[HN Gopher] What the Omicron wave is revealing about human immunity ___________________________________________________________________ What the Omicron wave is revealing about human immunity Author : bookofjoe Score : 184 points Date : 2022-02-03 12:37 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nature.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com) | cloutchaser wrote: | It's interesting reading about things other than antibody levels | now in Nature as well. T-cell immunity was considered borderline | conspiracy theory until recently. | | I try to avoid conspiracy theories and think this was probably | down to the way governments think and are advised, antibody | levels mean an instant response in humans to a virus, so keeping | them high during a pandemic probably made sense to advisors and | politicians. But that ignores so much about the immune system. | | I hope this narrative shift leads to some more nuanced decisions | being made. | perardi wrote: | Ignored? By whom? I am not a virologist, but actual virologists | sure talked about T-cells in public forums. Or moreover, that | we have to have some degree of humility about exactly what are | the correlates of immunity for this disease. | | https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/ | | And this podcast had Fauci on, so it's not like they weren't | some degree of notable within the immunological academic | sphere. | | I think it 's time for Hanlon's Razor here. Antibodies were | easy to measure. Antibodies probably meant people wouldn't get | sick and wouldn't spread this. So policy makers, being in a | tremendous rush, really glommed onto antibodies, and just got | stuck in that mindset, because it's hard to turn a ship around. | I don't know where there would be a conspiracy--it's just that | this whole thing is complex, and politicians are not | virologists. | cloutchaser wrote: | > it's just that this whole thing is complex, and politicians | are not virologists | | What's really really really bad is that the entire narrative | has been built on "we are science, follow us, if you don't, | you are an idiot, you are endangering others" | | Except science is much more nuanced, and hey, it turns out | t-cells do things too not just antibodies (of course this was | known pre 2020). | | Maybe if communication on this issue wasn't turned so black | and white, and us vs them, by the media and politicians, we'd | be in a better place now. But they didn't do that, they | turned this into politics too. | mikeyjk wrote: | I feel like I've missed the context leading to this | perspective. Where was the discourse on t-cells shut down? | kenjackson wrote: | Exactly. I feel like there are people who see people | being shut down, but it hasn't happened in any venue I'm | familiar with. | spookthesunset wrote: | It happened. I assure you. Debate, healthy skepticism, | questioning... It was all completely shut down. You were | not allowed to discuss anything but The Science. I've | been yelled at by people I know in real life for | discussing T-Cell immunity. Some of the smartest people I | know completely lost their minds. They'll never be the | same and I'll never have the relationship with them I had | pre-pandemic. | | The story of the last 2 years is 10% disease mitigation, | 20% intellectual error, 30% media fear-mongering and 40% | politics & tribalism. | kenjackson wrote: | The fact that I can find articles discussing T-cell | response all the way through the pandemic with a simple | Google search seems to indicate that people were talking | about it. Maybe you shouldn't let the people in your | social circle dictate what you think is happening in the | broader world? And I don't mean that to snarky, but I | feel like I see a lot of this type of generalizing. | cloutchaser wrote: | The entire debate about natural immunity was shut down. | No, you need the vaccine, was the argument for a long | time. It was also ignored in mandates in many countries. | | The entire basis of this is that T-cell immunity is | ignored, and only sky high antibodies caused by the | vaccine offer any protection for future infection. | kenjackson wrote: | Can you point me to an article in NEJM or Nature (or | another respected publication) that said any of this? | spookthesunset wrote: | It wasn't in the journals. It was in the media and in | discussions with others. | | PS: The fact it is hard to talk find sources is because | it was all shut down. | kenjackson wrote: | You do realize the media can say whatever they want? | MSNBC can go one way and Fox News can go the other way. | Their audiences don't shut down the other... | spookthesunset wrote: | > You do realize the media can say whatever they want? | | Ultimately all of what these "experts" say is distilled | by people in the media and shared through twitter, HN, | reddit, FB and more. | | During this madness, all the biggest doomsday people in | my circle of "real" humans would feed me reams of NYT and | Atlantic articles as their "sources". If I fed them some | academic article that goes against the media narrative | they'd dismiss it as "not peer reviewed" or "publishers | were doing a flawed study". Ironic considering almost all | of their sources had all the same major flaws as whatever | I provided. | bigodbiel wrote: | https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101/rr-0 | kenjackson wrote: | First, that was simply an editorial piece. | | But more importantly they "assert" natural immunity is | being ignored by scientific journals, but provide no | evidence. Even worse, they then go on to cite studies | from prestigious scientific journals that discuss natural | immunity! What is it, are they ignoring it or are they | publishing well cited papers on it? | | Lastly, they conflate science with policy. As they even | note, the scientific community has long known that there | is some immunity with surviving infection. But policy has | to take more than that into account. | EricE wrote: | Where were the amount of articles that were | proportionally talking about it? | | Familiar with the term lie of omission? | kenjackson wrote: | It's hard to get proportionality w/o spending a lot of | time getting data. | | But the simplest Google search and you can find Nature | articles talking about T-cell response with respect to | Covid: | | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z | | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24377-1 | | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00436-4 | | If you aren't aware of these discussions it's not because | of lies of omission, gas lighting, or a vast conspiracy | theory. It's because you buried your own head and then | said someone is holding your head down. | EricE wrote: | Would you call the activity around Joe Rogan a discussion | or being shut down? | | Perhaps your aren't seeing a thing because you aren't | looking for it? | kenjackson wrote: | Isn't Joe Rogan one of the most popular podcasts in the | world and when Neil Young said "him or me", Spotify said | him. Is that your definition of "shut down"? | Clubber wrote: | That hasn't completely played out yet. Spotify also lost | a lot of share value over this stunt. Organizations | certainly are _trying_ to shut him down, which is scary | in and of itself, regardless of the outcome. CNN is | talking endlessly about this. | | If Joe Rogan was a smaller fish, it would have been | easier. | kenjackson wrote: | If he was a smaller fish, no one would care. | | I don't watch Joe Rogan. I've seen one clip where he | talks about myocarditis in children and he seems like he | is just making things up. And when the data is presented | to him, in real time on the show -- its like he doesn't | want to believe it. He doesn't seem like a good faith | actor. You can probably find the clip. | | I haven't seen CNN make any call to have him removed. | Although they do call out that he says things that are | factually incorrect -- that seems in-scope for a new | organization. They did the same thing to Sotomayor when | she made false statements about Covid and kids too. Are | they trying to cancel her? | Clubber wrote: | >If he was a smaller fish, no one would care. | | No one would care about them being shut down, or no one | would care what they said? Small people get de-platformed | quite often from both political tribes, including shadow | bans. | | >I don't watch Joe Rogan. | | Most people who are criticizing him, calling him racist | and all that business don't watch him either I don't | think. They just watch curated clips. I watch some of his | episodes, some are certainly thought provoking. The | general rule of thumb is if a clip cuts off mid-sentence | or abruptly, it's probably intentionally misleading. | | >I've seen one clip where he talks about myocarditis in | children and he seems like he is just making things up. | | Is it the one where he was with the Australian | journalists where Rogan was saying there is a higher | chance of kids getting myocarditis from the vaccine than | from Covid? Did you watch the whole thing where the | journalist disagreed, then they looked it up and Rogan | corrected himself? If not, you watched a specifically | curated clip probably designed to push a misinformation | narrative. | | >They did the same thing to Sotomayor when she made false | statements about Covid and kids too. Are they trying to | cancel her? | | Did they do it for going on a week now? How many anchors | covered it? Sotomayor isn't competition for CNN. | | If you are interested, I suggest you watch some counter | arguments to this whole facade to get a better picture. | Right now I think you are just listening to the | prosecutor and not the defendant, so to speak. Some | interesting things I noticed is when the news would do a | segment on a Trump speech and how outlandish it was, then | I watched the actual speech, it was pretty obvious the | news was being disingenuous. Seems like this happens on | all corporate news, not just CNN, MSNBC, etc. It seems | like CNN is getting gutted right now, so hopefully it | will improve. