[HN Gopher] Covid-19 breakthrough data
___________________________________________________________________
Covid-19 breakthrough data
Author : nojito
Score : 46 points
Date : 2022-01-16 15:24 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (coronavirus.health.ny.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (coronavirus.health.ny.gov)
| argvargc wrote:
| To enjoy an interesting and arguably also somewhat more accurate
| experience reading articles such as these, try mentally replacing
| the term "vaccine breakthrough" with "vaccine failure". Going to
| hospital is not protection.
| responsivity wrote:
| How have you found the article to be more interesting when
| doing this substitution? Did you find it more accurate as well,
| and if so how?
| argvargc wrote:
| It creates a more neutral impression of the vaccines
| efficacy. The use of the term "breakthrough case" seems
| entirely geared toward downplaying ineffectiveness. Why not
| simply call it failure when the vaccine fails?
| tremon wrote:
| Why would that be more accurate? A total vaccine failure would
| imply that a fully vaccinated person died from Covid, no?
| argvargc wrote:
| So if someone was permanently disabled it's a success? What
| about in hospital 8 weeks but eventually recovered? It's hard
| to understand why this needs to be debated. Why is it _so
| bad_ to simply admit it _failed_ to protect?
|
| Even if we set the bar at death I guarantee someone would
| step up and say: "Yes, but they would've died even sooner
| without the vaccine! Oh come ye let us praise it". The
| religious fervour is bizarre. Let's face it - the vaccines
| are a bit shit.
| pelasaco wrote:
| I'm full vaccinated and boosted. This week my antigen test is
| positive. I had some flu symptoms (fever, pain in my body,
| coughing) but nothing really hard. I'm still not 100%, but I'm
| fine. I'm 40 years old, on my weight and do regular sports (5x
| week). I dont smoke neither drink. Got it probably in the fitness
| studio. I will stay at home until my test is negative. I have 0
| incentive to go to the hospital do a PCR test and be officially
| forced in a 2 weeks isolation.
| sschueller wrote:
| I don't know where you are located but here in Switzerland I
| would definitely want the positive PCR test as proof. Although
| it may no longer be needed as it looks like this will be over
| soon the confirmation of an infection is treated here almost
| like a vaccination. So you will get a certificate extension
| etc. The isolation time here has been reduced to 5 days with
| minimum 2 days symptom free.
| tylersmith wrote:
| Here in the US there is no upside to having proof of
| infection. It doesn't relieve you of needing vaccination or
| false tests in any situation.
|
| Edit: not false tests; true negative tests.
| [deleted]
| sschueller wrote:
| That doesn't make much sense when looking at hospital data.
| The previously infected have the lowest hospital
| administrations vs even the vaccinated.
|
| If you are double vaxed and get infected it make zero sense
| to also get a booster unless you have an immune system
| issue.
| taeric wrote:
| It makes sense to not make getting it an incentive. They
| do well, if they survive. But they also have much larger
| risk of bad outcomes.
| kleiba wrote:
| That view is not supported by all vaccination
| researchers. The argument against that line of thought is
| that your immune response to, say, omicron is very
| specific toward that variant. Consequently, if you catch
| omicron, that does not mean you're automatically
| protected against other variants.
| peteradio wrote:
| How likely is that to pan out, viruses of the common cold
| gives cross reactive immunity to sars-cov-2?
| dave78 wrote:
| A problem in the US is that many people who are
| politically right-leaning have been talking up natural
| immunity, which means the left-leaning people in charge
| of the local, state, and federal government where
| mandates are in place are unwilling to acknowledge
| natural immunity because they want to "own the cons" or
| something like that.
| pelasaco wrote:
| I just got the booster, because it makes the life easier.
| For example: To go to fitness studio or restaurants.
| Either you are double vaxed + 24 hours test or you are
| double vaxed + boosted, then you don't need a test. So I
| boosted. 3 shots biontech/pfizer. Now I'm positive. If I
| wanted, I could still go to fitness studio and
| restaurant, even being positive, which really doesn't
| make sense to me.
| CountGeek wrote:
| Firstly you have succumbed to coercion by getting
| vaccinated to resuming your normal previous life
| activities. After 6 months you'll need another booster to
| continue having a valid pass. It's a never-ending cycle
| now.
|
| Secondly you have realised first hand that vaccines
| passes give a false of sense of security.
| xeromal wrote:
| Any chance you remember where you read the reinfection
| data?
| sschueller wrote:
| On Page 27 and 28 of the daily reports [1] from the city
| of Zurich you can see the hospitalization and ICU rates.
|
| [1] https://www.zh.ch/content/dam/zhweb/bilder-
| dokumente/themen/...
| pridkett wrote:
| It makes it easier for most cases of international travel.
| In a lot of contexts if you're vaccinated + boosted +
| recovered in the last 90 days, you can just travel and not
| worry about the result of the COVID test you need to return
| to the United States as long as you have a letter stating
| recovery.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Not in my experience. Despite being fully vaxxed, I had
| to get tested every time I entered a country including
| coming back to the US. A recent two leg EU trip required
| a total of 6 tests - each of them with complex timing
| requirements and the total cost was ~$500.
