Are Experts Underselling the Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccines? (nytimes.com) 193
David Leonhardt won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2011. This week in a New York Times newsletter, he argues that early in the pandemic experts around the world mistakenly discouraged mask use because of "a concern that people would rush to buy high-grade medical masks, leaving too few for doctors and nurses. The experts were also [at the time] unsure how much ordinary masks would help."
But are they now spreading a similarly misguided pessimism about vaccines? Right now, public discussion of the vaccines is full of warnings about their limitations: They're not 100 percent effective. Even vaccinated people may be able to spread the virus. And people shouldn't change their behavior once they get their shots...
"It's going to save your life — that's where the emphasis has to be right now," Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine said. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are "essentially 100 percent effective against serious disease," Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said. "It's ridiculously encouraging."
Here's my best attempt at summarizing what we know:
- The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines — the only two approved in the U.S. — are among the best vaccines ever created, with effectiveness rates of about 95 percent after two doses. That's on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. And a vaccine doesn't even need to be so effective to reduce cases sharply and crush a pandemic.
- If anything, the 95 percent number understates the effectiveness, because it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure. But turning Covid into a typical flu — as the vaccines evidently did for most of the remaining 5 percent — is actually a success. Of the 32,000 people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine in a research trial, do you want to guess how many contracted a severe Covid case? One.
Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did.
The article suggests less-positive messages are being conveyed in part because "As academic researchers, they are instinctively cautious, prone to emphasizing any uncertainty."
But the article ultimately concludes that in fact, "the evidence so far suggests that the vaccines are akin to a cure."
But are they now spreading a similarly misguided pessimism about vaccines? Right now, public discussion of the vaccines is full of warnings about their limitations: They're not 100 percent effective. Even vaccinated people may be able to spread the virus. And people shouldn't change their behavior once they get their shots...
"It's going to save your life — that's where the emphasis has to be right now," Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine said. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are "essentially 100 percent effective against serious disease," Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said. "It's ridiculously encouraging."
Here's my best attempt at summarizing what we know:
- The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines — the only two approved in the U.S. — are among the best vaccines ever created, with effectiveness rates of about 95 percent after two doses. That's on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. And a vaccine doesn't even need to be so effective to reduce cases sharply and crush a pandemic.
- If anything, the 95 percent number understates the effectiveness, because it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure. But turning Covid into a typical flu — as the vaccines evidently did for most of the remaining 5 percent — is actually a success. Of the 32,000 people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine in a research trial, do you want to guess how many contracted a severe Covid case? One.
Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did.
The article suggests less-positive messages are being conveyed in part because "As academic researchers, they are instinctively cautious, prone to emphasizing any uncertainty."
But the article ultimately concludes that in fact, "the evidence so far suggests that the vaccines are akin to a cure."
Better to under-promise and over-deliver (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only is under-promising and over-delivering better than the opposite, but it will also result in people still being careful after getting their vaccines. Shit can always go wrong; a batch can go bad and become ineffective, etc... So pushing the vaccination as a complete cure is not a good idea.
Re: Better to under-promise and over-deliver (Score:2, Informative)
There is also the concern that a vaccinated individual can be an asymptotic carrier of the disease, and so by flaunting restrictions they could spread the virus to those who are not vaccinated.
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Ok, I can understand that concern. How many cases have there been? Asymptomatic carriers, yes-- asymptomatic *vaccinated* carriers....? Haven't heard of one yet.
There's a concern that the vaccine could lead to spontaneous human combustion-- but the evidence so far is fairly slim. ;)
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Asymptomatic carriers, yes-- asymptomatic *vaccinated* carriers....? Haven't heard of one yet.
a) they are the same
b) not many ppl are vaccinated yet
Stop spreading that "asymptomatic carriers" BS (Score:5, Informative)
Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did. “If there is an example of a vaccine in widespread clinical use that has this selective effect - prevents disease but not infection - I can’t think of one!” Dr. Paul Sax of Harvard has written in The New England Journal of Medicine. (And, no, exclamation points are not common in medical journals.)
https://www.nejm.org/covid-vac... [nejm.org]
On Twitter, Dr. Monica Gandhi of the University of California, San Francisco, argued: “Please be assured that YOU ARE SAFE after vaccine from what matters - disease and spreading [twitter.com].”
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There's still 6 weeks or whatever before the vaccinations have totally kicked in. Especially for the first couple of weeks after the first shot, people have not built up immunity, can still get sick, though likely of decreasing severity and be infectious.
People are already asking if they have to continue to take precautions right after the first shot.