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iccd9KRhXVo | naasking wrote: | > Where was the discourse on t-cells shut down? | | What countries accept a recovered infection on par with a | vaccine? That will tell you where the discourse was shut | down. | germinalphrase wrote: | Unfortunately, policy makers communicate to the public with | the expectation that they have a seventh grade reading | level. | nefitty wrote: | Yes, thank you! Just because I only have a high school | degree does not mean my opinion is not as valid as a | medical professional's. | | Wait. No, that doesn't make sense at all actually... Hm. | dotancohen wrote: | I believe it was Asimov that lamented "the problem with | democracy is that my ignorance is as valuable as your | knowledge". | VikingCoder wrote: | > "they turned this into politics too." | | Politics is the discussion of how we should behave. How | could this possibly have not become politics? | | When you're lost at sea, you're an idiot if you don't row | with everyone else, in the direction that the navigator | thinks is right. | nitrogen wrote: | This "everything is politics" line really needs to die. | It's completely ignoring what people actually mean when | they say "turned political" -- that people focus more on | scoring points and amplifying divisions instead of the | overall welfare of groups and individuals. | cloutchaser wrote: | Maybe I should have said "tribal" instead of "turned | political". Because that's what manipulative politicians | do and it's what everyone hates and loves about politics. | spookthesunset wrote: | I think you are right. It isn't politics, it is mostly | tribalism. Us vs. "the others". | bigodbiel wrote: | Reading this article feels like science experiment on a global | scale was run. And that too was a conspiracy theory, once. | [deleted] | packetlost wrote: | I don't know what you're talking about, I recall learning about | T-cell immunity in middle-school biology class like 15 years | ago. Just because politics causes you to cloud your judgement | and memory does not mean the research and knowledge wasn't | already there. | jpeloquin wrote: | > T-cell immunity was considered borderline conspiracy theory | until recently. | | This surprised me, so I checked my cell biology books. The role | of memory T-cells in the adaptive immune response is clearly | described in Garland, "Molecular Biology of the Cell", (c) | 2002. Not sure in what sense T-cell immunity is a conspiracy | theory, unless it's being used as code for something else. | jamesblonde wrote: | Next, we'll start talking about innate immunity. But, maybe | it's too early for that for too many people. | Mikeb85 wrote: | > T-cell immunity was considered borderline conspiracy theory | until recently. | | It's funny how the pandemic caused people to toss our decades | of understandings of viruses out the window because it was | politically expedient. | | It's always been known that if your immune system allows you to | recover from a virus, you will have _some_ level of lasting | immunity. | ben_w wrote: | While true, " _some_ level of lasting immunity" is not | necessarily all that useful. Norovirus infection and recovery | for example, only last 6-24 months. I don't know what the | long term immune system response is for covid, but I do know | that planning in general needs to be for the more pessimistic | end of what is seems possible, and that quite a lot seemed | possible in the early days of the pandemic. | skocznymroczny wrote: | Why the "only" wording? Seems like the covid vaccines don't | even last this much, and they are praised. | darkcha0s wrote: | I'm guessing because they give you protection without | actually catching the potentially harmful virus in the | first place? | chucksta wrote: | No they used "only" as in "not very long". The question | is asking how can you say it's not very long when the | covid vaccination lasts less than a year in comparison | SigmundA wrote: | Covid vaccines have less side effects than the virus so | are still superior option, hence the praise. | robrorcroptrer wrote: | What if I had prior infection of Covid before vaccines | were available? Why would I need to be forced to be | vaccinated? Given that my health care system actually | registers this prior infection. While we don't have | vaccines for everyone in the world. | KptMarchewa wrote: | We have way more than enough for anyone who wants it. | boomboomsubban wrote: | Given that the poster said norovirus immunity lasts from | 6-24 months, having been infected before the vaccine | wouldn't guarantee you're safe. | | And while sure they could push back your vaccine | requirement a few months, that'd require a fair amount of | additional overhead and add an additional risk of having | gotten a false diagnosis. | SigmundA wrote: | Getting Covid should be treated as though you got a | vaccine based on the data I have seen, which also means | its immunity effects wanes over time and would need to be | boosted periodically either by reinfection or vaccine, | again the vaccine being the safer approach. | | Whether or not you should be "forced" to take it should | be based on risk to others in the situation that it is | being forced, just like you are "forced" to not speed | while driving on a public highway. | | I am not sure what the current latest scientific data is | but my understanding is that virus and vaccine both | reduce the risk of a subsequent infection, spreading the | virus if infected and getting severe outcomes requires | hospitalization (which reduces hospital capacity). Since | this protective effect fades in both circumstances a | recent booster would need to be "forced" if not recently | having been infected assuming there is no issue with | vaccine supply. | naasking wrote: | > Whether or not you should be "forced" to take it should | be based on risk to others in the situation that it is | being forced, just like you are "forced" to not speed | while driving on a public highway. | | I really wish people would stop using this analogy. | Driving is a privilege not a right, and you earn that | privilege by following the rules. | | Living without compulsory medical procedures is a right, | not a privilege, so it's the complete opposite case. You | need a better analogy. | SigmundA wrote: | In the US the mandates allow a choice to either vaccinate | or get regular testing. No one is being made to take a | vaccine against their will in the US at least, they must | however take precautions to protect others from their | risky behavior. | | You have a right to bear arms here in the US that does | not mean you can shoot them in a public place because | that endangers others. Typically rights have limits when | they impose on others rights. | | Working is a privilege was well not a right, you have no | right to a job at an employer (at least in the US). So | the analogy fits as a privilege but it also works as a | right since neither are absolute and are typically | limited when they effect others around you negatively. | spookthesunset wrote: | > they must however take precautions to protect others | from their risky behavior | | If the vaccine was so good at protecting others, why the | hell do vaccinated people still need to wear a mask? How | is it even ethical to force people to vaccinate in order | to function in society and yet still require them to wear | a mask? Seems kind of bullshit to me. | naasking wrote: | I agree rights have limits when they conflict with other | rights. However the right to work is a right under the UN | human rights code. That doesn't mean you have a right to | work at any particular place, but it does mean if | vaccines are a prerequisite for any kind of work, either | by government fiat or by broad corporate consensus, that | would be a violation of human rights. Using tests to | balance vaccines is one way to address that, but some | countries don't even take those considerations and want | to blanket mandate vaccines. | SigmundA wrote: | If it where a prerequisite to vaccinate with no other | choice to find work anywhere (even remote from home jobs) | or even say a majority of places I might agree, but that | is not even close to the case here in the US. | | I think the UN humans rights could also be interpreted as | I having the right to a safe work environment and | conversely if I where forced to work in a common office | space with unvaccinated / untested people that would also | violate my rights. | naasking wrote: | As I said, the US is not the only place that's discussing | or implementing mandates, and other places are less | flexible in how they're applying them. | | Secondly, the very notion that you can have an | expectation of not getting infected from someone else is | intrinsically untenable. Just try to define what | characteristics a pathogen must have before vaccines are | mandatory. Why set the bar at COVID's fatality rate, why | not the flu? Why not the common cold? Is fatality rate | really the right metric? What about number of post | infection complications? | | Furthermore, what if we say the COVID rate is the cutoff, | what if you have comorbidities that increase your chances | of death, does that increase the obligation of your | workmates to get vaccinated or is that your problem? I | think you know which way the rhetoric is going, but these | answers are far from obvious. | SigmundA wrote: | So which places are you talking about so I know what I | can agree or disagree with? | | This whole thing seems like continuum fallacy [1]. Just | like everything we must all agree on a cutoff because the | real world doesn't have neat black and white thresholds, | covid is different from the flu that much is obvious and | reaches my threshold for requiring vaccination / testing | mandates at least in its current form. Do agree that a | disease can be deadly enough to require it? If so what is | your threshold before the mandate should be allowed? | | I am willing to discuss what metrics would help come to | consensus as a society, buts its not like requiring | vaccines or other preventative measures for certain | activities is some foreign concept. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox | was8309 wrote: | aren't vaccine mandates for participation in a shared | environment - like work? | naasking wrote: | Mandates are being used in many different ways depending | on the country. But even if it were limited to work, the | right to work is also recognized as a human right so the | analogy to driving still fails. | api wrote: | One of the worst things about Donald Trump was that if he or | anyone adjacent to him actually said anything _good_ , it | immediately became toxic. They did do so every once in a | while, but it was so throughly mixed with shit that it became | contaminated. | | If Trump said the sky was blue, suddenly it would have to be | red and if you were a red sky denier you were a racist. We | are still dealing with the echoes of this and will be for at | least five years. | | This is why having a super-polarizing troll in office is | inherently bad for society. I think that's true regardless of | their stripes. An obnoxious troll from the "left" would be no | better in this particular regard. | | There's a reason high office leaders need to carry themselves | professionally. Class (of the behavioral sort) is not some | old fogie cultural superstition. Leaders that carry | themselves like Trump actually damage the cognition of the | people in their society. | 62951413 wrote: | 70M people would like a word with you. | | Don't confuse legacy media propaganda with what regular | people think. Especially when you hear newspeak. | krapp wrote: | And 230M people would like a word with _you._ | | Trumpists seem to forget that neither their movement nor | their President have ever had the support of the American | majority, much less of all "regular people." Never even | the popular vote. | [deleted] | Veen wrote: | There's truth in the idea that Trump supporting an idea | made it toxic even if it was a good idea, but it didn't | happen in a vacuum. It happened because the anti-Trump | media attacked everything Trump said, whether it was | sensible or not. They could have taken a neutral | perspective and assessed his speech on its merits, but they | did not and they bear some repsonsibility for that. | | (To be clear: I'm not a Trump supporter and I think that | when he was right it was by accident rather than design. | However, many media organizations shamed themselves by | embracing partisanship and abandoning even the pretence of | neutrality). | kenjackson wrote: | Are there a lot of examples of this? In general when | Trump said the right thing it seems like the media didn't | go too far overboard. The most obvious example was about | vaccination itself. While people were worried that he | would push out a vaccine that wasn't ready, people were | on board with vaccination. | | That said, I do think that Trump's brand was largely | about division on social issues. So to that extent he | often put at the forefront of his narratives positions | that forced you to take a side. E.g., should Kaepernick | be fired or not. Etc... | brimble wrote: | I think media treatment of him was really weird. Some | things were exaggerated, but something like suggesting, | during the '16 campaign, in a plainly favorable tone, | that his supporters might _assassinate his opponent_ if | she won, should have been the only thing anyone wanted to | ask him or his proxies about until he was hounded out of | public life. Instead it was dropped surprisingly quickly. | brimble wrote: | (can't edit, but not sure if the DV was over disbelief or | for some other reason--if the latter, cool, no problem, I | take no issue with whatever your reason was; if the | former, it's on YouTube and it's exactly what I've said | it is, though on review _technically_ he may _merely_ | have been suggesting that the "2nd amendment people" [as | he put it] might shoot Supreme Court justices... so, you | know, not exactly better. It's not clear which of those-- | or, maybe both--were what he had in mind when he said | it.) | kenjackson wrote: | I think the media treatment was fair and evenhanded. I | think what has changed with the media is that nothing | sticks for very long. As you note, what might have been a | big story in the past has a really short news cycle now. | What was remarkable about Trump was the shear volume of | stories -- each lasted for days, but was then followed up | immediately (or concurrently) with another. Even Jan 6 is | having trouble sticking in the news. | | I think this was one of the issues that the Republicans | ran into with the election. They thought that certain | stories about Biden would stick and last. They missed | that none of these stories last any more. You need a huge | volume of stories to paint a narrative over a long period | of time. | | Someone else mentioned the uncharitable interpretations | of things he said. That was earned over years of such | statements. It wasn't a new isolated incident. | brimble wrote: | > Someone else mentioned the uncharitable interpretations | of things he said. That was earned over years of such | statements. It wasn't a new isolated incident. | | You're right to such a degree that I _distinctly_ | remember my first impression of him being formed by _Rush | Limbaugh_ (my dad was a listener) making fun of what a | dishonest, sleazy joke of a human being Trump was. Must | have been some time in the 90s. His reputation was | decades in the making, and _at one time_ that take on him | was practically universal. The transformation was | fascinating to watch. | EricE wrote: | EricE wrote: | kenjackson wrote: | This is an example of when people say, "I'll do my own | research" I often roll my eyes. First, about the site you | gave, here's what BMJ has to say about this site: | | "Different websites (such as https://ivmmeta.com/, | https://c19ivermectin.com/, | https://tratamientotemprano.org/estudios-ivermectina/, | among others) have conducted meta-analyses with | ivermectin studies, showing unpublished colourful forest | plots which rapidly gained public acknowledgement and | were disseminated via social media, without following any | methodological or report guidelines. These websites do | not include protocol registration with methods, search | strategies, inclusion criteria, quality assessment of the | included studies nor the certainty of the evidence of the | pooled estimates. Prospective registration of systematic | reviews with or without meta-analysis protocols is a key | feature for providing transparency in the review process | and ensuring protection against reporting biases, by | revealing differences between the methods or outcomes | reported in the published review and those planned in the | registered protocol. These websites show pooled estimates | suggesting significant benefits with ivermectin, which | has resulted in confusion for clinicians, patients and | even decision-makers. This is usually a problem when | performing meta-analyses which are not based in rigorous | systematic reviews, often leading to spread spurious or | fallacious findings.36" | | Furthermore, in good faith I went and randomly looked at | one of the studies cited that sourced a reasonable | journal: | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.27469 | | The c19ivermectin site misrepresents the results from the | study. To quote the actual study: "However, a mortality | benefit was not seen with ivermectin treatment before and | after PSM (p values = 0.07 and 0.11, respectively). ICU | admission, and intubation rate were not significantly | different between the groups (p = 0.49, and p = 1.0, | respectively). No differences were found between groups | regarding the length of hospital stay, ICU admission, | intubation rate, and in-hospital mortality." | | Additionally the study notes: "The ivermectin group was | more likely to have bacterial pneumonia complications | compared to the control group (43% vs. 23%, p = 0.02). | Eight patients had a pulmonary embolism or deep vein | thrombosis in the ivermectin group, and the ivermectin | group more frequently received therapeutic | anticoagulation therapy than the control group. In | addition, 13 patients had acute kidney injury in the | ivermectin group." | | The website you provided has a very biased take on just | the one study I looked at. It's hard for me to take it | seriously as an unbiased meta-analysis of ivermectin. | jamesblonde wrote: | This is cherry picking at its worst. I found one bad | study from 78! studies. Therefore, I will ignore all | studies. Even worse, none of your double blind RCTs are | multi-site western studies. So, I will ignore all of | them. Do you know what? After 2 years. 