a brain.
|
| If there's a kernel of truth to the right's message it's
| that there is an elite class in DC that is woefully out
| of touch and seemingly incapable of actual leadership.
| They just spout what they think, however asinine or
| poorly phrased, and we're supposed to listen because
| they're certified "experts". I know enough people in
| government agencies personally/have the scientific
| education necessary to filter the signal from the noise,
| but I can understand someone who doesn't have those
| advantages just refusing to trust anything they say. They
| sound like arrogant nerds, and a lot of them actually
| are.
|
| Someone needs to remind anyone who releases a public
| statement that they are first and foremost in the
| business of public persuasion, not absolute truth telling
| down to the smallest detail for its own sake. That means
| clear, consistent messaging that a high school dropout
| who failed 9th grade Biology can understand. Broad
| strokes. Simple actions. Leave the nuance in the
| footnotes for the professionals who can handle it. For
| example, the messaging should have been some variety of
| "wear a mask as often as you can until we get a vaccine,
| then you can take off the mask if you get vaccinated"
| combined with support of mandates to enforce that path.
| Are there problems with that? Sure, but it gives people a
| simple path to follow, a light at the end of the tunnel,
| would have a positive impact on average, and doesn't get
| bogged down in ultimately irrelevant details about the
| tactical effectiveness of masks/vaccines and provides an
| incentive to get the vaccine. And consistency alone can
| be powerful messaging if there's even a little truth
| behind it. Much as I wish we were, we are not a nation of
| scientists and cannot be addressed as such.
|
| And yeah I'm sure there are a million "it's different
| behind the curtain" excuses for why things were done the
| way they were. Same way when things are designed by
| committee at a large company everyone involved is
| conveniently not individually responsible when things go
| wrong. I'm not sure what the precise solution is, I'm
| certainly not in a position to influence anything related
| to Fauci's/The CDC's messaging, but someone has to start
| taking actual personal responsibility for the outcomes,
| and be in a position to relieve those who have proven
| ineffective. Granted it may already be too late for that,
| people are entrenched hard.
| Kevin_S wrote:
| It's pretty insane to read "both sides" at this point.
|
| The idea that democrats and republicans are equal in this
| way is absurd.
| scottLobster wrote:
| It isn't "both sides" to point out failures in
| leadership.
|
| Say what you will about Republicans but their core
| messaging has been remarkably consistent and effective.
| The Democrats won a hard-fought chance to turn things
| around from a pandemic-leadership perspective, and then
| those leaders get caught up in ineffective lies (Fauci
| saying masks were likely ineffective to try and save
| supplies, which was a fool's errand) and unrelated
| culture wars.
|
| Are they better than the Trump administration?
| Absolutely. Have they made some egregious and completely
| avoidable errors? Also yes.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| floxy wrote:
| >According to the graph I get in Google the US is stuck on
| around 50% fully vaccinated.
|
| ...still seems like an upward trend at:
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-
| trac...
|
| ...according to the CDC % of Population >= 18 Years of Age
| who have had at least one dose is 75.7%.
|
| https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-
| tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-...
| Thlom wrote:
| Thanks. Maybe the data in Google is lagging or is showing
| percentage out of full population?
| blunte wrote:
| > complete and utter failure on all levels
|
| Is the < 100% number due to lack of availability of vaccine,
| inability of people to get to a location to receive the
| vaccine, or people simply not wanting to be vaccinated?
|
| There's an immense machine at work spreading FUD about the
| vaccine, and whole swaths of (mostly red) states where people
| refuse to get vaccinated.
|
| So at least some of the reason for the low vaccination rate
| is due to no fault of the system, but rather the parties with
| an interest in working against the system.
|
| I live in NL, and people here were anxiously waiting their
| turn (by age ranges) to get vaccinated. Meanwhile, one quick
| trip home to the US in May and I easily walked up to a
| Walgreens prescription counter, filled out a form, and got my
| free vaccination. It couldn't have been any easier. No
| appointments, no limitations, and no cost. That seems pretty
| successful to me.
| fy20 wrote:
| I live in another European country and people here were
| also patiently waiting there turn... and then those people
| got vaccinated and nobody else wants to. This week the
| government has put into effect new regulations that
| effectively ban unvaccinated people from going into many
| shops and restaurants, as a way of trying to encourage more
| people to take up vaccines. They are also selling excess
| vaccines to African countries.