| pelasaco wrote:
| In Europe if you are double vaccinated + boosted, you
| don't need a test to travel by plane.
| pelasaco wrote:
| Germany, but what is the upside to do the PCR test? You get
| officially in Isolation and can get a visit from the
| regulatory office to check if you are at home. AFAICS there
| is no upside. You won't get any treatment protocol, any help.
| You just get more pressure over you. I won't have the proof
| of recovery, but actually I don't need it since I have all
| certificates (2 shots + booster). That's make me think if
| this whole thing makes sense: As it is now, I can go
| everywhere (even with an antigen positive), because I have
| the booster certificate and therefore I don't have to test
| myself. The only real meaningful approach would be test
| everyone, everywhere regardless of the vaccination.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| I think getting a PCR test would be pretty good, since with
| catching it. You have an "additional protection" lasting
| several months.
|
| Since the booster stays effective ~10 weeks, it could be
| possible that you don't need to get an additional booster
| between March-June. ( depends on a lot of variables ofc.
| I'm currently vaccinated and not boostered and not
| immediately planning on taking a booster based on the
| previous variant for a "relatively" harmless virus for
| vaccinated people)
| ryandrake wrote:
| You should be isolating either way. Just because you can go
| everywhere doesn't mean you should. People going out and
| about while unknowingly positive is why this thing won't
| end. Testing positive and deliberately not isolating is
| even worse.
|
| You're right though: If you look at it only through the
| lens of individual incentives, the official test has no
| upside. One of the huge problems with governments'
| responses to this pandemic is they are not closing these
| loopholes. People will take the most convenient option, not
| necessarily the one benefiting public health. To align
| individual and societal incentives, governments need to
| make not-isolating when infectious more inconvenient/costly
| than isolating.
| pelasaco wrote:
| but did you read what I wrote? I will stay at home
| isolated until I'm negative. So for sure I will stay
| home. What I question is how good is the idea of
| "vaccination + booster" vs "lets test everyone,
| everywhere" specially now that is more or less clear that
| Omicron can go through the vaccines.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Oops, missed that you are the same person as grandparent
| post.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| If you get a long covid symptom and want to be treated for
| that it might be smart to keep your medical records up to
| date. Hard to know what the future brings on long covid and
| treatments for it.
|
| Or conceivably in a year they have two vaccines, one is
| more suitable for those that are recovered, the other more
| suitable for those who never had it. Which one will they
| give you?
| pelasaco wrote:
| I think thats FUD. I will be able to tell if I had it or
| not. Maybe I had it while not in here? Maybe I had it and
| didn't realize? It is for sure not an incentive to do the
| bureaucratic necessary dance.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| I know this isn't as much the case these days, but as of
| late 2020 several of the long COVID clinics in my area
| were only accepting patients if they could demonstrate a
| positive test. Presumably that requirement has laxed
| lately though.
| [deleted]
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Everyone I know that is getting COVID-19 lately is vaccinated.
| Everyone I know that didn't get vaccinated hasn't even been sick.
| ChicagoDave wrote:
| "Everyone I know" is anecdotal and most people that use this
| language are outright lying. Trump is an expert at "They're
| saying things are bad" and of course some people believe this
| nonsense. "Everyone" and "They" are propaganda tools.
|
| Make a claim. Provide the evidence.
|
| Otherwise you're just one of the people that refuses to accept
| reality.
| argvargc wrote:
| Your criticism comes across as very close to what you're
| criticising. You've provided only your anecdotal evidence,
| whilst creating another "they" - "one of those people" - that
| you same-breath decry as the tool of propagandists.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| What a ridiculous comment. The OP is not "denying reality" if
| his experience is as he stated. On the contrary, he would be
| denying reality if he would believe his observations have to
| be wrong.
|
| It is not reasonable to ask for "evidence" for his
| observations, either, as that is impossible to provide. Not
| even the article posted here provides any evidence, you just
| chose to trust them as an institution.
|
| He did not write an article for publication, it is just a
| comment in an internet forum. It is absolutely OK to report
| personal experiences in that context.
| pizza234 wrote:
| The article starts with a statistic (as opposed to anecdote):
|
| > These findings demonstrate that such cases and
| hospitalizations have occurred in New York State, but at levels
| substantially lower than among unvaccinated people
|
| Of course, one could argue that New York State doesn't make a
| large scale statistic, but it's still far from being anecdata.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| mhh__ wrote:
| Which studies?
