Previous Covid Prevents Delta Infection Better Than Pfizer Shot (bloomberg.com) 311
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: People who recovered from a bout of Covid-19 during one of the earlier waves of the pandemic appear to have a lower risk of contracting the delta variant than those who got two doses of the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech SE. The largest real-world analysis (PDF) comparing natural immunity -- gained from an earlier infection -- to the protection provided by one of the most potent vaccines currently in use showed that reinfections were much less common. The paper from researchers in Israel contrasts with earlier studies, which showed that immunizations offered better protection than an earlier infection, though those studies were not of the delta variant.
The results are good news for patients who already successfully battled Covid-19, but show the challenge of relying exclusively on immunizations to move past the pandemic. People given both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were almost six-fold more likely to contract a delta infection and seven-fold more likely to have symptomatic disease than those who recovered. The analysis also showed that protection from an earlier infection wanes with time. The risk of a vaccine-breakthrough delta case was 13-fold higher than the risk of developing a second infection when the original illness occurred during January or February 2021. That's significantly more than the risk for people who were ill earlier in the outbreak. Giving a single shot of the vaccine to those who had been previously infected also appeared to boost their protection. The long-term benefit of a booster dose of the inoculation, which has just recently begun in Israel, is unknown.
The results are good news for patients who already successfully battled Covid-19, but show the challenge of relying exclusively on immunizations to move past the pandemic. People given both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were almost six-fold more likely to contract a delta infection and seven-fold more likely to have symptomatic disease than those who recovered. The analysis also showed that protection from an earlier infection wanes with time. The risk of a vaccine-breakthrough delta case was 13-fold higher than the risk of developing a second infection when the original illness occurred during January or February 2021. That's significantly more than the risk for people who were ill earlier in the outbreak. Giving a single shot of the vaccine to those who had been previously infected also appeared to boost their protection. The long-term benefit of a booster dose of the inoculation, which has just recently begun in Israel, is unknown.
Numbers, please (Score:5, Insightful)
0.06% is '6-fold' more than 0.01%. But still tiny.
However, 18% vs 3% is also '6-fold'. But much much worse.
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Because I'm already seeing stupid people inferring from the lack of that metric that vaccinated people are 7 fold more likely to XYZ than vaccinated people in general, omitting that a previous infection that went well is an important factor in these findings.
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"6-fold", "7-fold" means nothing. The first group had a 100% chance of getting COVID - that was the very basis for group identification and selection. The other group had a far lesser chance of getting COVID, because they'd been vaccinated.
They're comparing apples and oranges. The chance of getting reinfected a second time versus the chance of getting infected a first time post vaccination. And, of course, they're not including those who didn't survive to get reinfected a
Re:Numbers, please (Score:4, Informative)
Great summary. Thanks. Please note that you ignored waning immunity which is another very important aspect of this study. Natural immunity and vaccine-induced immunity both wane over time, but natural immunity appears to be more durable.
Also, please note that Israel has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, and they are in the midst of a pretty major flare-up of cases of Covid. This is due not only to waning immunity but also to reduced efficacy of the vaccine against the delta variant. So they have a lot of cases. And even though a patient doesn't die, it doesn't mean that contracting Covid is consequence-free. So I think it is wrong to paint an overly rosy picture, but you are right to direct peoples' attention to what they can control: get vaccinated, and then take reasonable precautions where possible to minimize exposure and spreading of Covid. This should be non-political common sense and I am tired of fighting about it.
I am sure pfizer is working on a new vaccine that more directly targets the delta variant. But that is something for the future, and anyone who is not able to help develop that vaccine just has to wait patiently.
misleading troll (Score:5, Insightful)
"The results ... show the challenge of relying exclusively on immunizations to move past the pandemic."
No they don't, not at all. Immunity based "exclusively on immunizations" provides good protection, whether that protection is better or worse doesn't say a damn thing about any "challenge". Furthermore, people who have had COVID AND received a vaccine afterwards are better protected still.
This is just more anti-vaccine bullshit.
Re: misleading troll (Score:5, Insightful)
When people say that we should rely on "natural immunity" they mean "let everyone get COVID no matter the outcomes so long as I don't need be inconvenienced in any way or have to give any thoughts to the concerns of other people".
It's stupid and selfish and says a lot about whoever is saying it.
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The fuck your feelings crowd foaming at the mouth over a store asking them to wear a thin paper mask.