| beervirus wrote:
| Booster shots aren't needed in the same way that masks weren't
| recommended at the beginning of the pandemic. Not because they
| don't help, but to save supplies for other people (health care
| workers for the masks, foreigners for the vaccine shots).
|
| I still plan to get a booster ASAP though.
| mactitan wrote:
| Informed consent disclosure to vaccine trial subjects of risk of
| COVID-19 vaccines worsening clinical disease
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7645850/
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| That's really burying the lede - all they are saying is that
| there should be bigger, more explicit forms given stating that
| that there is possibly a chance of ADE. That article doesn't
| even attempt to prove that as possiblity. They even admit that
| "Current data on COVID-19 vaccines is limited, but does not so
| far reveal evidence of ADE of disease."
| thrownaway561 wrote:
| ugh... can we please just get a medical expert to publish a
| report directly rather than having the media report it? I am so
| tried of the way the media twists things to suit their point of
| view or sensationalize things. I just want direct information...
| is that too hard to ask for?
| KoftaBob wrote:
| This is the direct link to the medical journal that this
| article is reporting on: https://www.thelancet.com/pb-
| assets/Lancet/pdfs/S01406736210...
| Anthony-G wrote:
| Thanks for the link to the source article. That URL might
| work for users who have an account with the Lancet but when I
| followed that link, I got a PDF containing the following
| text:
|
| > For full text of this paper please go to https://www.thelan
| cet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
|
| This URL (also posted earlier in another comment by _dfawcus_
| ) contains the journal article.
| varelse wrote:
| So one in 500 Americans have died of covid-19 at this point. If
| you get vaccinated, your chance of death from this stupid virus
| drops by a factor of 10. But apparently these are not good enough
| odds for those of us who consider ourselves armchair
| epidemiologists doing the research so to speak.
|
| So let's rephrase this. I just gave you a free ticket to Disney
| world. But what will make this trip to Disney world unlike any
| other trip you will ever have to Disney world is that for every
| 60 visitors I'm going to give a sniper a bullet. And that sniper
| gets to shoot anyone the sniper wants to shoot. Are you going to
| accept my free visit to Disney World?
|
| Because basically one in eight Americans have had covid-19 to the
| extent that their case was recorded. And 1:61 of those people
| then died of it.
|
| And and before you think I'm some sort of weird tyrant enabler, I
| support your right not to get vaccinated if you support my right
| to require you to be tested whenever you want to mix among the
| vaccinated.
|
| But what's funny is when anti-vaccine ideology was considered
| part of one political party that sort of viewpoint was just fine
| but now it's some sort of Nazi Germany outlook because reasons or
| something. What changed? For bonus points please explain how this
| is consistent with getting a cavity search every time you want to
| fly or you hate America.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It is arguably unethical to provide a rich person a third or
| fourth shot before helping the poor with their first shot.
|
| (it is also counterproductive, since the rich would benefit if
| the poor were immune. This applies to the current debate around
| natural immunity and mandates.)
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| By the same measure it is arguably far more unethical to
| provide a rich person ineffectual million-dollar cancer
| chemotherapy before helping the poor with malaria chemo-
| prevention that demonstrably saves a thousand lives...
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Not necessarily more unethical, because in your example we
| know that this contributes to future advances which
| eventually reach more people including the poor.
|
| With vaccines we know the end game, especially with an
| endemic virus.
| gentryb wrote:
| I put myself out there as a frontline healthcare worker and was
| vaccinated prior to Christmas. My second dose fell before the
| 1/20 time frame by over a week.
|
| It was a one-off thing for me - trying to help - did COVID
| testing and vaccination until late April... As one of the first
| groups of people to be vaccinated, I am concerned that my immune
| response is starting to lessen.
|
| It's sad and ironic that if I were the type to lie at all about
| this, I'd even have my state paying me to get a first vaccination
| - no ID required...
|
| It's a hard decision - and I suppose my actions may depend on how
| booster shots are or are not approved.
| setgree wrote:
| are you still on the frontline? If so I'd personally be _less_
| worried about getting severely ill because you 've probably had
| many small doses of exposure in your time there. Which is not
| _precisely_ equivalent to a vaccine but is in the same
| ballpark.