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From your citation:
Many commentaries on the results of the vaccine clinical trials cite a lack of information on asymptomatic infection as a limitation in our knowledge about the vaccines’ effectiveness. Indeed, this is a theoretical concern, since up to 40% of people who get infected with SARS-CoV-2 have no symptoms but may still transmit the virus to others.
So, until we know whether the vaccines protect against asymptomatic infection, we should continue to emphasize to our patients that vaccination does not allow us to stop other important measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19. We need to continue social distancing, masking, avoiding crowded indoor settings, and regular hand washing.
There are several good reasons to be optimistic about the vaccines’ effect on disease transmission. First, in the Moderna trial. opens in new tab, participants underwent nasopharyngeal swab PCR testing at baseline and again at week 4, when they returned for their second dose. Among those who were negative at baseline and without symptoms, 39 (0.3%) in the placebo group and 15 (0.1%) in the mRNA-1273 group had nasopharyngeal swabs that were positive for SARS-CoV-2 by PCR at week 4. These data suggest that even after one dose, the vaccine has a protective effect in preventing asymptomatic infection.
Second, findings from population-based studies now suggest that people without symptoms are less likely to transmit the virus to others. Third, many of the vaccines in wide use powerfully protect against both disease and transmission, so much so that infection control is one of the main motivators behind some vaccine policies. opens in new tab.
Since originally posting these comments, some of my colleagues have reminded me that certain vaccines allow asymptomatic colonization, and no doubt this will sometimes be true about the Covid-19 vaccines. Plus, the protective effect will never be 100%, which is why while case numbers are still high, we still recommend the use of social distancing and masking in public. These caveats notwithstanding, the likelihood that these vaccines will reduce the capacity to transmit the virus to others remains excellent. (Last reviewed/updated on 20 Jan 2021)
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You are generalising. There are those that can't due to a medical problem.
Re: Better to under-promise and over-deliver (Score:5, Insightful)
And also it's going to take a few months to get everyone done, so there will be plenty of people who aren't anti-vax, just not-vax-yet. You're helping them out as well by not spreading it.
9 months till USA is vaccinated (Score:2)
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0... [nytimes.com]
There are other concerns though, for example, there was apparently little planning for vaccine distribution which was left to the states (who had no money to do it). IT systems are not in place to track who gets vaccinated and hospital IT systems are not interoperable between hospitals. There are few track and trace efforts sufficiently scaled up to handle cases that continue to appear once the vaccinations start to slo
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It's not a choice right now. Even those meeting current criteria are having trouble getting the vaccine, much less those who are not yet eligible.
Then there's people who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons.
Once we get enough people vaccinated and the infection rate falls off as a result, we can relax.
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I care about people not wearing masks, because they're potentially putting ME at risk. Once I'm vaccinated, my level of concern for people who are intent on putting their lives at risks is about the same as my level of concern for people who try to cuddle with mountain lions, dance with bears, or free-climb massive piles of rocks-- "please don't splatter me with what's left of your corpse".
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yes a mask is not made to protect yourself, but to protect others around you. Now wonder why Americans don't like them!
Re: Better to under-promise and over-deliver (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that but you need two doses and 35 days to get to that 95% number. 7 weeks before you get protection.
A single shot is 40-50% effective.
My wife was at day23. 2 days after the second dose and then tested positive.( Her nursing home was testing all staff when they showed up to work. ). They are in the middle of their first outbreak. (Good for them). So far they are at 25% of staff and residents positive and zero cases needing oxygen.
The vaccines may not be fully effective but general consensus is they are limited how bad you get sick. They have some pretty bad residents and they are all doing well.
Want to know how this outbreak started ? 2 staff and several immediate family members of staff went to a mask less new years Eve party. Every single case can be traced back to that event.
Because one group wanted to be selfish assholes. I have to take a 2 year old and a 6 months old to get their noses swabbed and tested. Under sell and state the 35 days.
Re: Better to under-promise and over-deliver (Score:3)
Why aren't they fired already?
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Re:Better to under-promise and over-deliver (Score:5, Funny)
Public health is like herding cats, except the cats have guns, 1/4 of them are insane, even by cat standards, and they're all super gullible.
There's an optimum strategy somewhere, but there are a lot of parameters.
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Not only is under-promising and over-delivering better than the opposite, but it will also result in people still being careful after getting their vaccines.
I agree with your premise. However I haven't seen *anybody* in a position of authority play down the effectiveness of these vaccines. In fact, I've read numerous stories lauding how amazingly high their effectiveness is in preventing COVID-19, especially in contrast with most of the vaccines we're familiar with.