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/news/statementsandletters/coronavi
| rus...
|
| "those who have received three doses of a vaccine and
| test positive for COVID-19 are more likely to be infected
| with infections compatible with the Omicron variant
| compared with those who are unvaccinated"
| thanatosmin wrote:
| "Note that this is the probability of an infection being
| Omicron given a person is infected, so it doesn't tell us
| how likely a person is to test positive in the first
| place."
| zach_miller wrote:
| Feels like that's more a statement about the efficacy of
| the vaccine against Delta vs Omicron. "...and test
| positive for COVID-19..." already narrows the groups down
| to only the positive cases, it's not a statement about
| those groups' relative sizes.
| taeric wrote:
| That... Is a different statement. It says that they are
| more likely to have a specific variant, given that they
| got infected. It did not say they are more likely to get
| infected. Right?
| manfredzab wrote:
| You're misinterpreting (unintentionally or otherwise)
| this statement.
|
| All this is saying is that P(Omicron variant | positive
| test AND 3x vaccine) > P(Omicron variant | positive test
| AND no vaccine).
|
| In no way this is implying P(Getting Omicron | 3x
| vaccine) > P(Getting Omicron | no vaccine).
| jeffesp wrote:
| You cut the sentence in the middle: "though individuals
| who had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine
| continued to be less likely to test positive for
| COVID-19, regardless of variant." Which does not mean the
| unvaccinated are more likely to get omicron like you
| originally claimed. Just that if they are infected it is
| more likely to be omicron. Which means the vaccine is
| less effective against omicron than other variants, which
| we already know.
| peteradio wrote:
| When you are given priors you have to be very careful
| about what answer you are getting actually says. It says
| there are different viral profile in one group vs the
| other when we explicitly select for people with virus.
| Doesn't really tell us the detail involved of actually
| getting the virus.
| donaldihunter wrote:
| That para makes 2 more important points:
|
| "Vaccination status: those who have received three doses
| of a vaccine and test positive for COVID-19 are more
| likely to be infected with infections compatible with the
| Omicron variant compared with those who are unvaccinated,
| though individuals who had received at least one dose of
| a COVID-19 vaccine continued to be less likely to test
| positive for COVID-19, regardless of variant. It is too
| early to draw conclusions from our data on the
| effectiveness of vaccines against the Omicron variant."
| mhh__ wrote:
| And when was it censored?
|
| I note that it says "It is too early to draw conclusions
| from our data on the effectiveness of vaccines against
| the Omicron variant." also.
|
| Does it mean more likely to get infected (given the same
| exposure) or more likely to _be_ infected? The difference
| is quite important.
| drno123 wrote:
| For example, check pages 30, 36 and 42 of the following
| report from Scotland:
|
| https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/11089/22-01-12-co
| vid...
| drewg123 wrote:
| That's interesting. I wonder if most of the unvaccinated
| population has already been infected with an older
| variant of covid-19, and if that previous infection
| provides a more effective immune response than the
| vaccine for omicron?
| drno123 wrote:
| Either that, or vaccinated people are behaving as if they
| are fully protected and do not take care, while
| unvaccinated are more cautious. Recent data from Denmark
| shows the similr outcomes.
| wand3r wrote:
| Can you post one of these articles?
|
| What is the contention, people who are vaccinated are more
| likely to get omicron?
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Here is the Pfizer-CEO board member approved truth
| ministry version:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-omicronvariant-
| bre...
|
| Basically, statistics only matter when it shows what they
| want you to see, but when it says that triple vaxxed are
| 8% more likely to get Omicron than unvaxxed then you are
| drawing conclusions.
| wand3r wrote:
| I dont really appreciate the conspiratorial or political
| framing, but I will contend that these results seem to
| support your claim.
| rubyfan wrote:
| It's ironic that the article is about people using the
| study to spread misinformation about the results of the
| study.
|
| _Social media users are misrepresenting these findings
| (on Omicron's apparent ability to breakthrough vaccine
| protection) by saying those vaccinated are more
| susceptible to infection overall._
| thanatosmin wrote:
| "Note that this is the probability of an infection being
| Omicron given a person is infected, so it doesn't tell us
| how likely a person is to test positive in the first
| place."
| [deleted]
| ttfkam wrote:
| Did you read the whole article you linked? It doesn't say
| the vaccinated get Covid more often than unvaccinated.
| (They don't.) It doesn't say the vaccinated get Omicron
| more than unvaccinated. (They don't.)
|
| It merely says the vaccinated are infected by Omicron
| more than other variants like Delta. That's it. In other
| words, the vaccines are quite effective against Delta,
| but due to mutation, Omicron can slip past immunity a
| little easier.
|
| The vast majority of folks in hospitals and the morgues
| from Covid (Alpha, Delta, or Omicron) nowadays are
| unvaccinated.
| jscheel wrote:
| Did you even read the article you posted below (since flagged,
| not by me)? It outlines the study's results, which very clearly
| say that the results only show that omicron is effective at
| evading vaccines, and do not indicate any increased
| susceptibility based on vaccine use. It describes its results
| as "a measure of how well Omicron evades the vaccines compared
| to Delta." It also states, "from our recent characteristics
| release, we also see that unvaccinated people overall are _more
| likely_ to test positive for COVID-19, regardless of variant "
| (emphasis mine). Not to mention the test-hesitancy of the un-
| vaccinated population. You need to stop spreading misleading
| interpretations.