The government can't tell me what to do they cry, unless it's:
Two people of the same gender getting married
A woman wanting an abortion
Ingesting recreational drugs
(and this is my favorite) Black people wanting to open carry firearms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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1. 64% against catching the disease. The percentage of protection against serious illness or hospitalization is still over 90%. The protection against death is still over 99%. Well, well, well worth the almost 0 downsides for a majority of the population. You don't get to dictate policy on the "unknowns". What we do know is they work and they are safe. The data is on the side of the vaccines, full stop.
2. No case you can make for evolutionary change in vaccinated people won't be wildly exacerbated by
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I always speak with my financial advisor when it comes to inferring data from medical studies. Next I'm asking my dentist if running 14AWG romex is sufficient for an electric stove.
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Also worth noting, even with the infection rate as it is now, a fair number of places have their hospitals on full divert due to an overload of COVID cases. At least in Georgia, the National Guard is being deployed to hospitals to help manage the crisis. We don't have the resources necessary to handle the natural immunity route.
As for the study, if true, it doesn't address the aggregate morbidity and mortality. That is, the odds of an un-vaccinated person who gains immunity through a COVID infection dying,
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The real problem, at least where I am (BC), is the health care workers are burning out. Doesn't matter if you have lots of ICU units and ventilators available if you don't have qualified Doctors and Nurses to run things. Considering we've handled the pandemic better then most and still have the problems with burnout, I hate to think about these places that refuse to have any preventative practices.
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Even better, get vaccinated, *then* get exposed to COVID.
' though those studies were not of the delta varia (Score:3, Insightful)
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I did read of a study, likely not in actual people, that showed the Alpha variant seemed to give better protection against all strains, especially compared to the original variant.
Truthfully, we're still early in doing good studies with many just saying that we need more good data.
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not peer reviewed data (Score:5, Insightful)
First, its really disturbing to me the authors are publishing a non-peer reviewed study and acting like this is the only possible conclusion.
Any person with no immune protection fares worse.
Look at the data close enough and you'll see there was still some benefit to vaccination after infection.
The media is a huge part of mis-information problem. Their headlines are misleading and frankly they have no business reporting on non-peer reviewed data.
It's Bloomberg - Follow the money. (Score:2)
All of Michael's is in China ...
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Nowhere did they say there was no benefit to vaccination. They simply stated that people who had covid previously had better immune response compared to vaccination. This isn't even news-- Multiple studies have shown that in order of immune response, it's "none", "vaccinated", "survivor" and "survivor + vaccinated".
The delta variant has made things more complicated, since it's apparently better at re-infection, or breaking through the vaccination, but your chances are still better if you've been vaccinate
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Bloomberg did include this one paragraph:
Though that's very far down and not a
Good, so "boosters" are available for free (Score:4, Insightful)
And the immunity "boosters" are "for free" in the same way that they are delivered for all the other circulating human corona viruses: In the form of subsequent infections (with possibly different variants) at a later time.
None of this will cause Sars-Cov-2 to leave the planet, but there is a really good chance it will not bother us more than the other popular human Corona viruses do, like OC43.
Unless of course you choose to live as a prisoner of fear forever, avoiding (re-)infections at all costs, with or without being vaccinated.
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but there is a really good chance it will not bother us more than the other popular human Corona viruses do, like OC43.
wait, you can run ethernet over that? full or half duplex?
wow, didn't know we could just traceroute the virus away!
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Of course. Don't you know the internet routes around danger.
Re:Good, so "boosters" are available for free (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know which is more disturbing, your post or the people who modded it up. For one thing, immunity fades over a period of months for all known coronaviruses. This is well researched and well established. This explains why the same coronaviruses keep coming back each year as colds.
ICUs? (Score:5, Insightful)
The ICUs are not full of patients who got the vaccine. Heck, the ERs are not full of patients who got the vaccine.
(With a vaccine that is readily available,) getting infected with Covid-19 is a waste of hospital resources.
Re:ICUs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Insurance companies in the US are starting to talk about having unvaccinated COVID patients pay more for their treatment. It seems odd that it took them this long, but that'll light a fire under most of the "I don't wanna get the ouchie" crowd.
Re:13k deaths reported to VAERS.gov (Score:5, Insightful)
Your numbers seem to be off. I searched VAERS and found 4987 "death" reported for COVID vaccines.