This guy may have won a Pulitzer ten years ago, but that doesn't mean he didn't pull this particular story out of some random bodily orifice.
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Taken too far, however, it leads to "If it doesn't protect me, doesn't stop transmission, why should I bother?".
Given how many people actually believe that masks don't have any benefit, it's hard to sell people on "well, you still need to wear masks, you still need to be careful where you go and who you meet, and it's not a cure, and it doesn't mean life will get back to normal any time (if ever), but YOU REALLY NEED TO GET VACCINATED!!!".
The message is self-conflicting.
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So there's no point in police wearing bullet proof vests? Might as well save the expense?
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In any case the rest of us don't know what David Leonhardt actually said because the link is paywalled. Don't do that.
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If you went around saying (as this Baylor doctor says) that these vaccines are "100% effective against *serious* disease", people would stop wearing masks after getting vaccinated. That wold be really bad because they could still pass the infection on to other people. This not only endangers people who haven't been vaccinated yet or who can't get vaccinated, if a lot of people behave this way it will put the day things return to normal off by months.
The way the mathematics of herd immunity work, when you
Re: Better to under-promise and over-deliver (Score:2)
There's no sense in trying to rationalize anything to an anti-vaxxer. Even just the 1 out of 32,000 having a severe case is all they need to hear to claim that it doesn't work. They're retards.
There's no point stressing over it. With or without herd immunity, this virus is going to live with us much like influenza anyways, so we may as well just get used to it. Just get vaccinated and rely on that to keep your symptoms mild should you get infected. If somebody else doesn't, and they get very sick, it's thei
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I totally agree but unfortunately antivax are turning all these messages as "See! It doesn't stop the virus! Lol! It is not a vaccine!" or shit like this.
That's fine; let them die.
Writer confused by concept of "honesty" (Score:5, Insightful)
This writer seems to be confused by the concept of "honesty". You see, many people -and I know it's weird- but many people actually try to say things that are "true".
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But so does everyone who tells a lie, by leaving out parts of the truth ...
The point is that some people pick up more on the cautiousness of doctors than on their honesty. To them is a doctor's modesty not helpful. Not everyone is the same, and some people do better when they get the whole truth, not only 90% of it. Some are even happy with side-effects as long as they know about everything. The modesty that some people show when they tell the truth gets occasionally misinterpreted as weakness, an attempted
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I for one am irritated by the messaging because it's as if they are treating everyone as a child. It began with the messaging around masks being ineffective because they wanted to preserve the supply of N95/N100 masks.
It was even worse than that. Remember how we were lectured to about masks giving us a "false sense of security?"
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There's some truth in the fact that people don't social distance as much if wearing a mask. I know one 80 yr old woman, very high risk who now thinks flouting the rules about associating with people outside your bubble in her house is fine as long as masks are worn.
OTOH, there are times it is hard to social distance, like at the narrow laundromat, where a mask likely helps.
Re:Writer confused by concept of "honesty" (Score:4, Funny)
This writer seems to be confused by the concept of "honesty". You see, many people -and I know it's weird- but many people actually try to say things that are "true".
Exactly. As TFA pointed out, ""As academic researchers, they are instinctively cautious, prone to emphasizing any uncertainty.". They don't deal in absolutes and tend to want to caveat statements because, well, nothing is certain and want to give an accurate factual statement. Unfortunately, some people take anything less than "this is perfect" as reinforcing their reasons not to take it, just as a 100% statement would be dismissed as a lie; i.e. peopel are basically stupid.
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For instance, no vaccine is absolutely safe or effective, but on balance the risks and befits are well known and well balanced. For instance few families are going to prevent their teens from driving even though car accidents is the leading cause of accid
Well, keep in mind the window... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is, the window of time between getting the vaccine, waiting two weeks, getting the second dose, then waiting another two weeks.
If the immune system hasn't picked up on the virus early enough - and you get the real thing - then yeah, some folks will blame the vaccine, not the lack of their own ability to distance when they were right next to the finish line.
And not everyone's immune system, well, works - it should work for MOST everyone, but they're biological systems, and we have a very old population. That's why we're trying for the older populations first.
But unfortunately, if you bill the vaccine as a cure - then the second a large number many of these folks get it - they'll bolt out the door.
So yeah - a bit of early pessimism is probably helpful for the groups motivations.
Not everyone sees their time as a resource to be carefully invested, with priorities for shared health for small inconveniences - many just see a marshmallow across a gap and rush off into an open pit and get hurt. Then they'll get angry that the pit hates their freedom even as you try and fill it in for them.