| wand3r wrote:
| Did the downstream thread get flagged? I replied to this
| comment and I only see 3-4 replies now. I can still view my own
| comment in context but it isn't appearing.
| responsivity wrote:
| What can we conclude / what should we do based on this
| information?
| [deleted]
| awb wrote:
| Interesting that while the odds of the vaccine protecting against
| infection are near all-time lows (mid 70s), vaccine protection
| against hospitalization is near all-time highs (mid-90s).
|
| Also interesting that this data treats 14-days+ after last shot
| as fully vaccinated, so presumably two-shot and three-shot people
| are both treated as "fully vaccinated".
|
| > Fully-vaccinated people may have received additional or booster
| doses, which are not specifically accounted for in this analysis.
| Mystlix wrote:
| you are protected from infection only if you have a huge number
| of antibodies since they can immediately overpower the virus
| when it gets in. when the antibodies are few and the virus
| comes in you have to wait for the trained t-cells to produce
| enough of them to again overpower the virus, so you get sick
| for a short time and then get better. of course the quality of
| a vaccine determines how quickly and effectively the dormant
| t-cells are able to produce antibodies, so a very very very
| good vaccine can even protect from infection years after
| inoculation, and that's why the CDC has recently asked for more
| research in order to produce these kind of vaccines for the
| long term
| peteradio wrote:
| I wouldn't even call it "very very very good vaccine". It's
| just a different problem each vaccine has to solve. Some
| problems are inherently harder: flu, coronavirus, hiv
| Mystlix wrote:
| I know, but with the technology we are able to employ
| nowadays I think it's reasonable to push for vaccines that
| protect people for 20 years like the one for hepatitis.
| Hell, now we can even think about curing cancer with mRNA,
| I think a strong flu/corona virus might be within our
| limits
| pstoll wrote:
| Interesting point I heard about why we don't (yet) have a
| vaccine for HIV where we do for COVID - the human body can
| fight COVID. Ie we mount an immune response and some people
| survive and recover on their own. This is largely not true
| with HIV - the human body hasalmost no ability to mount its
| own response.
|
| Making a vaccine is more straightforward (ie we expect to
| be able to) when we know there is a response by our own
| immune systems - hence we expected to be able to make a
| COVID vaccine (although the time scale is still an amazing
| accomplishment - thanks 20+ years of mRNA research!). And
| we are still working on a vaccine for HIV.
| rsynnott wrote:
| That's probably essentially what you'd expect with omicron,
| which is more effective at immune escape but appears less
| effective at causing serious illness (at least in vaccinated
| and previously infected people).
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Short of a vaccine that prevents infection isn't this the
| best case scenario?
| awb wrote:
| If it provides immunity to the other more deadly variants
| and competes with them, then yes, but I haven't seen that
| data yet. Otherwise, it's just a supplemental virus.
| throwawaybutno wrote:
| Published effectiveness against Omicron infection is under 10%.
| This data is simply wrong.
| awb wrote:
| Source?
| FabHK wrote:
| Maybe the data you are citing is "simply wrong". Or maybe
| different studies at different locations and times with
| different methodologies have different outcomes. Science is
| messy.
| pstoll wrote:
| Figure it's relevant to this thread - Eric Topol (very
| credentialed medical researcher) does a pretty good overview &
| summary on how the vaccines are doing.
|
| https://erictopol.substack.com/p/were-very-lucky
| bbarnett wrote:
| _If there were enough vaccines for everyone around the world to
| get the protection equivalent of 3-shots, and people took them,
| the pandemic would be over now_
|
| This is a very bizarre assertion.
|
| Given that, the vaccinated spread covid, even with no symptoms,
| vaccination status does not limit spread.
|
| No amount of vaccinated people, will end the pandemic.
|
| Note that, to spread covid, it must be replicating in the body.
| Therefore, as it is replicating in the vaccinated, it will
| continue to mutate and evolve.
|
| There will never, ever be an end to the pandemic, due to
| existing vaccines.
|
| Ever.
| responsivity wrote:
| Maybe if everyone got it all at once (and before omicron
| perhaps)? Idk tho these are all hypotheticals
| lolc wrote:
| Given that Omicron is assumed to have replicated in an
| animal population (mice) for a year, we should expect there
| to be other variants in animals. Even if we managed to
| vaccinate all humans at the same time, we'd likely see a
| new breakout a year or so down the line when immunity wanes
| in the human population.
|
| Covd19 has been endemic for two years now. And it will be
| endemic until we find better vaccines. At that point, we'll
| probably be ready to wipe out the flu as well.
| asimpletune wrote:
| I mean, I think it really all comes down to numbers, and also
| agreeing on reasonable definitions of what words like "over
| now" mean.
|
| That being said, vaccines have stopped effectively ended
| viruses before, e.g. polio (again, for counter examples
| please refer to my comment about reasonable definitions).
| Therefore it's clear that vaccines can achieve this effect,
| and really what lies in question is how hard is it?