2 years, there has | not been even one WESTERN double blind RCT of Ivermectin | for Covid that has reported its data. Not one. There are | 3 ongoing - Oxford (paused now, because they cannot get | supply - what a joke), Covid-OUT (reporting in maybe 2 | months), and NIH (reporting in 2023). The Together trial | finished in August, but they are still sitting on the | data - why? | | Besides those trials, there are 87! studies from lots of | countries. One really good observational study with ~200k | participants (120k in the treatment group) from Itaj | Brazil for IVM as prophylaxis. Results for propensity | matched data were hospitalizations down by 85%, and for | non propensity matched 50%. But nobody has written about | it. The same goes for Fluvoxamine, which has great data. | As does Melatonin and Curcumin. Lots of treatment and | prophylaxis options out there. | | And yes, i am vaxxed. But I despair at this notion that | it is vax or treatment. I chose both. | | Reference: | | https://www.cureus.com/articles/82162-ivermectin- | prophylaxis... | kenjackson wrote: | I randomly picked the first study of a journal id heard | of. I'm not going to read all 78. It's not cherry picking | when you do that. | jamesblonde wrote: | Irrespective of whether it's random or cherry picked, you | can't discount a mountain of evidence from N=1. That is | the playbook Big Pharma have succeeded with so far. Find | one trial with evidence of fraud (El-Gazaar DBRCT) and | then discount all other clinical trials on IVM for Covid. | The media bought it hook, line, and sinker. | kenjackson wrote: | I absolutely can discount a mountain of evidence from | N=1. If you bring me 10 candidates for a job and say they | can all type 100 WPM and I say, "OK, give me that guy in | the middle" and give him a typing test and he types 20 | WPM, I'm discounting the rest of the candidates because I | no longer trust the source. | | Furthermore, the issue isn't the study. It's how they | misrepresented the results of the study. Another example, | it would be like if you give me a paper and I go to the | middle of the paper and it says, "Nazi's saved millions | of Jews from the rein of terror of the Hawaiians" -- I'm | going to discount the paper because I think the | editorializing is misleading. I don't need to read the | rest of the paper -- unless you tell me that the section | I read was meant to be satire. | | This is why credibility matters. If that site was Nature | and I looked at one study and there was something wrong | with it I might be inclined to look at a few more | randomly. But given that people have a finite amount of | time, when you present something it better be accurate. | And when it is accurate, you'll gain credibility. But if | the first thing I look at is misleading -- I don't have a | lot of patience to wade through data ... especially when | other sources also say that you're representations are | biased. | jamesblonde wrote: | If you don't like ivmmeta.com, have a look at this | published meta analysis of ivermectin for covid. It | reaches the same conclusions. And yes, there is also a | cochrane meta analysis that cuts out all by 9 DBRCTs | (ha!), still is positive, but not stat-sig. | | https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/fulltext/20 | 21/... | jamesblonde wrote: | The reason why many of the studies are poorly written and | have methodological limitations is that many are done by | clinicians in 2nd world countries. Not one large DBRCT | from the west has reported on IVM for Covid yet. Let that | sink in. | jamesblonde wrote: | Way to go mods with the censorship, hiding these | comments. History will not be on your side. | the_why_of_y wrote: | Here somebody took the time to look at 30 of these | studies. It is an interesting read. | | https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much- | more-t... | jamesblonde wrote: | That's a well-written hit piece by Scott Alexander. This | isn't big tobacco of old who transparently lie. This | article gives short biased summaries of all papers, and | leaves out all the good results of many papers. Even well | run studies, like Chaccour, that shown stat sign | reduction in cough and ansomnia in only N=24, he spins as | a negative result. And the Italian study that just barely | misses stat sig reduction in viral load - well he doesn't | tell you that, does he? | | Scott also believes the benefit from IVM is because of | worm reduction. The Ijatai study with >120k subjects is | an area of Brazil with no worms, proving that is | transparent nonsense. | kenjackson wrote: | Those aren't examples of the media gaslighting people. | Those are about the CDC and FDA saying they aren't | effective (or not proven effective). You're conflating | the media with scientific advisory boards -- and notably | those under Trump's own watch at the time. | | Media gas lighting would be if the CDC/FDA/etc said that | Ivermectin was effective and the media saying it wasn't | or not reporting on it. | steveylang wrote: | The media gaslighting part is continuing to call | ivermectin a horse medicine to disparage it, when it is | also approved as anti-parasite medication for humans (if | not for COVID.) | notahacker wrote: | People were ordering from livestock suppliers in | preparations designed to treat horse conditions, to the | extent stockists started running out and started | demanding people provide evidence they actually owned a | horse to buy it. I mean, dog food is just meat from the | same animals humans eat, but it's still a news story if | people decide they'd rather eat Pedigree Chum than take | nutrition advice from doctors. | naasking wrote: | > In general when Trump said the right thing it seems | like the media didn't go too far overboard. | | I'd say those aren't the problem so much as the | borderline cases where there are true and untrue | interpretations of a certain statement, but of course | they ran with the most uncharitable possible | interpretation because they're convinced Trump is a | ruthless dictator in the making. | nonameiguess wrote: | This is kind of arguing in circles, though. A big part of | the reason media is so hard on Trump is that he is | classless and they were embarrassed he was their | president. It's not like his public image was any better | in 1990 well before he ever openly declared political | ambitions and decided he was a Republican. He'd been a | sideshow clown for decades. Arguably, the ridiculous | level of polarization we already had is the only reason | he got to where he is. Even most Republicans were | embarrassed of him until he won the nomination and they | rallied to the only option left that wasn't a Democrat. | But thanks to having way too many candidates in the | primary, he didn't need the support of "most" | Republicans. He just needed more than Ted Cruz and Jeb | Bush. | anshorei wrote: | As someone who considers themselves an outside onlooker, I | disagree. Trump allowed all of the tribal people to out | themselves. It's made it a lot easier to find people who | stick to their principles and praised/criticized him where | appropriate. | kerneloftruth wrote: | One of the worst things about Donald Trump was that if he | or anyone adjacent to him actually said anything good, it | immediately became toxic. | | That wasn't the worst thing about trump.... it's the worst | thing about the media coverage of him. You're blaming him | for how media covered him. | [deleted] | hdjjhhvvhga wrote: | Why not both? Trump behaved in a provocative way for a | reason - it's not like he was a poor misunderstood thing | and the media picked up on him for no reason. | themaninthedark wrote: | Preface by saying the I don't agree with Trump on a lot | of things. | | Lets look at this from a parenting perspective. If i have | a child who misbehaves often, is it appropriate for me to | punish them when they do something good? | | Holding the media to the same accountability, if Trump is | saying stupid/outrageous/provocative things, then lambast | him when he says those things. But if the media lambasts | him when he is saying something reasonable, then that is | on the media. | | I think most of the annoyance I see in the thread is | because there was blame being assigned to Trump or even | someone on the same stage as him because they were on | that stage with him. | | >One of the worst things about Donald Trump was that if | he or anyone adjacent to him actually said anything good, | it immediately became toxic. | | So rather than examining an idea based on the merits, | ideas were discarded due to the messenger or the who the | messenger associated with. | hdjjhhvvhga wrote: | Yes, I fully agree: criticizing Trump when when he was | saying/doing something that makes sense just because it's | Trump was very stupid. | kingsloi wrote: | What about things said by them directly, their Twitter, | etc? | Supermancho wrote: | Modified for context, the german adage holds. If you have | Trump and 3 people talking at a table, you have 4 | Trumpers talking at a table. | mynameishere wrote: | You just described one of the many problems with the media | and then blamed it on Donald Trump. Why couldn't you have | said "One of the problems with the media is..." | wolverine876 wrote: | I don't recall that happening. Can you give examples? That | sounds like Trump's behavior, not others. | spookthesunset wrote: | Calling Covid a "novel" virus was a mistake. Technically it's | true but that didn't