Now suppose your claim of only 1% reported is true. That means 498,700 deaths from COVID vaccines. I have had 10 first-hand reports of friends-of-friends dying of COVID. Zero reports of friends-of-friends (or friends) dying from the vaccine. I should have heard of about 8 vaccine deaths if your claims are right. Instead, I have 0 first-hand reports of people dying from the vaccine. I simply do not believe that my first-hand reports would falsely report COVID deaths and falsely suppress reports of deaths from COVID vaccines. Instead, I think my friends are not liars and both numbers are fairly reliable.
Therefore, evidence in hand from my first-hand reports is that your claim of only 1% of vaccine adverse events being reported is false in the case of "death".
Let's then assume that the 13k number you cite, which I dispute, is actually true. We have 600k-ish deaths attributed to COVID.
That makes COVID vaccination about 50x safer than getting COVID.
Bottom line, go get vaccinated--ASAP.
--PeterM
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I am a cardiologist that works in a 450 bed hospital in PA. I've personally seen over a hundred of patients come through the ICU with Covid-19 infection. And they don't call me for most of them.
I have yet to see a single patient in the ICU for Covid-19 vaccine-related issues.
Question: What are these 13k people dying of? Anaphylaxis from the vaccine (presumably within 24 hours of vaccination)? Covid-19 infection after vaccination (unusual, but possible)? Something else?
As a cardiologist, I can tell you
Breakthrough case or serious infection? (Score:2)
So what if I get a breakthrough Covid-19 infection after being vaccinated? I'm not worried about infection. I'm worried about life-threatening infection. Is that more likely in people vaccinated or those that aren't vaccinated?
Also, a single shot for those that were previously infected seems to work there. Why not highlight that?
The immunity doesn't last as long (Score:3)
What I do know is that there's folks who can't eat on their own because covid fucked up their nervous system. One of them got sent to jail for a year because of that dodgy "shotspot" software & got covid twice in jail.
Finally, let's not forget the American Healthcare system. Spend a week in the hospital and you can expect at least a $5k bill. If you get "surprise billing" (yeah, there's a law against it, it's full of loopholes) expect $20-$30k. We spent $2.6 billion on completely unnecessary covid hospitalizations in the last 60 days alone. And by "we" I mean the people in the hospitals and the people who got vaxxed when their insurance premiums go up.
Get your vaccine. Tell people you know to get their vaccine. Ask them what they'd do with an extra $10k in debt.
You too, Slashdot? (Score:2)
Shame on you, BeauHD, shame on you.
Moderna > Pfizer (Score:3)
Re:"primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop spouting bullshit. mRNA has been studied for decades now. The only adverse effect is burning stupidity from reading your post.
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if true
Being the keywords to whatever that video was about.
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Re:"primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:5, Insightful)
Dr. Lee D. Merritt (Hieb) is an orthopedist
Yeah just the doctor I want when it comes to viruses.
Re: "primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:2)
Remarks are from February.
Guess what, we have a lot more data since then and it's not great for the horse paste. Wish it was but it ain't.
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Has Dr. Nagao published his results in a formal study for others to replicate? Does Dr. Nagao have a theory for the method of action? The dosage requirement for effective results? The interval sequences required? A proper control group? Anything besides an anecdote-andy remark?
America doesn't have a lock of whack-a-doo grifting doctors, although it tends to feel that way. Or maybe he's operating in good faith. We hear these doctors and their results but when it's put through controlled studies it falls fla [latimes.com]
Re: "primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:5, Informative)
2021 Jul 28
Very large meta study finds no significant evidence for ivermection https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
2021 Jul 15
Very large study supporting ivermectin found to be fraudulent https://www.theguardian.com/sc... [theguardian.com]
Year round
Being a doctor, head surgeon, or running a clinic doesn't mean you know what you're talking about when the subject is outside your field of expertise https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/arti... [mcgill.ca]
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https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
Why didn't it work on this individual?
Re: "primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:2)
Why didn't it work on this individual?
There's a pattern to your "argument" that reveals increasing desperation - and you've nothing left to fumble with but individual, cherry-picked points of data; highly amusing. You don't by any chance happen to have the same IP as 'poperatzo,' do you?
Re:"primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:5, Informative)
The covid vaccines were "fully" tested on humans as well. You are aware that Russia and China are trying very hard to discredit the western vaccines? In this case, however, it took about 2 minutes to dig down to find that this video is by AFLD, "America's FrontLine Doctors", who have been leading the misinformation campaign against Covid from day 1.