| gentryb wrote:
| I am not. I reported something and was fired the next day. I
| was also wearing a PAPR (N100 Powered Air Purifying
| Resperator) for the time I was doing testing. Though I was in
| close contact with many infected patients, I was also in
| pretty hardcore PPE. I'm doing much more photography for now
| and some music work as I find the right place in tech again.
| beamatronic wrote:
| "It's easier to regret something you have done, than something
| you haven't done"
| gentryb wrote:
| I so want to respond with Orbital lyrics... but this is a
| very good point.
| setgree wrote:
| I just got an unsanctioned booster in NY (a 2nd J&J). I expect a
| 2nd J&J, though classified as a booster, to provide an
| immunogenic response comparable to a second dose of Moderna or
| Pfizer; the fact that J&J marketed itself as a 1-dose rather than
| 2-dose solution seems to have been motivated by a desire to get
| to market faster [0] rather than something intrinsic about the
| vaccine, and we already know that one dose of J&J ~= one dose of
| Moderna/Pfizer [1].
|
| Now that many months have passed since our first dose, I think it
| makes sense for people who got Johnson & Johnson to get a second
| dose, and to treat it as a "full" dosage, equivalent to the
| Moderna/Pfizer/AZ shots.
|
| I basically decided to go it alone, and diverge from our public
| health experts, when the CDC started recommending boosters for
| people who got Moderna and Pfizer shots and _not_ for people who
| got J &J; as Alex Tabarrok pointed out at the time [2], that
| makes no sense. In light of that, I think we need to do our best
| to apply scientific reasoning to the issue, rather than deferring
| to people with scientific degrees and political authority.
|
| [0] https://apnews.com/article/which-virus-vaccine-shot-is-
| best-...
|
| [1]
| https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/02/si...
|
| [2]
| https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/th...
| adolph wrote:
| > I basically decided to go it alone . . . apply scientific
| reasoning to the issue
|
| Please be sure to publish the results of your study of one.
| setgree wrote:
| it's been two whole days since my booster and no covid yet :)
| adolph wrote:
| Ok, let's put that on PLOS and roll up some sleeves!
| shapefrog wrote:
| I hope it goes ok. If n=1 or 100% of the participants in this
| study trips over and falls, or has anything else out of the
| ordinary happen, then it means bad things for the other
| 7.9billion people when we extrapolate it up.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Get a 2nd dose of what? J&J? I'm in the same boat as you (also
| got J&J). I thought it was temporarily pulled off the market by
| the FDA too?
| setgree wrote:
| yes J&J, and yes, it's back on the market; it got pulled off
| for like a week or two in April but returned shortly
| thereafter:
|
| https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-
| and-...
| exo-pla-net wrote:
| You've convinced me to do the same. Thanks.
|
| Tip for anyone following suit: If you're worried that they'll
| "catch" that they've already vaccinated you, by seeing your
| name and address in their database, just claim that your
| parent/child has the same name and lives with you.
|
| You can search for a provider of your desired type of vaccine
| here: https://www.vaccines.gov/search/
| setgree wrote:
| You're welcome, I hope it goes well; of course I am not a
| doctor not a source of medical advice etc.
|
| RE: addresses: they just grabbed my driver's license and
| asked if I was still in the same address; the actual answer
| was no and I gave my new address. so you can say whatever
| you'd like
| henron wrote:
| The recent CDC study [1] suggests that vaccine efficacy against
| hospitalization for people 65+ is ~80% in the US. If we have
| reason to believe that a third vaccine dose would increase that
| efficacy, and the immunological data suggests that we do, then
| IMO it's clearly the right thing to do. Incontrovertible data
| will mean many seniors being hospitalized and dying in the
| interim.
|
| There's so much we can do to increase the global supply of
| vaccines without sacrificing American citizens. Let's focus on
| those things to improve vaccine equity.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e3.htm
| m0llusk wrote:
| Ah, yes. The eat your dinner because kids are starving in Africa
| argument. Too bad they didn't mention the exceptions such as
| people with damaged immune systems, but why bother trying to get
| things right when you are scoring political points?
| red_trumpet wrote:
| > Too bad they didn't mention the exceptions
|
| What are you talking about? From the article:
|
| > They did say booster doses could be appropriate for
| immunocompromised people, and indeed that population can get a
| third dose of an mRNA vaccine.
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