|
| So, I think there are people who study this stuff, and I
| think it's also probably pretty complicated because there are
| a lot of variables as well as unknowns. E.g. how effective is
| the vaccine, how contagious is the virus, how does it spread,
| the incubation period, for how long is it contagious, etc..
|
| Ok, bearing all that in mind saying
|
| > No amount of vaccinated people, will end the pandemic.
|
| Is itself a bizarre assertion. Maybe in your gut it seems
| that way, but that's not really how we know stuff in real
| life. The author even said
|
| 1.) if there were enough vaccines for everyone for
|
| 2.) 3-shots of protection and
|
| 3.) if people took them
|
| Then the pandemic would be over... I think that more or less
| makes sense. I'm not saying it's realistic, because #3 seems
| to be the problem in countries that have enough vaccines for
| everyone (like the USA).
|
| In any case, he's a doctor, I think he knows more than you
| do, I trust his reasoning is based off well-informed
| assumptions, and you're just convinced that it could never
| happen.
|
| So do you care to elaborate how "No amount of vaccinated
| people, will end the pandemic."? If 100% of people were
| vaccinated, would that not end the pandemic? I think it comes
| down to the numbers, so how do the numbers support your
| argument?
| peteradio wrote:
| What exactly is the point of an unattainable hypothetical
| like that? Its not falsifiable and therefore totally
| unscientific.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Appealing to authority, is a logical fallacy. He's not
| right due to credentials.
|
| You've glossed over very important parts of my post. I did
| edit it within 3 minutes of posting, so you may be
| responding to an alternate.
|
| My point is:
|
| - the current vaccines do not stop spread due to, and in
| the vaccinated
|
| Everyone agrees on this.
|
| - for spread to occur, the virus must replicate, therefore
| it can mutate even in the vaccinated
|
| This is just viral 101.
|
| - therefore, current vaccines cannot stop spread and
| mutation, therefore they cannot stop the pandemic
| gilbetron wrote:
| You should probably take Viral 101 over again. Vaccines
| definitely reduce transmission - current vaccines,
| however, are barely, if at all, effective against
| Omicron.
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS147
| 3-3...
|
| IF we had been able to vaccinate 90%+ of the world by the
| start of last summer, this pandemic had a good chance of
| ending. Delta made it much more difficult, and Omicron
| crushed that option.
|
| "it's possible for a variant to come out that gets around
| all vaccinations every time, so therefore vaccines can't
| stop the pandemic" means that you definitely failed Viral
| 101.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Even with Omicron, if everybody were vaccinated, the
| pandemic would be over, and we could open up society with
| endemic Covid, with hospitalization for a fully
| vaccinated population being lower than seasonal flu.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _You should probably take Viral 101 over again. Vaccines
| definitely reduce transmission_
|
| This is a third order effect, not first. They do not
| reduce transmission, instead they increase immune
| response, thus reducing replication, thus reducing
| transmission.
|
| This is a vital point here.
|
| Second, please take care. At no point did I ever say
| "vaccines don't reduce transmission". That is a general
| statement, mine was specific, about current covid
| vaccines only.
|
| Covid is a unique beast, able to spread for weeks without
| creating a strong immune response, and therefore,
| symptoms. Other viruses seem to spread much later, and
| typically only when symptoms are shown.
|
| This is what makes covid so spreadable, dangerous. It may
| also be why successful spread is difficult to stop even
| when vaccinated. After all, this happened with delta too.
|
| EDIT: going to add here.
|
| COVID is in mice, deer, dogs and cats as a minimum, and
| other mammals are strongly suspected.
|
| A recent HN story cited a paper, where a researcher
| believes covid jumped from human to mouse, mutated to
| omicron, and jumped back to human.
|
| So, regardless of the spread and mutation happening in
| the currently vaccinated, we have spread and mutation in
| other mammals. Including ones in our homes.
|
| Think on that a bit, please people.
| pstoll wrote:
| No one gets a free pass, for sure, but he's a pretty
| qualified thinker of things medical and health. So coming
| here and calling him out on it should probably warrant a bit
| more than a "uhn uhn".
|
| (Edited - asimpletune above said it more eloquently than I
| did!)
| peteradio wrote:
| "pretty qualified thinkers" are putting out all sorts of
| thought provoking ideas with no intention of being right
| all the time.
| bbarnett wrote:
| My comment, agree or not, stated precisely why his logic
| was flawed.
|
| Further, appealing to authority is a logical fallacy. The
| facts count.
| drewg123 wrote:
| I wonder how under-reported mild breakthrough cases are, due to
| self testing?
|
| I'm fully vaccinated and boosted, and I had what I suspect is
| Omicron about 10 days ago. I had a mild fever (approaching, but
| not reaching 101), a sore throat, sneezing and nasal congestion
| for 3-4 days, and I tested positive with an over the counter
| rapid test. Overall, it was like a very minor cold. My girlfriend
| also tested positive, and she had no symptoms at all.
|
| I never got any "official" test (I didn't want to put additional
| strain on the health care system), so my case was not counted in
| any official stats. If I hadn't tested positive, my girlfriend
| would not have even tested, and her case would have been totally
| unknown.