mean we needed to toss out everything we | learned about viruses and start from first principles. Even | from way back in March of 2020 even the most basic things we | knew about viruses felt controversial. People were seriously | thinking you could catch and transmit covid after like 3 | months or something--like you'd just constantly get re- | infected over and over again. And people flipping out about | outdoor transmission... like when has catching a virus | outside ever been a real thing? Everything we knew about the | subject had to be re-proven. | | It was and still is completely crazy. | clairity wrote: | 'novel' is a perfectly cromulent term for covid-19. what's | not cromulent is the unreasonable and extraneous reaction | to a 'new' cold virus. every new virus will have outsized | effect until we settle into steady-state (which depends on | the dynamics of the virus). | | what leadership needed to do was identify the _dynamic_ | threat--mainly to the elderly & immune deficient--and | mitigate for them, not run around screaming like | discombobulated chickens promoting throw-everything- | against-the-wall safetyism. we could have had highly | targeted mitigations and minimal disruption to our lives; | instead, we got incessant debates over useless masking, | lockdowns, and vaccine mandates. | | even including the elderly and immune deficient, over 99% | of people get covid and recover just fine. this isn't the | black plague by any stretch of the imagination. | [deleted] | wolverine876 wrote: | > every new virus will have outsized effect until we | settle into steady-state | | No, this one killed more people than anything in US | history, more than wars, prior pan-/epidemics, etc. In my | lifetime, no 'new virus' has had any sort of similar | effect at all, by orders of magnitude. | clairity wrote: | the flu kills ~36K/year, so if you're ~22+ year old | american, then the influenza virus has killed more people | in your lifetime than covid. | | we don't know yet what steady-state looks like, but note | that medical/epidemiological organizations don't | generally keep death statistics on colds (caused by | rhinoviruses, coronaviruses, etc.) because they're not a | significant number. colds can be a contributing factor in | death for folks with deficient immune systems, just as it | is with covid, but is generally not the sole cause. | | again, >99% survive covid just fine. for people with | multiple co-morbidities, it's much more serious (whole | percentage death rates), but that's because they're | teetering on the brink already, and covid (or any number | of respiratory diseases, really) can push them over the | edge. our mitigations should focus on the aged and | unhealthy, not everyone (especially not children). | notahacker wrote: | We didn't have to toss out everything we learned about | viruses and start from first principles, but certainly | people's irritation with COVID restrictions seems to have | provoked people to ignore decades of research to the | contrary to make bizarre assertions like you can't catch | viruses outside or get reinfected (ironically the early | scientific and mainstream speculation about if COVID would | be different was mostly taking the optimistic tack that | COVID might be _less_ likely to cause reinfection than | respiratory viruses endemic in the human population like | flu...) | | Same goes for the T-cell immunity really: it was pretty | much a given that the body's normal immune processes still | applied to coronavirus, but what was _novel_ was the | unscientific community insisting that they couldn 't | possibly be reinfected and a course of vaccines couldn't | possibly give them any benefit to their immune system after | they'd been infected (someone should tell all the old | people who get flu shots every year!) | Thiez wrote: | > someone should tell all the old people who get flu | shots every year | | What we call the flu is not a single virus that comes | once a year. It's different types of virusses each time, | and the flu vaccine targets the most likely candidates of | that year. So no, you don't generally get REinfected with | the flu, because it's a different virus. Some of the | virusses that we consider 'the flu' are actually corona | virusses, and perhaps covid19 will join that list as it | becomes endemic. | notahacker wrote: | What we call the flu also includes a wide variety of | viral illnesses better known as the common cold, which | includes some coronaviruses - the flu shots offer no | protection against most of these different viruses | | What medical practitioners call the flu is a small subset | of influenza viruses common in humans, each with a high | potential for reinfection, including reinfections within | a year (as well as constantly evolving variant strains, | just like COVID) | rhino369 wrote: | Some of the problems with our response is actually based on | the opposite issue, our first response impulses were to | treat it like a novel flu strain. So we re-ran the H1N1 | playbook. The flu was believed to be mostly spread by | droplets/surface contact and not airborne, so they assumed | covid was too. | | The issues you are describing is more the problem that | health officials shift the burden of proof depending which | assumptions or policies they want to make. Any facts that | counter their policies have to be proven by significant | evidence. And they often wouldn't look too hard. A fact | that supports their conclusion can be assumed until proven | otherwise. | beebmam wrote: | Many people got Delta and then Omicron even 1 month later. | Kai Ryssdal from NPR for example, and one of my friends did | too. | | So this isn't crazy; it literally happens to many | respiratory viruses. Viruses mutate | spookthesunset wrote: | Yup. But like you said many respiratory viruses do that. | Does that make the flu virus many of us catch every year | novel? How about the common cold? Is each specific virus | also novel? | | Why did we decide to throw out everything we knew about | viruses for SARS-CoV-2? It's like society discovered "OMG | I could catch a virus and die!". Not realizing that | virtually nothing was new about SARS-CoV-2. It's just a | respiratory virus like any other we've had passed through | millions of generations of living beings. Oddly enough | the "broader human species" managed to survive and thrive | through all of them. | enchiridion wrote: | I always wondered how people claim that. Did they have | two pcr tests or something else telling them what variant | they had? | rsynnott wrote: | Most PCR tests will discriminate between (B.1) Omicron | and things which are not B.1 Omicron, so it's feasible to | know this. I mean, strictly speaking all you'd know is | that you had B.1 Omicron plus something else, but if you | had the non-B.1 Omicron one in October, then in most | parts of the world you'd be pretty safe in assuming that | was Delta. | ddek wrote: | I had delta in late October and omicron in early | December. I was PCR positive for delta, although I had a | mild case. I wasn't allowed to take a PCR test for the | December infection, because it was too soon after my | delta test and my symptoms were very mild. I did test | positive multiple times on LFT, my symptoms matched the | 'ultramild' omicron (scratchy throat, slight cough, lower | back pain). The day I tested positive for omicron was 4 | days after my friends had gathered in a pub, of the 30 of | us in attendance 27 tested positive on the same day. The | group chat was wild. Some of those that got PCR's were | informed they had omicron. | tremon wrote: | _Calling Covid a "novel" virus was a mistake_ | | It was called a novel virus to indicate that no person | already had (acquired) immunity against it. What inference | you make from the word "novel" is on you, not on the rest | of the world. | pessimizer wrote: | > Calling Covid a "novel" virus was a mistake. | | I don't remember anyone ever doing that. I remember them | calling it a _novel coronavirus_ , because it is a new | coronavirus, at least to us. | neuronic wrote: | I don't get this take but that's because I am not from the US I | suppose. Here, politicians and virologists have publically | explained immunity in multiple layers. | | Antibodies as first line of defense to intercept viruses and | keep them from initially docking to cells. Then, at the bottom, | there is long-term T-cell immunity which is essential in | preventing severe disease. The vaccines train the immune system | to recognize and respond quicker to the virus so that it cannot | dock to cells and replicate as fast as it could if the immune | system had never seen it before. The immune system does not | need to catch up first so it gets a running start instead of a | cold start if not vaccinated. | themaninthedark wrote: | So kind of on topic... | | I have two boys, one under 5, the other under 10. I am trying to | get good data to determine if vaccination is risky or not. | | Recently a relative sent me a story about MIS-C, which seems to | be new. But trying to get good data on other things like | myocarditis risk/rates is like sorting for a needle in a | scrapyard. | | Does anyone have any good data, preferably raw statistics on | this? | | Thank you in advance! | naasking wrote: | Myocarditis risk stratified by gender, age group, vaccine and | infection: | | https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-reports-myoca... | | Males under 40 roughly have the highest risk from multiple | Moderna doses, followed by infection, followed by two Astra | doses, followed by two Pfizer doses. I expect