Ryan Fenton
There is another reason to downplay the vaccines (Score:5, Insightful)
First, the possibility of asymptomatic transmission: When one of the vaccines was tested early-on in monkeys (I forget which one - it could have even been J&J or Novavax), the monkeys were protected from severe disease but still contracted asymptomatic disease in their noses. This would suggest that they are capable of spreading the virus while asymptomatic. Your mucous membranes are protected primarily by a different antibody (IgA) than the antibody they have been measuring for the vaccine efficacy (IgG). I don't know if any data showing that the vaccines generate an IgA response.
The other factor, however, is behavioral. If you tell people they are in the clear after the vaccine and they stop wearing masks, how do enforce mask wearing and social distancing for everyone else? Do you check everyone's vaccine card? I have one - it's just printed on paper with some signatures and could easily be forged. Also, if some people are allowed to stop wearing masks, others would also stop wearing them even though they hadn't received the vaccine. This would fuel a third surge while we are still in the middle of the second.
That's not a good reason (Score:2)
Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did. “If there is an example of a vaccine in widespread clinical use that has this selective effect - prevents disease but not infection - I can’t think of one!” Dr. Paul Sax of Harvard has written in The New England Journal of Medicine. (And, no, exclamation points are not common in medical journals.)
https://www.nejm.org/covid-vac [nejm.org]
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There's still a time period, perhaps 5-6 weeks, before the vaccine completely kicks in. The day after the first shot, you are no safer even with being vaccinated.
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You have to be careful with this kind of thing. Those monkeys had COVID sprayed into their noses, probably massive doses of it. That observation admits the possibility that someone *might* be able to spread COVID after being vaccinated. It doesn't suggest that they can, nor even that it's a particularly likely possibility.
Greatest Invention of the 21st Century (Score:5, Insightful)
These mRNA vaccines are quite likely the greatest invention of the 21st century. Both the Moderna and BioNTech vaccines were created within a few days of the SARS-CoV2 genome being published. Everything since then has been QA and manufacturing.
The technology itself holds the possibility of rapidly creating vaccines for many many other diseases, by allowing the rapid production of specific antibodies. Think a vaccine for Malaria; that would be life changing for a large part of the world. Or a machine in the basement of a hospital that can turn out custom vaccines for pretty much anything you can think of.
What a time to be alive.
Re:Greatest Invention of the 21st Century (Score:5, Informative)
Not just vaccines. The mRNA techniques are originally cancer therapies. There's been some work on using them against auto-immune diseases too, basically as anti-vaccines. And you can imagine that the ability to make your body produce specified proteins could be awfully useful against all sorts of genetic diseases. Their DNA cousins as well.
Statistics are hard (Score:2)
I think a lot of it is because statistics are hard, and nuance takes more effort than most people want.
There is nuance in words like "effective and reducing the spread", versus medical "efficacy" at stopping the virus. There are people who feel anything less than 100% means useless, when for those who understand statistics and disease transmission see that even a 30% reduction can stop a disease in its tracks, even with the remaining 70%.
Stupid incompetent media (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, Here's Why... (Score:2)
Vaccine for Positive Cases (Score:2)
What I would like to know is what the effect is of giving a vaccine shot to someone who tests positive for COVID. Will it train the immune system to eliminate it before it becomes a serious infection? What if someone is already sick? Will it train the immune system to fight it off more efficiently, or is it too late to make a difference?
I'm guessing the answer is that we just don't know. If so, I would love to see it tried.
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No. The human immune system responds just fine to a COVID infection. It's actually overly aggressive in the serious cases. Adding some extra spike protein via a vaccine isn't going to be very helpful.
There are some vaccines that are effective in people who are infected with the disease, if administered early enough, but these tend to be in diseases where the pathogen is very good at hiding from the immune system.
They are trying to preserve mask wearing (Score:5, Insightful)
My personal guess is that they are trying to preserve mask wearing among the general public. If the messaging was "once you are vaccinated you are completely in the clear", then I think given the bullshit and histrionics surrounding masks already, that people would just lie, say they are vaccinated, and stop wearing masks. If the message is "wear a mask regardless of whether you are vaccinated", it gives the anti-maskers one less excuse.
Re:They are trying to preserve mask wearing (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the hysterical things about this pandemic has been the rugged individualist prepper types, supposedly ready to fend for themselves and shelter in their bunkers for years, whining about wearing a mask and wringing their hands over the mental health implications of having to stay home.
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Lol. You might want to have a look at some of the preppers. A lot of them are survivors of the deep cold war, when having your own personal bunker wasn't quite so crazy.