From the Wiki:
America's Frontline Doctors is an American right-wing political organization known for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.[1][2][3] Founded by Simone Gold and promoted by the Tea Party Patriots, it has opposed lockdowns and social distancing mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic by citing alleged and unapproved treatments for COVID-19.
In January 2021, Gold and the group's communications director John Strand were both arrested in connection with the 2021 United States Capitol attack.
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In January 2021, Gold and the group's communications director John Strand were both arrested in connection with the 2021 United States Capitol attack.
If this is their attorney [newsweek.com], they have additional problems.
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I had painful bloating and kidney aches after the first Pfizer shot, less bloating but still kidney aches after the second. I am not putting my body through that again. Give me a real vaccine with proven immunization and maybe I will consider that for a booster.
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I think it is stupid not to consider the extra burden all those millions of extra tests would have imposed on an already-stretched health care system, especially when the vaccine effectiveness has become statistically obvious in any case.
Sorry about your side effects. Would you prefer an expensive holiday in Intensive Care?
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That makes it not so much stupid as pathetic, which is a fair objection but really nothing to crow about
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Even knowing what the second dose would do, I completed my vaccine. Fear did not motivate me to finally get vaccinated, so your empty intensive care threat wouldn't work on me.
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I still think it was stupid not to test everyone that showed up for a vaccine for the virus antibodies at the same time so that we know the true infection and recovery numbers across the population.
While it WAS stupid, it was also totally by design. Easy to push your own agenda and make it look like science when you essentially scrub the data that could be possibly used to make your argument look like not the primary or best solution. "Show me your data...oh yeah we made sure there is none...for no reason...."
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There is no way of doing the wide-spread instant testing for anti-bodies that you are referring to here.
I would also try to assess your risks rationally before nay-saying the booster.
At least for me, the calculus rests on a few figures, along with my highly subjective guesses as to what those numbers are:
- Chance of catching Delta while not vaccinated: 50%
- Chance of catching Delta while vaccinated: 10%
- Chance of Delta causing bad cold symptoms while not vaccinated: 50%
- Chance of Delta causing bad cold sy
Re: "primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:3)
How large is the average non-emergency vaccine trial group? How large were the CV19 vaccine trial groups? How many vaccines developed in the last 30 years have side effects that have emerged in people past the 6 month mark after injection?
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The most recent trial for a vaccine intended to be given to everyone I can think of was the HPV vaccine. The phase IIIs for these vaccines were 5 500 – 18 500 people: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Moderna's phase III was 30 420:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2... [clinicaltrials.gov]
Pfizer/BioNTech was 43 548: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/... [nejm.org]
Astrazenica was 32 459:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2... [clinicaltrials.gov]
I don't know a single example of a vaccine that's exhibited any long term side effects. There have been various studies that
Re: "primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you. Exactly my point.
The reason for the long approval times for most vaccines is multifaceted. It's cheaper to do smaller trials, even if you have to do a couple of them. Also the FDA has a backlog of approvals to get through, you have to get in line for approval.
In the case of CV19 the vaccines were deployed with as you said, much larger trials groups to prove out efficacy and safety and they were automatically moved to the immediate front of the line for approvals both for the EUA and the full approval last week. This was by design by the previous admin, an unquestionably good move.
If anything the fast development and approval shows what is capable when resources are put behind something and the red tape is eliminated. The fact that vaccines don't carry long term effects (any side effects show up shortly after the injection) is also taken into account. Vaccine dosages are just too small and infrequent to have significant side effects show up years and years later.
After the MMR debacle in the early aughts (which was a total scam, the poisonous tree of all anti-vax) so many vaccines had long term studies of safety and they all came through just fine.
The fast nature of how these vaccines went through an extremely thorough and scrutinized process is a good thing.
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How many vaccines developed in the last 30 years have side effects that have emerged in people past the 6 month mark after injection?
Well, there's the polio vaccine which has been given out for longer than that and the only side effect is people not contracting polio.
To answer your trolling question, none. No one has experienced any side effects six months after receiving any vaccine. You know why? Because vaccines are designed to force your body to make antibodies against a virus. The vaccine itself is
Re:"primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:5, Informative)
Re:"primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF are you going on about?