two COVID | infections would increase the risk like it seems to do with the | vaccines. | eitland wrote: | This is very interesting to me if true, both because | | - I thought the risk from getting an infection would be much | higher than any vaccine combination (but here multiple | Moderna doses seems to increase the risk even more) | | - again, if this is true it still validates the rest of my | reasoning: except for multiple doses of Moderna any other | combination of mainstream vaccines seems to be safer than | actually getting the infection | | (I note that there is a lot of uncertainty which is why I use | "seems to be" instead of "is".) | chris_va wrote: | The "risk from getting an infection" includes many other | side effects besides myocarditis, I would not evaluate the | risks from an unvaccinated viral infection (which can cause | 100 other things besides myocarditis) vs the risk from | vaccination (or vaccination + viral infection, which the | most likely long term outcome) on the myocarditis axis | alone. | naasking wrote: | Yes that's fair, but the risk profile from the vaccine is | also not just relegated to myocarditis, that's just | what's been getting attention. It will probably be years | before we have an accurate risk assessment of both | infection and vaccines. Given the availability of | vaccines, it still makes sense to be choosier if you're | in a potentially vulnerable population, which is what the | paper suggests. | synquid wrote: | Myocarditis isn't that dangerous, it's acute and can be | managed. Infection is much more risky. | tomp wrote: | > I expect two COVID infections would increase the risk like | it seems to do with the vaccines. | | Then the relevant metric should be _infection_ vs | _vaccine+infection_ , given that natural immunity is better | than vaccine-conferred immunity (which seems very bad with | Omicron) | throwaway5752 wrote: | Ask your pediatrician. If you don't trust that they know | better, get a new pediatrician. I'm not being glib, this person | has made it through a grueling education of their undergrad, | med school, and residency. They are well acquainted with hard | sciences and research. If you don't trust them on their area of | expertise, then that is the problem. | | Anecdotally, every doctor I know has gotten their own children | vaccinated as soon as it was available (or enrolled them in | clinical trials, to get it earlier). | jpeloquin wrote: | > I am trying to get good data to determine if vaccination is | risky or not. | | Rather than giving you a list of work that you may suspect of | being curated, I will show you how to quickly find what you're | looking for. | | One of the great things about the National Library of Medicine | is that a human looks at each and every paper and assigns | standardized semantic tags to it. These are called "MeSH terms" | and you can filter the entire library by them. | | You mentioned interest in myocarditis, and the following would | be an appropriate search query in pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov for | this topic: | | myocarditis[mh] AND vaccines[majr] AND COVID | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=myocarditis%5Bmh%5D+AN... | | The "mh" selects articles that were tagged with that MeSH term. | The "majr" selects articles that were tagged with that MeSH | term and were mainly about that term. In this case, the | structured query drills down from thousands of potential | results to 61 results, which is manageable to triage manually. | | Edit: Here's how you can figure out wish MeSH terms exist: | https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/search | ceejayoz wrote: | > In this case, the structured query drills down from | thousands of potential results to 61 results, which is | manageable to triage manually. | | If, of course, you have the domain knowledge required to do | so. | edmundsauto wrote: | You would probably need some basic domain knowledge to | interpret medical publications in peer reviewed journals. | I'm not saying they are the same expertise, just that | "requiring expertise" as a prerequisite is pretty | reasonable. | logic_beats_pro wrote: | Really tough to tell because there's a lack of data. Parents | aren't vaccinating their young children because they have the | strongest immune systems and it's unnecessary. | | Here are CDC submitted reports of myo/pericarditis seen so far | broken out by age: | | https://openvaers.com/covid-data/myo-pericarditis | | So take from that what you will. And if this is your first time | encountering VAERS, the reports actually submitted are | estimated to be between 1 and 10% of total adverse effects | experienced. | | If you're into reading studies, here are some that are largely | unknown: | | https://www.rwmalonemd.com/heart-blood-clotting | | Good luck! | veilrap wrote: | This is somewhat misleading information. | | VAERS is an open database, it can be easily submitted to by | anyone, it's not a good source of truth and may contain | statistical bias. | | Parent's ARE vaccinating their children, millions of kids age | 5-11 have had the vaccine: | https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine- | trac... Depending on the state, the total % vaccinated in | that age group varies between ~20-50%. | TrevorJ wrote: | >VAERS is an open database, it can be easily submitted to | by anyone, it's not a good source of truth and may contain | statistical bias. | | This is 100% true, but it leaves out some context. | | Prior to covid, it was thought that vaccine side effects | were statistically underreported by a significant amount in | VAERS. For the signal we are seeing in VAERS to be totally | spurious seems highly unlikely, given this fact. It's also | worth noting that effects which have a significant time- | delay are unlikely to be captured. | | All this is to say: yes the data are noisy, but we'd need | to erase/explain away the numbers by at least an order of | magnitude to erase the spike we are seeing, and that seems | like a tall order. | | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK232983/ | ceejayoz wrote: | > All this is to say: yes the data are noisy, but we'd | need to erase/explain away the numbers by at least an | order of magnitude to erase the spike we are seeing, and | that seems like a tall order. | | That's fairly easy: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion | throwawayboise wrote: | Other vaccines e.g. the common "childhood" ones are | uncontroverisal and given on a rather steady basis as | people reach the appropriate ages. The COVID vaccines | were pushed to _everybody_ in a time window of months, | and with a huge amount of controversy and media | attention. Given that, I would expect a spike not only in | the raw number of adverse reactions, but also a higher | proportion of them actually being reported. | logic_beats_pro wrote: | Interesting comment. It's so funny, whenever anyone posts a | VAERS link (literally the only visibility the US public has | into adverse events) people come out of the woodwork to | mention that anyone can submit a report. Other than VAERS, | we have public health authorities which routinely lie to | the public simply to get vaccines in arms, regardless of | the truth or consequences. Too many examples to list here | but Fauci continuously upping the percentage of people that | would need to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity comes | to mind. I guess he left out the part that herd immunity | isn't even possible with the vaccines. | | We're relying on proven liars to get our health | information? These are our CHILDREN for God's sake. | | I'll go ahead and list the whoppers from the mayo clinic | site: | | - A COVID-19 vaccine can prevent kids from getting and | spreading the COVID-19 virus. | | The vaccines in no way, shape or form prevent someone from | getting or spreading COVID-19 | | - COVID-19 vaccines have not been linked to infertility or | miscarriage. | | Miscarriage data: https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/foia- | docs-reveal-pfizer-sh... | | - These vaccines were approved quickly because the red tape | was cut -- not corners. | | Please see the story of Pfizer whistle-blower Brook Jackson | | - In the U.S., the delta (B.1.617.2) variant is now the | most common COVID-19 variant. | | Omicron is over 95% of cases. Why would they conceal that? | Ahh, because the FAQ question was "Do COVID-19 vaccines | protect against the variants?" You'd have to admit the | vaccines do next to nothing versus Omicron unless you have | had a booster in the last 10 weeks. | rossnordby wrote: | I'm not aware of any great data on myopericarditis for very | young people, and not as many have been vaccinated, so I | extrapolate from older age groups: | | _Of 3 482 295 individuals vaccinated with BNT162b2 (Pfizer- | BioNTech), 48 developed myocarditis or myopericarditis within | 28 days from the vaccination date compared with unvaccinated | individuals (adjusted hazard ratio 1.34 (95% confidence | interval 0.90 to 2.00); absolute rate 1.4 per 100 000 | vaccinated individuals within 28 days of vaccination (95% | confidence interval 1.0 to 1.8))._ | -https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068665 | | _Among more than 2.5 million vaccinated HCO members who were | 16 years of age or older, 54 cases met the criteria for | myocarditis. The estimated incidence per 100,000 persons who | had received at least one dose of vaccine was 2.13 cases (95% | confidence interval [CI], 1.56 to 2.70). The highest incidence | of myocarditis (10.69 cases