You're right, selfishness does run strong in them though.
Re: They are trying to preserve mask wearing (Score:2)
There are plenty examples to the contrary - 20 yo professinal sportsmen dying, 90 yo gramma with a bunch of other pathologies being asymptomatic.
So, no.
Pulitzer Prize for commentary not an expert (Score:3)
It just means he is talented at explaining himself. Not that his content is factual or correct.
I know the actual experts in a topic are often painful to listen to because they know and care so much about the details and get frustrated trying to over generalize a complex issue.
It is like saying C++ is bad compared to Python because you can code faster in Python. You will open a can of worms with the coding experts who will get angry with you and explain so much detail that you would just not listen to them.
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As long as you use vi, and not ... uh ohm ... I do not care if you code C++ or Python.
Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
(...) mistakenly discouraged mask use because of "a concern that people would rush to buy high-grade medical masks, leaving too few for doctors and nurses (...)
That's nonsense. Before COVID-19, most research into the effectiveness of masks against viruses focused on influenza. And masks really don't help against influenza. That's what caused the initial discouraging of using masks; if what we knew about masks and influenza would also apply to COVID-19, using masks would only provide a false sense of security and would even increase infections, also due to the increased touching of your face that a mask encourages. Once it became clear that masks work much better against COVID-19 than they do against influenza, experts were very quick to change their advice.
Also nonsense? That expert are understating the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.
Classical technique. Make up a problem, write something that opposes the problem. Get views. Profit.
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Measures against SARS-nCov-2 still prevented influenza season (not some other such as common cold - rhinoviruses). It could be due to distancing, disinfectants, symptom screening, reduced travel and more attention to ventilation and filtering in some cases. But I wouldn't count masks out because flu can spread through small airborne droplets. It's not _only_ masks, that is.
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And masks really don't help against influenza. That's what caused the initial discouraging of using masks ... moron.
Yes they do
Once it became clear that masks work much better against COVID-19 than they do against influenza, experts were very quick to change their advice.
That is not what happened. The "anti mask" propaganda was simply plain stupid, that is all.
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It depends on the mask. Cloth masks are pretty effective at limiting glob-o-snot spread, and somewhat effective at shrinking the distance you spread large respiratory droplets around you. Large droplets fall to the ground quickly, so if you slow them down they're not going to spread far.
Surgical-style masks are designed to be pretty much impermeable. You don't really breathe through them, they redirect your exhalations to the sides, which is why they fog up your glasses so much. That severely limits the dis
nutrient supplements (Score:2)
Sell them how nutrient supplements are sold ..ie, lie to them and say it never has any side effects and will cure everything from cancer to toenail fungus AND bring your ex-girlfriend back. With her best friend.
The trials only tested for disease. (Score:2)
The problem (if there actually is a problem) is that the vaccine trials focussed on a single thing. Does using the vaccine result in less disease.
The answer is yes.
If you want to know if the vaccines also prevent transmission then you need to do additional trials to test that (and that is happening, but it is not something that happens overnight.)
Until the results of further trials are available the fail-safe answer is that we don't know if getting vaccinated prevents transmission so continue with social di
Betteridge's law of headlines (Score:2)
Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.
We do not have any reliable data as whether vaccinated people may be able to spread the virus. Some preliminary data suggests that the Moderna vaccine has about 65% efficacy in preventing spread. This number is not very reliable, and more studies have been planned to assess how likely for vaccinated people to spread the virus. Therefore, experts say that vaccination people still should wear a mask and practice social distancing until w
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So far, smallpox is the only human virus that was eradicated through vaccination. We have good chances to eradicate polio if we put a bit more efforts into it, but I am skeptical about eradication of SARS-CoV-2 any time soon. If you look at four seasonable coronaviruses, most people get re-infected with them every couple years or so (some people can be reinfected after a few months). Whether the re-infection happens due to the waning immune response or viral mutations that allow to avoid the immune response
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Either a vaccine works or it does not.
The idea that one vaccine works and prevents spreading and the other vaccine works but does not prevent spreading: is absurd - actually: idiotic
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Not all vaccines provide sterilizing immunity, so it is quite possible for a vaccine to protect against illness but not infection. Thus, in principle, vaccinated people can spread disease to others. Now, if you spoke about two different vaccines against the same virus, then I agree that is unlikely for one vaccine to protect against disease and infection but for the other one to protect only against disease. However, currently, we don't have any reliable data about any COVID-19 vaccine how it's effective at
No, itt would not be a surprise ... (Score:2)
Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did.