The vaccines were tested on tens of thousands of people before it was made available, and millions since then. They have worked better than most other vaccines we've been using for decades. So what if they wear off within a year? Get a booster shot.
Getting actual COVID has also been tested on millions of people. Clearly, getting COVID has resulted in at least 3 orders of magnitude more chance of severe problems (like dying) than getting vaccinated. It's obvious to anybody who's not an idiot that getting COVID is *not* the preferable way to achieve immunity.
"Derp! Derp! The vaccine is experimental!!!"
I'd still go with that vs. risking the unknown long-term complications of a totally new disease, which is in itself a huge global involuntary experiment.
.
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Clearly, getting COVID has resulted in at least 3 orders of magnitude more chance of severe problems (like dying) than getting vaccinated.
We don't know how many people actually had covid, survived but never bothered to go to hospital. The first time my wife and I got covid was before you could even test for it. We got it the following January as well, but were able to get tested.
It could be possible we had terrible flu in January 2020, but that would mean our covid 2021 infections were really minor. Kind of thinking that horrible flu with very similar symptoms was in fact covid, because neither of us had ever had a flu that bad.
With all that
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I've seen that argument in my country quite a bit, that people who are verified of having anti-bodies are to be treated like vaccinated people. I think that's reasonable, given the currently available data.
This would require some widespread testing, wh
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Primum custodire boomers.
Re: "primum non nocere" is a thing of the past (Score:2)
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Looks like it's getting good reviews, anyway.
https://www.amazon.com/Ivermec... [amazon.com]
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Lol, people complaining about the flavors they received.
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Doesn't it provide herd immunity.
No, horses live in stables, not herds. Maybe cows?
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What Tucker Carson doesn't tell you is Invermectin only works if you wear your red maga brand underwear.
Re:What about (Score:5, Insightful)
It says a lot about people that they'll take some horse pills based on something they read on the Internet (or *maybe* a few studies that show a modest effect) but they won't take a vaccine that was tested on tens of thousands of people, has been administered to millions, and performs much better.
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Re:What about (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what's fascinating. People being afraid of things they don't understand is natural. People choosing to take some random pills that weren't even intended for human consumption over a well tested, approved vaccine is interesting.
It's like choosing to eat canned cat food because you don't trust big grocery.
Re:What about (Score:5, Interesting)
It says a lot about people that they'll take some horse pills based on something they read on the Internet (or *maybe* a few studies that show a modest effect) but they won't take a vaccine that was tested on tens of thousands of people, has been administered to millions, and performs much better.
What's even better is when those people who refuse to get vaccinated because they don't know what's in the vaccine as well as don't trust the experts, go to the hospital after contracting covid and willingly allow who knows what to be injected into their bodies by experts and never say a word.
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That's sort of understandable. Desperation is a powerful motivator. But people are taking ivermectin prophylactically.
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The media loves to paint it as a black & white polarizing choice between ivermectin and vaccination, but I'd estimate that at LEAST 1/4 to 1/3 of the people who take ivermectin prophylactically are ALSO fully-vaccinated, and take it as a strategy to hedge their bets:
* vaccine, so the body recognizes the infection and deals with it
* ivermectin, to throw speedbumps at it and slow down its replication early in its course to give the immune system more time to notice & react to the infection BEFORE it h
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What's even better is when those people who refuse to get vaccinated because they don't know what's in the vaccine as well as don't trust the experts, go to the hospital after contracting covid and willingly allow who knows what to be injected into their bodies by experts and never say a word.
Was debating this on another site recently and was told by someone that people should not take the vaccine because it is "experimental", and besides, if they get sick there are monoclonal antibody treatments that are a "cure". When I pointed out the mabs were also "experimental" they got quite worked up.
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Ultimately, it's political.
Re: What about (Score:2, Insightful)
What about not controlling for behavior in these studies?
If you got covid already, maybe you're scared shitless and do your damnedest to avoid it.
If you got vaxxed, maybe you think you've got a magic forcefield and go partying in P-town during "Bear Week" (which I infer from context is antithetical to the concept of physical distancing).
Then there's a CDC mmwr from last week saying natural immunity lets in about twice as many breakthroughs as getting vaxxed (but helpfully the authors only compare relative r
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Blah, blah, blah. More excuses. That's all we hear. Nothing but excuses. Here's how things work in the real world:
Muh freedom! [imgur.com]
A veteran's death [imgur.com] you'll never hear about on the Fox tabloid.