| awb wrote:
| > I wonder how under-reported mild breakthrough cases are, due
| to self testing?
|
| I bet Google & Facebook have enough metadata to measure it more
| accurately.
|
| I personally know of a dozen or so unreported positives (both
| tested positive and presumed positive), compared to two
| reported positives.
| pstoll wrote:
| Lots of people are looking at local waste-water COVID testing
| data as a way to get prevalence in an area.
|
| Here's my local area - note the scale!
|
| https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm
|
| And the US CDC program for this national effort:
| https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/surveillance/wastewater-
| sur...
| roamerz wrote:
| Probably a statistic that they don't want have in their
| possession anyhow.
| pstoll wrote:
| He didn't go the hospital. That doesn't change the
| overwhelmingly positive benefits of "hospitalization rates".
| roamerz wrote:
| I agree. However I am fed up with the cdc, youtube,
| facebook and others trying to control the narrative in any
| way they can. For instance not considering past infection
| as equal to a vaccination. Follow the science or don't but
| do whatever truthfully. The next time when the cdc needs us
| to have faith in their recommendations we won't have. This
| shouldn't even be fathomable but here we are.
| javagram wrote:
| > For instance not considering past infection as equal to
| a vaccination
|
| The CDC has published data on this multiple times...
| Vaccination seems to be more protective than a past
| infection. A past infection is approximately equal to a
| single dose of a two-dose vaccine.
|
| e.g. CDC MMWR August 2021,
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm
| "These findings suggest that among persons with previous
| SARS-CoV-2 infection, full vaccination provides
| additional protection against reinfection. To reduce
| their risk of infection, all eligible persons should be
| offered vaccination, even if they have been previously
| infected with SARS-CoV-2."
| twofornone wrote:
| The vast majority of cases don't end up in the hospital,
| vaccinated or otherwise. People seem to forget this fact.
| pstoll wrote:
| The "only 1% will die" argument, sure I remember that one
| from early days.
|
| But hospitals are currently overwhelmed with mostly
| voluntarily unvaccinated people. My advice is don't break
| your arm or get in a car accident or have a heart attack
| right now - it could be lethal because health care
| resources are at a breaking point (in the US).
| Lammy wrote:
| Truly a novel situation we find ourselves in:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=intitle%3Ahospitals+intit
| le%...
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=intitle%3Ahospitals+intit
| le%...
| pstoll wrote:
| I think activating "crisis standards of care" is a bit
| more substantial and worrying than any previous claims of
| being simply "overwhelmed" which could be subjective.
| This is what we are seeing here in the US.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=intitle%3Ahospitals+intit
| le%...
| javagram wrote:
| Check the death statistics instead of headlines and
| you'll see it truly is a novel situation - no previous
| year saw as many Americans die as 2020 and 2021. And
| excess deaths correspond closely to regions that saw high
| reported COVID-19 deaths, indicating "COVID-19 deaths"
| are people who would not have died had they not been
| infected with and killed by COVID-19.
|
| 2022 death rates are still high, nearing 2000 people
| killed by COVID-19 daily. We can hope that due to the
| death toll hitting mostly the unvaccinated, plus omicron
| being a somewhat milder than Delta, we won't possibly be
| able to hit the same high death rates all year long.
| Lammy wrote:
| No previous year saw as many Americans live as 2020 and
| 2021 either :)
|
| https://www.census.gov/popclock/
|
| https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=PEPNATMONTHLY202
| 1.N...
| Eldt wrote:
| Good thing births offset deaths :)
| twofornone wrote:
| I don't think this is as widespread as people believe.
| Certain locales tend to be overwhelmed at any given time,
| but I don't think that's the case for the majority of
| hospitals in the country. Unfortunately I don't have any
| statistics.
|
| >But hospitals are currently overwhelmed with mostly
| voluntarily unvaccinated people
|
| This has been the narrative for a while now, but as
| vaccination rates increase the ratio of
| vaccinated:unvaccinated hospitalized patients is
| approaching and surpassing parity. And some not so recent
| government data from the UK[0] (I haven't seen any media
| report on it) suggests that for a number of age ranges,
| vaccinated individuals have a similar death rate per
| person-year, i.e. vaccines are not doing nearly as much
| as claimed. This data is pre omicron.
|
| 0. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/bi
| rthsde... - check table 7 in the spreadsheet. Maybe I'm
| misinterpreting something?
| pstoll wrote:
| > as vaccination rates increase the ratio of
| vaccinated:unvaccinated hospitalized patients is
| approaching and surpassing parity.
|
| Parity as in 1:1? Because I'm pretty sure raw counts and
| case rates are still nowhere near parity. You mentioned
| data by age ranges as well.
|
| This commentary on a new study is pretty good: https://tw
| itter.com/zeynep/status/1482501951065661440?s=21
|
| Pointing to this recent study:
| https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-
| statistics.htm...