If you are infected, of course you spread it. Does not matter if you are "immune" and your immune system kills it before you get seriously sick.
No idea why this is even a topic/question etc. in our days. It is damn plain physics. Yes, I say physics as it is not relevant if you want to call it chemistry or biology.
The CDC published their data (Score:2)
From the CDC website:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
"Face Masks In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks
As far as masks are concerned, there is no difference between the mechan
Of course they are (Score:2)
The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.
Charles Bukowski
Re:We need to be cautious (Score:4, Insightful)
>closing restaurants and bars (likely permanently)
See, this is where I disagree. We have to take precautions, but human beings are social animals and we want to be together. You're not going to be able to continue lockdowns and keep things closed forever; there will be a revolt.
We need to find a way to safely operate bars and restaurants while continuing research to stomp out the virus. Telling people "No Fun Allowed" [Swatbot meme here] is not the answer.
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Which part of that person's Slashdot username suggested they were anything but a sarcastic troll?
Re: We need to be cautious (Score:2)
"linux"? Still, I literally know people who fit that description so I would see no reason why they shouldn't have such a username.
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We need to find a way to safely operate bars and restaurants while continuing research to stomp out the virus. Telling people "No Fun Allowed" [Swatbot meme here] is not the answer.
It's called 'wearing a mask'. I should add you on Facebook so you can see a pile of people bitching about lockdowns in one post and in the next denouncing the wearing of masks like like an RSI sufferer writing a ten page email about it really hurts to type.
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It's called 'wearing a mask'.
Under most circumstances I'd agree with your statement, but the guy was referring to restaurants and bars. It's hard to eat and drink without repeatedly removing your mask - which pretty much means the mask isn't accomplishing anything in those settings.
Of course his statement about locking things down "forever" is rather ridiculous hyperbole. And I would point out that many of the people railing against mask mandates and how these actions hurt small businesses are also the ones who scream that the governme
Re:We need to be cautious (Score:4, Insightful)
Under most circumstances I'd agree with your statement, but the guy was referring to restaurants and bars. It's hard to eat and drink without repeatedly removing your mask ..
You're right, and that's why restaurants are at reduced capacity. It's always been about masks and social distancing. You're also right that it doesn't bring the odds of getting sick to zero, but this is a logarithmic game and the littlest effect can have large results.
- which pretty much means the mask isn't accomplishing anything in those settings.
There are two things I'd like to bring up. here. First is that it's not just the customers. it's the workers. They don't usually have a big objection to wearing a mask... at least not that has made it to my ears. Second if an anti-masker goes to a restaurant, they're not taking their mask off only while they're eating, they're not wearing it on the way to the restaurant, while waiting for food, on their way home, in the toilet they are sitting and breathing on, etc.
I think my personal disappointment with this whole situation is I'd LOVE for masks to become the norm, especially during flu season. Doesn't seem to matter which job I have, at least twice a year something rolls through and takes entire teams out for a day or two at a time. I'd rather be at work and healthy than at home sick with a cold.
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Cloth masks don't stop the flu anymore than they do Covid.
There are behaviors now that we absolutely should continue going forward, though, which probably would significantly reduce cold and flu transmission.
- stay home if you're sick; and definitely keep your kids home when they're sick
- frequent hand washing (most important)
- no handshakes
- watch what you touch
- stay 6' away from people if you don't have a good reason to get closer
The plexiglass shields at grocery stores and fast food places are also prob
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They probably have some use if changed frequently, washed frequently, and only used for short periods of time in passing.
In normal use, no, I don't think they have much effect.
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I think my personal disappointment with this whole situation is I'd LOVE for masks to become the norm, especially during flu season.
Yeah, I'm in complete agreement. It's instructive just how amazingly low US flu infections have been this year [cdc.gov] - almost certainly because of the masks-and-distancing mandates.
For a few months. It's 100% effective at community (Score:4, Insightful)
Until most everyone is vaccinated, we need to continue to be careful. Some things, like washing your hands, were a good idea ten years ago, last year, this year, and they'll be a good idea ten years from now. Clean hands reduce spreading germs and covid isn't the only germ out there.
Having said that, 95% if understating the effectiveness of the vaccine. It's probably about 100% effective, over 99.9%. Let me explain what I mean.
When Covid was spreading through the community, the few people in the study were 95% less likely to get it *even though they were going to stores where other people had it*. It's 95% effective at preventing one person from getting *when the virus is all around you in the community*. That is, vaccinating one person reduces their chance of getting it by 95%.
When you vaccinate most of the community, that protection is *multiplied*.