This isn't you [imgur.com], but they sounded similar.
Let the bodies hit the floor! (or the ceiling) [wfla.com]
More bodies hitting the floor [cbsnews.com].
Even more bodies hitting the floor [cnn.com].
A 450% increase in covid cases thank to Sturgis [cbsnews.com].
And finally, what can only be considered sweet, sweet satisfaction [newsweek.com].
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I know nobody reads the articles. But this is not an anti-vax treatise. It is a report of a retrospective study done in Israel. It has nothing to do with the culture war raging in America. All they are saying is that natural immunity and vaccine immunity both wane, but natural immunity appears to be stronger than the Pfizer vaccine, and last longer, based on review of 10's of thousands of medical records.
Re: What about (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you read the paper or synopsis of it somewhere? It seems like you didn't. Here is the URL:
https://www.medrxiv.org/conten... [medrxiv.org]
It is not a political document. OF COURSE they tried to control for obvious differences in people such as location of residence, age, comorbidities, etc. The medical community in Israel is simply trying to figure out what works, and publish the information in a timely manner so that Israel and the rest of the world can benefit from it. They are ideally positioned to do this because they have a very high vaccination rate, they vaccinated early, and researchers have good access to medical records. I very much appreciate what they are doing and I appreciate that they are getting the information out in a timely fashion.
It is true that behavioral differences could account for some of the effect that was observed. But a 13x ratio is difficult to explain away like that. In fact, if there are practical, voluntary behavioral changes that can reduce your chance of catching Covid to 1/13 of the chance of doing nothing, that in and of itself is big news. And while I doubt that is the case very much, publishing these results is a good first step to figuring out what those voluntary behavioral changes might be.
I think you are 100% wrong to criticize the non-political, timely dissemination of information, especially since you apparently didn't even read the draft.
Re:What about (Score:4, Insightful)
So a drug for which the discoverer won a Nobel prize and is used extensively in humans is now just a horse de-wormer. Got it...
Re: What about (Score:3)
You do realize that it's commonly used for dogs and cats as well right(as a side note, my cat really ducking hates taking pills and I have the scars to prove it)? Which means much smaller doses are available. Pretending that people are going out and grabbing the horse pills is rather disingenuous.
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Smash the pills with a small grinder and then put them into the food.
I hope you reject all vaccines (Score:4, Insightful)
If the New Rule is that all drugs which have more than one use are to be denounced based on one of the uses, or that all drugs also used on animals are to be labelled as animal drugs, then nearly all vaccines are out.
Many drugs are multi-use. In addition to the primary uses, many drugs have "off label" uses. Ever heard of Nitro Glycerin, or Viagra?
Also, a great number of drugs used by vets on animals are also used in humans - spend some time looking this stuff up (or talk to a vet), instead of blindly following the political arguments of politicians and career government workers who serve those politicians.
Is Ivermectin useful with COVID-19? Who knows? On the one hand, as with several other medications, doctors have made claims that this drug, when used in certain ways at certain stages of infection are beneficial, on the other hand people have demonized these drugs and made claims to have proven them ineffective by "testing" them at dosages and at other stages of the illness where their supporters never recommended. This disconnect seems deliberate and is one reason members of the public are left wondering who to believe. There's no better way to drive people TO something like Ivermectin than to have partisan politicians loudly attacking it, while politically-attached medical people make abnormally unscientific attacks on it - nothing could drive conspiracy theories faster.
Oddly, Ivermectin is being attacked as an animal drug and people are pushing the "ick" factor by ranting about ONE use of the drug - hardly the normal reaction by health professionals. Those of us not directly involved in the research are left with insufficient information and a huge stinking pile of political claims.
One thing is certain, however: for some bizarre reason, there is a huge emphasis on vaccines for COVID-19 (vaccines normally take 5 years or more to develop and approve) and very little effort on treatments (normally the first thing the medical professionals focus on - consider HIV for example where we still have no vaccines but have plenty of treatments). "Stay home until you're REALLY sick, then go to the hospital and get hooked to a respirator" is NOT a theraputic/treatment.
Incidentally, I am not an Ivermectin user/supporter, a hydroxychoriquine user/supporter, or an anti-vaxxer - I am just observing the hyper-political and insanely unscientific behavior by the people opposing these drugs and wondering why they're doing the things they are doing if they truly want to squash all the conspiratorial thinking out there - their actions LOOK as though they are actually trying to increase the suspicions and conspiracy theories.