| Proven wrote:
| SoylentOrange wrote:
| Here in Ontario Canada, the official government guidance is to
| _not_ get tested if you have a mild case, due to a province-
| wide shortage of PCR tests [1]. Several friends have likely
| contracted COVID in the past 2 weeks (38-39 degree fever for
| 2-4 days with some coughing). Nothing serious enough to go to
| the hospital, but enough to take some time off work. All their
| cases are also unreported.
|
| [1]: https://globalnews.ca/news/8480752/ontario-covid-pcr-
| testing...
| mlyle wrote:
| Here's a piece of data I've been following, for Santa Clara
| County:
|
| https://covid19.sccgov.org/dashboard-case-rates-vaccination-...
|
| The number --- 871 cases per day per 100,000 unvax'd, for the
| week preceding 1/10-- is an amazing rate (7 day average). It
| tells us that 6.1% of the unvaxxed population _became a case_
| during a 1 week period. This doesn 't count people who were
| infected and did not test or did not test in a way that got
| reported.
|
| Your point about whether mild infections are slipping through
| is interesting. Probably the vaccinated have more
| paucisymptomatic infections. The unvaccinated and vaccinated
| probably test at different rates (which way? required workplace
| testing of unvaxxed vs. unvaxxed more likely to be deniers who
| don't want to test). Etc. So there's some confounds here, for
| sure. But boy that 871 per 100k number is fascinating.
|
| Without reinfection (which we don't suspect is likely for
| Omicron-following-Omicron), it certainly can't stay at 6% of
| the population per week for long. I doubt they have spotted
| more than a third of infections.
| brg wrote:
| In my area all self-tests are connected and must be digitally
| reported. However self-diagnosis may be a cause of
| underreporting.
| chadlavi wrote:
| hundreds of thousands in NYC alone. I'm one of them too,
| similar situation to your gf. Triple vaxed, was asymptomatic
| but got positive home tests across different brands. Was unable
| to get a PCR test, so I didn't get in the official numbers.
| parkingrift wrote:
| Based on the positivity rate I would guess that the "official"
| count is off by a factor of 3-10.
|
| I haven't seen such absurd lines lately in NYC, but I also
| don't see any compelling reason for most people to go get an
| official test.
| twofornone wrote:
| >Current estimates of cases and hospitalizations by vaccine
| status, and vaccine effectiveness
|
| Estimate is the key word here. It's really difficult for me to
| trust official figures given that omicron appears to be spreading
| virtually unabated across the world regardless of vaccination
| rates. There's far too much political (state and corporate)
| pressure to paint a "safe and effective" picture.
|
| As others have pointed out, people in the US are simply not
| reporting breakthrough cases. There is no incentive. The majority
| of my fully vaccinated remote workers at have recently tested
| positive, presumably for omicron. Yet our small startup has still
| chosen to announce mandates for all, including remote workers.
| This all feels a lot more like blind faith than science at this
| point.
| wand3r wrote:
| Does anyone have data on boosted death rate?
|
| It is really hard to find stats. "Vaccinated" is such a difficult
| term because it can encompass J&J from nearly a year ago for
| example. I see some breakdowns by vax supplier vs
| hospitalizations.
|
| Really would like to know how many people who have taken the
| booster have died from covid ideally with age data.
| [deleted]
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _A total of 843,208 participants met the eligibility
| criteria, of whom 758,118 (90%) received the booster during the
| 54-day study period. Death due to Covid-19 occurred in 65
| participants in the booster group (0.16 per 100,000 persons per
| day) and in 137 participants in the nonbooster group (2.98 per
| 100,000 persons per day). The adjusted hazard ratio for death
| due to Covid-19 in the booster group, as compared with the
| nonbooster group, was 0.10 (95% confidence interval, 0.07 to
| 0.14; P <0.001)._
|
| * https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2115624
|
| 0.16 versus 2.98 per 100,000. 90% reduction.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Closest I've seen -
| https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1482501951065661440?s=20
|
| Source - https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-
| statistics.htm...
|
| The answer seems to be extremely few boosted deaths, especially
| under 80. You are at more risk unvaccinated in your 40s than
| boosted in your 80s.
| Proven wrote:
| > You are at more risk unvaccinated in your 40s than boosted
| in your 80s.
|
| At more risk from Covid19 during first eight weeks after the
| booster, yes.
|
| But you're at more risk from other shit. And maybe even from
| Covid19 after eight weeks.
| wand3r wrote:
| Thanks! At least provides a bit of a window into what is
| going on
| webscalist wrote:
| - Population is considered fixed (or growing very slowly)
|
| - More people get vaccinated: A
|
| - Less people remain unvaccinated: A' (=1-A)
|
| - More people get infected: B
|
| B/A' will of course grow more rapidly than B/A
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Statistics professors everywhere just giving a long, sad sigh.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| B/A' and B/A are nonsensical statistics that nobody tracks. The
| figures people report are infected vaccinated individuals over
| A and infected unvaccinated individuals over A'.
| responsivity wrote:
| Isn't there a corresponding B' involved here? Or am I just
| dumb.