Last year, I could have gotten covid from my wife, after she got it from the clerk at the store. If *only* I got the vaccine, my chance of catching it would be 5% of what it was last year. HOWEVER, I can't catch the virus from somebody who doesn't have the virus! If the clerk doesn't get covid, the clerk won't pass it to my wife, and my wife won't pass it to me.
Clerk's new chance of getting it is 5% of what it was before.
If the clerk still gets it, wife's chance of getting it is 5%.
So the chance that the clerk gets it AND my wife catches it from the clerk is 0.25% of what it was before - a reduction of 99.75%.
Suppose my wife gets it. My chance of getting it from her is reduced to 5% of what it was before.
The chance that the clerk gets it, my wife catches it from the clerk, and I catch it from my wife has been reduced to 0.05% of what it was. A reduction of 99.95%.
I said it "probably" over 99.9% effective at the community level
Why probably? Because they clerk who is vaccinated probably can't get enough of the virus to pass it on to my wife. We don't know that for sure yet.
It's possible that someone who has been vaccinated can still carry a small amount of the virus and therefore have a small chance of infecting someone else.
It's even possible, though extremely unlikely, that somehow the vaccine doesn't make much difference in the viral load and therefore the chances of passing it to others.
It's also possible that the vaccine gets the viral load low enough that passing it on is virtually impossibe.
The most likely scenario is someone who is vaccinated is very unlikely to have enough active virus to pass it on. Multiply that small chance by the small chance that another vaccinated person will catch it, multiplied by the small chance that the second vaccinated person will pass it on etc and you end up with very small chances indeed.
As an example, suppose a vaccinated person has a 1% chance of carrying enough virus to pass it to someone else. The reduction in chance that the virus is passed along through 5 vaccinated people becomes something like: .05 X 0.01 X .05 X 0.01 X .05 X 0.01 X .05 X 0.01 X .05 X 0.01
So lower than 0.00001% chance of that happening.
Immunizing ONE person gives them 95% protection.
Immunizing a country so the virus is no longer circulating in the country protects everyone 99.9999%.
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....I can't catch the virus from somebody who doesn't have the virus! If the clerk doesn't get covid, the clerk won't pass it to my wife, and my wife won't pass it to me....
In addition to downplaying asymptomatic transmission (20% of cases), your scenario ignores the fact that we a social creatures. Your wife's vaccine will not protect you much if you also are coming into contact with others. Common theory is that we are all "6 handshakes [wikipedia.org]" apart from each other. Think of it instead that if 25% of your contacts are vaccinated, but you are not, your odds of infection are reduced 23.75% (95% of 25%).
Also, the 95% rate is in reducing "symptomatic infection". What we don't know
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Symptomatic or asymptomatic is orthogonal to the point.
Other than the fact that those who do not sneeze, do not sneeze on you.
> Think of it instead that if 25% of your contacts are vaccinated, but you are not, your odds of infection are reduced 23.75% (95% of 25%).
That much is true - as a first iteration.
If 100% of your contacts are immunized, that gives you an additional protection of about 100% * 95% = 95%. (In addition to your own 95% because you are vaccinated).
The thing is, your contacts are ALSO ge
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Without question, by the time we are able to assure all our 5th-degree contacts are vaccinated, it will pretty much be game-over for the disease. However, given that less than 1% (0.83%) of the US population has been fully vaccinated and 4.03% have only their first dose, today's game is more like large probability X large probability X large probability X large probability X = slightly smaller large probability.
AFAIK, the studies neither measured a reduction in infectiousness nor a reduction in asymptomati
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Some things, like washing your hands, were a good idea ten years ago, last year, this year, and they'll be a good idea ten years from now. Clean hands reduce spreading germs and covid isn't the only germ out there.
My reflex is to agree with this, and it's probably mostly right. I am worried though, about what all of this avoidance of viruses and bacteria is doing to our immune systems' long-term ability to fight them off. Without the constant low-grade immune challenges that we were used to Before Covid, we may have become more susceptible to some infections, and they may present with more serious and threatening symptoms.
I'm certainly not advocating for not washing hands - I'm just promoting awareness that our new-f
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If that was too complicated for ya, if you've never heard of R, let me make it stupid simple for you:
Vaccinating ONE person is 95% effective.
Vaccinating the whole community is 99.999% effective
Because you can't catch the virus from someone who doesn't have it. They can't have it because they can't catch it from someone else who doesn't have it.
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While the vaccine is certainly effective and safe, we still need to practice hand washing, staying six feet apart, closing restaurants and bars (likely permanently), and, most of all, wearing masks at all times in order to get COVID-19 under control. This will take many years, if not decades, but that's what the science is telling us so that's what we need to do. It's the new normal.