Re:I hope you reject all vaccines (Score:5, Insightful)
If the New Rule is that all drugs which have more than one use are to be denounced based on one of the uses, or that all drugs also used on animals are to be labelled as animal drugs, then nearly all vaccines are out.
Many drugs are multi-use.
You have completely missed the point. Treating COVID-19 is not one of the uses. This drug is not prescribed to treat COVID-19. People aren't getting this drug from their doctor.
They are literally getting this one: https://www.amazon.com/Durvet-... [amazon.com] The very literal version given to horses. The animal variant, which is NOT the same dose, nor the same delivery mechanism as when it is used on humans.
It's currently sold out in petshops across the country precisely because people are not taking a course of treatment of Ivermectin, they are literally going to pet shops and buying horse de-wormers.
No, I did not miss the point (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not advocating for Ivermectin, nor any other alternate treatment; I am advocating for honest discussion, honest policy, and the right of individual human beings to choose their own course of treatment for diseases, particularly when the so-called experts have NO treatment answers (vaccines are NOT treatments). I know people are getting Ivermectin from sources other than their doctors - and that's hardly the first time in our history this has happened nor is this the first drug involved in such activiti
Re:I hope you reject all vaccines (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing is certain, however: for some bizarre reason, there is a huge emphasis on vaccines for COVID-19 (vaccines normally take 5 years or more to develop and approve) and very little effort on treatments (normally the first thing the medical professionals focus on - consider HIV for example where we still have no vaccines but have plenty of treatments). "Stay home until you're REALLY sick, then go to the hospital and get hooked to a respirator" is NOT a theraputic/treatment.
Viruses aren't like bacteria, there isn't a simple way to attack them (in the case of bacteria, the cell wall is a simple vulnerability that can be attacked). Treating a viral illness is hard, and we've been working on it for centuries.
That said, there has been a lot of effort on treatments for vaccines. You might remember that multiple studies were done to see if hydroxychloroquine would work to cure COVID. There are multiple other studies for other treatments.
So don't listen to anyone who says that we haven't been studying treatments. We have, but it's not an easy problem.
Re:I hope you reject all vaccines (Score:4, Informative)
There's just so much wrong with your post I don't know where to begin.
Doctors know about the mechanisms and risks and benefits of every drug. No drug is without side effects or risk; even giving oxygen can be harmful in some circumstances. There's a small handful of doctors who insist that ivermectin works, and multiple studies showing that it does not. This is not demonizing it; I would LOVE there to be a drug that saved my patients who died, but this doesn't work. Just like hydroxychloroquine, it was another rumored drug that failed.
Ivermectin is dosed in MICROGRAMS, higher doses can cause blindness, fecal incontinence, and other issues. People are taking gram-doses meant for a 1200lb horse and writing about their side effects on social media. The horror of doctors on hearing this and begging people to stop is NOT demonizing it. Doctors are accused of demonizing smoking, fat people, and the list goes on.
Vaccines normally take years because it takes years to setup and run a clinical trial. Funding and manpower is an issue; signing up volunteers is another; and then you have to wait for enough people in the study to develop the disease in order to get results. A ton of money and manpower was thrown at the Covid issue, there were no shortage of volunteers this time, and the number of cases skyrocketed allowing the researchers to get the needed data in just 6 weeks. There were no corners cut, which is why public health experts are near unanimous on supporting the vaccine study results. The data is pretty self-evident.
Your phony centrism isn't helping because you're talking like an antivaxxer.
Well, here's where you COULD begin... (Score:3)
First: try not using strawman arguments. I did not attack the vaccine development, indeed I consider the development of these vaccines to be both revolutionary and a positive leap forward.
Second: don't hero-worship "experts" to the point of dishonesty. Doctors do NOT "know about the mechanisms and risks and benefits of every drug". Most drugs are only partially understood, even some of the mechanisms involved in an old drug like aspirin are not fully known - indeed this is why so many drugs are later foun
Re:Good Science vs Big Pharma (Score:5, Insightful)
When you use the term MSM, do you mean Fox? Because they are mainstream apparently https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... [forbes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, lets see how well that herd immunity works out in Sweden. People were claiming they had achieved it last summer, but then fall and winter came and....crickets. Now it's summer once again, and they're low once again. And NOW they have herd immunity, huh? Except cases are starting to creep up again. Lets see in another month how that all works out for them.