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| One thing to note is that the effectiveness metric also includes
| the behavioral and populational differences.
|
| I'd personally really like to know what the metric would be if
| (hypothetically, just for analysis) the vaccine was a placebo.
| For example, if the people who get the vaccine are generally more
| able to work from home, then the metric would still be
| significantly above zero.
|
| Just for clarity, I believe that the vaccine is effective, but I
| question the measurement methodology.
| awb wrote:
| We'll have to think of a different methodology because it's not
| ethical to issue placebo vaccines during a pandemic.
| FabHK wrote:
| Well, antivaxxers would take the placebo. But they wouldn't
| take the vaccine. So you can't randomise the trial.
| FabHK wrote:
| I was serious with that comment. You can do longitudinal
| studies now, and people do, comparing
| infection/hospitalisation/death rates among vaccinated and
| unvaccinated people. But those have very serious
| confounders, namely that those who are still unvaccinated
| might behave rather different from everyone else.
|
| To overcome this, you'd need an RCT. But you're unlikely to
| find either a) unvaccinated people that want to be
| vaccinated, yet would be ok to get a placebo instead, or b)
| unvaccinated people that don't want to be vaccinated yet
| would be ok to get a vaccination instead.
| awb wrote:
| Agreed, not sure why you were downvoted.
| FabHK wrote:
| Well, one important confounder is age (older people tend to be
| more vaccinated), but they control for that.
|
| Many other confounders cannot easily be controlled for, but is
| there any reason to assume that they're correlated with the
| outcome? It could be that vaccinated people are more careful in
| terms of meeting other people.
|
| At any rate, we had big RCTs at the beginning that demonstrated
| efficacy against the then prevailing variant (alpha, I assume).
|
| It'll be tricky to repeat an RCT at this stage.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Another big confounder is household size.
| smorgusofborg wrote:
| I don't really get the example of being able to work from home,
| but I would expect differences are extremely regional/national.
|
| In some countries there's a formal labor law for doctors notes
| after X days that is known by all and which might mean your
| doctor checks and registers the case(?) in other places it is
| total discretion if a manager demands a note but rarely does in
| places that aren't shift work oriented.
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| With the WFH example - suppose that 1) WFH is issued by
| companies as a blanket policy (different from 2-week
| isolation from getting sick) 2) people who get the vaccine
| tend to be the ones that WFH, and 3) WFH allows for less
| exposure. In that case, the people who get the vaccine tend
| to have less exposure and fewer chances to get sick,
| regardless of vaccine efficacy.
| smorgusofborg wrote:
| There's definite vaccine rate differences in industries,
| but much of that might be largely explained by age
| demographics of industries..
|
| Given two people who WFH the vaccinated one can
| conveniently eat in a restaurant and go to the gym while
| the unvaccinated needs to get take out or is getting
| regular tests. I think vaccinated people have much more
| interaction with the virus unmasked in an indoor
| environment but much less likelihood of ever being tested
| when having light or no symptoms.
| throwawaybutno wrote:
| This data is really quite poor. It's adjusted based on a 2000
| census. It's also showing a 2 dose effectiveness of over 70%
| against Omicron which we know to be under 10%. If you're using
| this as an argument to get vaccinated, it's a bad one.
| nojito wrote:
| > It's also showing a 2 dose effectiveness of over 70% against
| Omicron which we know to be under 10%
|
| This isn't possible. If it were true, NYC would have collapsed
| during the Omicron wave due to bed shortages.
| tremon wrote:
| It would be possible if the hospitalization rate due to
| Omicron is also 7x lower than for the earlier variants. I
| don't have numbers in either direction, but given case loads
| rising everywhere yet recorded deaths remaining relatively
| stable, it's not a priori an impossibility.
|
| (edit: just checked the UK's stats over the past month:
| infections have peaked at 200k/day, 5x the baseline rate over
| the past few months. Daily deaths have doubled but not yet
| peaked, suggesting Omicron has at most a 2.5x reduction in
| severity -- usual caveats apply, this is very coarse data,
| IANAE etc)
| ttfkam wrote:
| > which we know to be under 10%
|
| Source?
| resource0x wrote:
| https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data#casesByVaccinationStatus
|
| Search for "hospital but not the ICU". Look above it for ICU
| stats. For "Not in ICU", it can be argued that even 10% is an
| overstatement. The author of the article, meanwhile, doesn't
| provide any sources whatsoever.
|
| Another interesting piece of data was recently removed from
| Got-t of Alberta website, but you can see it here:
| https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the-government-of-
| albert...
| curt15 wrote:
| The Ontario dashboard for "Not in ICU" currently shows 739
| unvaccinated and 2050 vaccinated. But since effectiveness
| compares rates, not absolute numbers, one needs to
| normalize those numbers by the size of each subpopulation.
| Since roughly 80 percent of Ontarios are vaxxed, the
| relative risk for being unvaccinated is approximately
|
| (739/0.2) / (2050/0.8) = 1.4
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-16 23:02 UTC)