You are out of your fucking mind. Many decades? Permanently closing? Vaccines are the end of this. Period. Full sop. Nothing is ever 100% safe, can't and won't be. Life is all about managing risks, if something is going to kill less people than falling pianos, then it is commonly accepted to be safe.
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One way or another, we'll pretty much all be inoculated by fall, at the latest.
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This will take many years, if not decades, but that's what the science is telling us so that's what we need to do.
The science is saying nothing of the sort. The science is saying that if we get a majority portion of the population vaccinated society can effectively return to normal and if planned national timelines in the western world are upheld then the virus will effectively be under control to the point of irrelevance in the second half of this year.
We don't need to eradicate COVID-19 off the face of the earth. It's not Smallpox or Polio.
Science was only predicting long timelines in the absence of a vaccine.
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Your claim is a horrible abuse of statistics. The endpoint of the study was to have a certain number of total cases among participants l, because that would give a reasonable estimate of vaccine effectiveness. You need a lot more data points to understand whether that one serious case was a statistical norm or just bad luck.
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With nearly all medications and vaccines in the US, once FDA approval is achieved, data collection stops.
I call bullshit. You talk as if after the clinical trials no-one looks at these drugs anymore. Not only are drugs monitored after clinical trials, but doctors who suspect that a given medication may have bearing on an illness are still reporting to the FDA and (more importantly) these reports are correlated and tracked. If enough show up, the manufacturer is required to rewrite the product information,
Re:bad science writing (Score:4, Informative)
Post-marketing monitoring of medication data is a formal Stage IV of the testing process.
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Lol. "On my planet Democrats locked everything down."
Not sure where your planet is located, but on this one Democrats are concentrated in one fairly small area. Republicans too.
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It is NOT a partisan issue you JACKASS! Stop politicizing science!
Yes, lets talk about science. Assessing Mandatory StayatHome and Business Closure Effects on the Spread of COVID19 [wiley.com]. Oh, not that science?!
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I also noticed that in my conversations across political spectrum, Democrats as of late seems to be unreasonably pessimistic about vaccines.
This is inconsistent with my experience. What I've seen are Trump supporters bitching about being required to be vaccinated. Otherwise in my circle there's excitement about getting the vaccine. "Hey i got it, booster coming soon!" "Hooray congrats! How were the side-effects!" and so on.
Anecdotes. amirite?
I can't help but to conclude that Democrats are mainly interested in prolonging lockdowns for some reasons.
A bunch of right-wing news sources whose agenda item was "damn the pandemic, reopen 'Murica!!" were trying to tell you this story but the reality is that this is a problem complicated by people
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What I see here in Canada, is the more right wing Provincial governments are slower to lock down and then go overboard as the hospitals fill up. By overboard, I mean ticketing people for just being outside. My, by American standards, extremely left wing Provincial government arguably hasn't had a lock down, just targeted closures.
The places that have done the best are the territories where they don't have political parties (or few roads). Imagine, a legislature without political parties, governing by consen
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I also noticed that in my conversations across political spectrum, Democrats as of late seems to be unreasonably pessimistic about vaccines.
It's an attitude that goes with being a Jeremiah about everything. We're all gonna die, we keep being told, in an entertaining variety of ways, no matter what we do. That's why hoi polloi stops listening when the same people get going on the subject of climate. It's not because we all work for oil companies.
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There is a HUGE conflict of interest: Medical people make more money if people get sick.
Really? I'm not in any medical field but I'm very skeptical of this claim. Can you point to any references (pre-COVID are fine) to a shortage of patients?
As an outsider to the field it has always been my impression that the people who are in it for the money go into specialist fields and especially elective types of medicine. The claim that there is any significant number of medical people who are actively trying to create more sick people as a way to make more money needs a lot of evidence. I think it's a
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While you are in general right, there was a kind of conspiracy to not treat gastric ulcer properly but just give anti acid drugs. The "cover up" lasted over 10 years ... https://www.ulcer-cure.com/ind... [ulcer-cure.com]
Re:Medical people have a HUGE conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a HUGE conflict of interest: Medical people make more money if people get sick.
The fact you say that says more about you than about medical people. Very few people have your sickness that they would damage other people's health for profit. You and Koch industries are psychotic exceptions.
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Lol. If you want to make lots of money in medicine you go into radiology or ophthalmology. There are some people who want to work with walking talking hazardous bioreactors, but even they prefer them in very limited numbers.