per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 6.93 | to 14.46) was reported in male patients between the ages of 16 | and 29 years. A total of 76% of cases of myocarditis were | described as mild and 22% as intermediate; 1 case was | associated with cardiogenic shock. After a median follow-up of | 83 days after the onset of myocarditis, 1 patient had been | readmitted to the hospital, and 1 had died of an unknown cause | after discharge._ | -https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110737 | | So vaccine-related myopericarditis looks rare and mild. | Effectively, and possibly literally, no one dies as a result. I | actually ended up with a probable case after my second dose, | but it was extremely mild (no functional impairment, just | periodic discomfort for some months). I suspect most cases are | something similar- not fun, but not spooky. I'm not a doctor | nor do I have any relevant specialty, but I'm reasonably sure | that reducing incidence of MIS-C or other rare severe outcomes | of covid is a net win in younger people. | andai wrote: | I saw a comment here recently with data that showed the rates | for myocarditis for both covid and vaccinations respectively, | I recall the chance of developing myocarditis after | vaccination being 4x lower than after getting covid. | | Assuming that's right (perhaps someone more knowledgeable can | provide a source), this seems to imply that vaccination | _reduces_ the risk of developing myocarditis by 4x, assuming | everyone will eventually be infected. | | I'm also curious what effect age has on the risk in both | cases, ie. if the same ratio holds for young people. | rossnordby wrote: | I believe that is correct. I don't have a great source | handy, but here's a preprint which agrees: | | _Conclusions: Myocarditis (or pericarditis or | myopericarditis) from primary COVID19 infection occurred at | a rate as high as 450 per million in young males. Young | males infected with the virus are up 6 times more likely to | develop myocarditis as those who have received the | vaccine._ | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34341797/ | | Not sure about ratio age dependency. My prior would be that | it is similar, since I don't have any reason to suspect | otherwise. Still not a doctor or biologist though :P | rhino369 wrote: | I was going to wait until all of the first world health | bureaucracies cleared it. But now my kids had covid (before | they were approved even in the US) and it wasn't a big deal. So | I'm not going to get them shots until the natural immunity is | proven to fade, which may be never. | salemh wrote: | Synaesthesia wrote: | The little risk you take by getting the vaccine is more than | offset by the far lower risk of getting the disease, which has | all kinds of implications. | | Since it was approved for children by the FDA I assume they did | rigourous testing | umvi wrote: | > Since it was approved for children by the FDA I assume they | did rigorous testing | | I wouldn't make this assumption, especially in light of the | the conditions under which it was approved (extreme political | pressure, rushed/bleeding edge data, etc.) It's probably | fine, but my kids aren't going to be first in line because | they are in the control group (https://xkcd.com/2576/). | mizzack wrote: | > Since it was approved for children by the FDA I assume they | did rigourous testing | | Reminder that the two most senior FDA vaccine oversight | officials resigned in protest before the age 5-11 EUA was | approved. | | Reminder that the previous FDA commissioner currently sits on | Pfizer's board. | | Reminder that regulatory capture of the FCC, SEC, and other | govt. agencies is popularly accepted as fact, but somehow the | FDA is immune to that criticism. | standardUser wrote: | OK, now do that for the 50 or so other national health | agencies that have independently approved these vaccines. | Or did you forget that these vaccines have been reviewed | and approved by thousands of qualified staff all over the | world? | mizzack wrote: | Every western country except the UK (who were criticized) | approved it after the US. Many of those deferred to the | FDA's judgment and rubber stamped as a formality. | | > "I am pleased that Pfizer's vaccine has undergone a | critical phase with FDA approval," said Health Minister | Yuli Edelstein on Friday, just after the FDA's Vaccines | and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted | in support of the agency granting Emergency Use | Authorization (EUA), which paved the way for the | vaccine's approval. "This is a huge message for Israeli | citizens as well." He said that he instructed his | ministry's staff to review the approval and submit their | recommendations in the coming days so that vaccinations | could start before the end of the month. | | This was all fast-tracked with countries wanting to get | in line for doses, remember? | | Thinking-in-reverse, if the FDA flagged/rejected the | approval, how many western countries do you think would | have approved it within the same timeframe? | [deleted] | collias wrote: | Reminder that many European countries do not suggest the | vaccine for children, and some have even banned it in the | case of Moderna. | standardUser wrote: | The EU has approved Pfizer for children 5 and over. | Moderna is still being reviewed for younger children. | Exact guidelines may vary by country. | | Overall, Pfizer has been approved in 137 countries and | Modern in 85. | [deleted] | phillc73 wrote: | One EU country where the guidelines vary is Sweden, who | are specifically not recommending COVID vaccines for 5-12 | year old children.[1] | | [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sweden-decides- | against-... | kikokikokiko wrote: | Children with no commorbidities have NO reason to get exposed | to the risk of taking the vacine. Yes, it's a small risk, but | ANY vaccine must be a cost benefit weighted decision. Rabies | is a 100% lethal disease, but that is not a valid reason for | everyone to get vaccinated for it, the risks of vaccinating | everyone in this case outweigh the risk that a randomly | selected person would eventually die from rabies. This whole | discussion is so stupid, from the beggining everyone could | see the stats and see who was at real risk or not from this | disease. | phlipski wrote: | Rabies doesn't spread like covid... | EricE wrote: | COVID isn't deadly like rabies either. Indeed COVID is | turning out to be less deadly than the flu for the vast | majority of people, especially the more recent variants. | While being far more virulent they are also far less | likely to make one seriously ill, let alone kill. | wolverine876 wrote: | Over 800,000 people have died in the US alone, more than | any other event in US history. | Nemrod67 wrote: | 2M people die every year in the USA, is that more than | any other event in History? | | such lunacy | robflynn wrote: | They clearly mean from one specific event. What one event | in the USA has lead to 2 million deaths? You're combining | all deaths and treating it as if it were the same thing. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | >You're combining all deaths and treating it as if it | were the same thing. | | Couldn't that be applied to deaths from other diseases? | Why wouldn't all influenza deaths be considered one event | by this standard? | robflynn wrote: | No? Are we in an influenza pandemic or epidemic right | now? Again, we're talking about events here. | | There have been six of them in the last 140 years with | respect to influenza. The Spanish Flu pandemic killed | 675k (in the USA, like 50 mil worldwide or something wild | like that.) | Dylan16807 wrote: | Any other event in _US_ history. | | If you're so sure, name one. | | Civil war was less than a million, by the way. | hnuser847 wrote: | It wasn't. Heart disease and cancer kill far more people | on an annual basis and nobody bats an eye. According to | the CDC, these were the top 10 causes of death in | 2020[1]: | | * Heart disease: 696,962 | | * Cancer: 602,350 | | * COVID-19: 350,831 | | * Accidents (unintentional injuries): 200,955 | | * Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 160,264 | | * Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 152,657 | | * Alzheimer's disease: 134,242 | | * Diabetes: 102,188 | | * Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,544 | | * Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 52,547 | | [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm | kingsloi wrote: | all are lower than 800,000 | hnuser847 wrote: | The 800,000 figure spans two years. The above figures are | for one year (2020). | triceratops wrote: | > Heart disease and cancer kill far more people on an | annual basis and nobody bats an eye | | I mean there are massive institutes, companies, and | laboratories engaged in research on both these topics, | tons of fund-raising, campaigns to improve diet and | exercise, shockingly expensive treatments and so on. | Other than all of that, yes, nobody bats an eye. | Sparkle-san wrote: | Children are still susceptible to long-term complications | from getting covid. Like you said, it's a cost benefit | decision, but there's real risks associated with children | getting covid that seem to be going unacknowledged given | that, unlike rabies, millions are going to be infected with | covid. | EricE wrote: | Dylan16807 wrote: | > Tell this mom that the infinitesimal chance that her | child would have from COID side affects was worth it for | the problems she is now facing | | That's an _awful_ way to analyze