Re:Good Science vs Big Pharma (Score:5, Informative)
It's not clear that herd immunity is possible for COVID.
What you can do (so far) is treat people so that fewer catch COVID, and those who do don't get as sick. For that process, vaccination is the first step.
FWIW, some corona viruses attack the immune system in a way that prevents a permanent immunity from happening. COVID may not be that kind of virus, but it might. If it isn't, then the marker that you need to follow is TCell reaction, not antibodies...but nobody does that, because it's too difficult. But the "original" SARS left a TCell based immunity that lasted over 5 years, so it's plausible that COVID, i.e. sars-cov-2, will react the same way. This won't prevent reinfections, as that would require a mucosal immunity, but it will ensure that the body quickly recognizes the problem and suppresses it.
Re: (Score:3)
For useless values of "possible," sure.
You can't prove negatives, so you can always say that magic unicorns are possible, maybe they're just hiding deep in the mountains? Maybe they use their magic to teleport whenever a camera is nearby? Maybe they can detect the capture of photons, and free them, leaving film (and digital sensor) blank?
However, if as a precondition we limit ourselves to current medical science and extant capabilities, then it is not clear that herd immunity is possible for COVID.
But tha
Re:Uttar Pradesh, India has done even better. (Score:5, Informative)
India's death count is estimated at an order of magnitude times higher than the official count. Believe it or not, people who have trouble affording food don't have easy access to COVID testing and often die in obscurity. [cgdev.org]
And as for this study: Slashdot didn't bother to mention that this is just a peer-reviewed preprint, which has received a lot of skeptical commentary online from other researchers, as it runs against most other data. Not just slightly, but profoundly, claiming 13x greater protection against reinfection and 26x vs. symptomatic reinfection. If it had been a slight disagreement with other studies, that would be one thing, but orders of magnitude disagreement? Also doesn't make sense with past outbreaks in areas previously considered herd immune due to high infection rates (for example, Manaus), or measured antibody neutralization titres in infected vs. vaccinated patients.
Re: (Score:2)
You again? Still too cowardly to post behind your real identity?
I've got a better idea (again): How about you get your ass kicked by a liberal marine?
I know your mind is so narrow your ears touch, but have you considered the possibility that it's backwards, living-in-the-past neocon parasites like you that are destroying the country? No, of course not.
Re: "The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:2)
Funnyâ¦I was led to believe that Marines were taught to believe in the Constitution and the rule of law and are honor bound to them - this is something that makes a true Marine a Marine. Their oath swears them to protect this nation from enemies foreign and domestic. They do a damn good job at it as well.
Insinuating that they would harm another citizen for expressing their Constitutional and God-given rights and are not a true threat would imply that they have no honor, does it not? Go ahead
Re: (Score:2)
And his customers can write "Dead from Stupidity" on theirs.
Re: (Score:2)
No the coronavirus vaccines are much more effective than flu shots.
Re: (Score:3)
In other words, the efficacy of covid vaccines is the same as flu shot - temporary protection for at-risk individuals. This drives the nail into "vaccine passports" coffin.
Not at all. The reason you get a seasonal flu shot has nothing to do with its efficacy. You may want to read up on how the flu jab works, how viruses spread, and specifically why every season you get a completely different vaccine.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Nope. It's been 8 months and the vaccines are not scarce. Unless you're under 18, I'll hound you with "drown in your own bodily fluids, you dumb fuck."
Re:Same as flu shot (Score:5, Insightful)
The zombies will still hound you with "get the vaccine... get the vaccine...", long after all of this is over, though.
You mean, people will follow the consensus of doctors' advice to try to prevent infection by SARS-CoV-2 through vaccination? I hope so. I sincerely hope so.
I'd hate to have to live through this again. If enough people getting annual/semi-annual booster shots ends the pandemic, sign me up. How about you?
Once people are stuck in a train of thought, it's hard to shake them out of it.
Once you've rooted your decision-making process in ideology, you expect everyone else does the same, I guess.
Pfizer and Moderna are so similar (Score:3)
Hello,
The British have been doing studies that show that it's pretty effective to switch up the vaccines, but Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are extremely similar in the antigens they present to the immune system.
Both train the immune system to recognize the spike protein on the original COVID-19 strain. The other immunizations, such as Johnson and Johnson, astro-zeneca, etc., are substantially different.
So from an antigen perspective, there's not a lot of point to