risk. | | If you have a one in a million risk of something, and you | trade it for a different but nearly-identical one in a | million risk for the same thing, and then get the bad | outcome, you did not make the wrong choice. Let alone if | you traded for a lower risk. | | Every step you take, you trade out trillions of potential | futures. You are always, always creating new risks and | destroying old risks. A decision like getting vaccinated | is easy to point at and say "oh I shouldn't have done it" | but you could just as realistically say "if I hadn't | eaten tuna seven weeks ago these problems wouldn't have | happened". | | You do _not_ get to compare the outcome of a specific | case, only knowable in hindsight, with the | "infinitesimal risk" of the alternative. | twofornone wrote: | The point is that people need to stop presuming that | these vaccines are without risks of their own. This is | proven false and the true risk is still uncertain. | Officials are only recently acknowledging for example | that vaccines can influence monthly cycles - that was | just a cooky conspiracy a few months ago. | | Data collection regarding adverse events was laughably | inadequate based on testimony over Pfizer's clinical | trial protocol, and their data is still not available for | review by anyone other than the FDA, which is known to | suffer from regulatory capture. Rosy claims about the | vaccines have been repeatedly walked back...the safety of | these vaccines is likely overstated. | Dylan16807 wrote: | > The point is that people need to stop presuming that | these vaccines are without risks of their own. | | That's _a_ good point, but it 's not the point being made | when someone links to a side effect report and implies it | was wrong to get vaccinated, as if vaccines need to meet | an impossible 0-side-effect standard. | kingsloi wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Health_Defense | Sparkle-san wrote: | Yes, that's one end of the cost benefit analysis and on | the other end the 6,400 cases of MIS-C in children who | got covid in the US. | | https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#mis-national- | surve... | EricE wrote: | Also at this point EVERYONE is going to be infected by | COVID. It's a highly contagious respiratory virus that's | not only carried by humans, but animals too. This fantasy | that all we have to do is vaccinate everyone and we will | be alright really needs to die. | Sparkle-san wrote: | Vaccines are still shown to reduce risk of | hospitalization and death even with omicron. So, if | everyone is going to get it, wouldn't you rather be more | protected when you get it? | twofornone wrote: | The risk of hospitalization for children is virtually | zero. The risk of hospitalization for healthy people | under 50 is miniscule. | wolverine876 wrote: | I hear people say that, but is there research backing it | up? I'm a bit dubious because inevitability is a common | fall-back position in public affairs, similar to climate | change deniers saying that climate change is inevitable | so we just have to learn to adjust. They still get what | they want, and try to create despair in their opponents. | pengaru wrote: | It's gone endemic, the inevitability is on par with the | common cold; you're almost certainly going to get exposed | to some variant of it. | | Plus AIUI Omicron has demonstrated recombinant | replication, which means we're playing a flu-like cat and | mouse game with the vaccines. Nobody in their right mind | would argue we have any hope of effectively vaccinating | everyone against influenza. | benmmurphy wrote: | it's worth the OP trying to find data on how much risk covid | presents to their children and what the risks of the vaccine | are. the UK has this risk calculator for COVID in adults: | https://qcovid.org/ . I'm not sure if there is anything | similar for children. probably, the risk of the vaccine or | covid is so low for children it doesn't really matter what | you do. | sfteus wrote: | I can't find much besides models for < 16 unfortunately. | | However, for 16-40, Patone, et al[1] estimates that myocarditis | incidence is around 2/mil for AstraZeneca, 1/mil for Pfizer per | does, and 6/mil for Moderna first dose, 10/mil for the second, | compared to 40/mil for an active infection. | | Singer, el al[2] (pre-print) states that males < 20 are roughly | 6x less likely to develop myocarditis from vaccination compared | to an infection. | | The AMA[3] also has some info on both myocarditis and MIS-C. | 95% of those who developed MIS-C were unvaccinated, and up to | 40% required some sort of respiratory or cardiovascular life | support (compare to 0% of those vaccinated). Also states ages | 12-15 appear less likely to develop myocarditis than the 16 - | ~40 range. | | Everything I've read so far is that myocarditis from | vaccination usually resolves fairly quickly. | | ----- | | [1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01630-0.pdf | | [2]: | https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.23.21260998v... | | [3]: https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/population- | care/unv... | jamesblonde wrote: | Myocarditis is extremely serious and potentially life-long. | Please don't downplay it. I have a cardiomyopathy. | sfteus wrote: | I'm saying this as someone who lost a family member to a | combination of myocarditis and endocarditis resulting from | a flu infection: I'm not attempting to downplay it. | Myocarditis has the potential to be extremely serious, | especially for those with pre-existing heart problems. | | However, _in my opinion_ with how infectious omicron is, it | is likely inevitable that everyone will eventually be | exposed. The literature (linked in my GP) currently seems | to indicate that vaccines have a lower risk of myocarditis | than an active SARS-CoV-2 infection. Most literature that | I've seen (so far) indicates that occurrences of post- | vaccination myocarditis tends to be rare, and not life- | threatening, and the patients tend to recover quickly.[1] | | ----- | | [1]: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA | .121.0... | jamesblonde wrote: | We read different literature: | | https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-reports- | myoca... | | based on this Nature paper | | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01630-0.pdf | | "Yes, sorry to break it to you, vaccines can have risks | of myocarditis EXCEEDING risks of myocarditis from | infection. Pls stop saying otherwise." | ALittleLight wrote: | Do these papers differentiate infection with and without | vaccination? Meaning, if an unvaxxed person has X myocarditis | risk from the vaccine, and Y from infection, what is the | myocarditis risk of infection after vaccination? | sfteus wrote: | I haven't seen anything comparing the two yet, but I would | be interested in seeing that. | | I'll note that in general, I have seen studies indicating | that the risk of both MIS-C (linked in GP) and long- | covid[1][2] are decreased when comparing | vaccinated/unvaccinated post active infection. I've also | seen reports that those unvaccinated who experience long- | covid sometimes see reduced / cleared symptoms after | subsequent vaccination.[3] We also know that antibody titer | levels seem to be correlated with a reduction in infection, | which is why when those begin to fall off we see more | breakthrough infections. And finally we know that building | long term T and B cells tends to see a quicker, more | effective immune response, both of which should be created | post-vaccination. | | Given that, I would speculate that vaccination is likely to | reduce overall proliferation of cell infection (including | directly infecting cardiac tissue via the ACE2 receptors) | via having more free-floating antibodies in your system, | and is likely to reduce the overall immune-mediated | inflammatory response to the virus as it can respond more | quickly before the virus has had a chance to proliferate as | much. Both of these (reduced inflammation, reduced cell | infection) should reduce the risk of myocarditis as a | result of infection. And I would speculate that that tracks | with other observed reduction of symptoms of infection | (MIS-C, long-covid). | | Again, speculation on my part; I would definitely want to | see studies to confirm or refute that. | | ----- | | [1]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS | 1473-3... | | [2]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.05.222 | 68800v... | | [3]: https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/vaccines-long-covid | neuronic wrote: | Just one more point as food for thought: | | One more thing to consider is that the virus is _also_ able to | cause myocarditis, especially if you don 't rest long enough | _even if feeling fine_. In fact, the virus can potentially | cause additional complications even with mild symptoms. There | are also things we don 't really understand yet with post-viral | syndromes which affects many people (disclaimer: Epstein-Barr / | Mono messed me up, personally). | | This isn't unique to SARS-CoV-2 either, it's a more general | viral infection thing and can happen just as well with | influenza. With Omicron, it's also very likely that people will | get it sooner or later - vaccinated or not. | | Granted, most myocarditis goes unnoticed and recovers very well | with a bit of rest. | thurn wrote: | The overwhelming conclusion I've drawn from this pandemic is | that it's ultimately about people's level of trust in their own | ability to analyze data vs trust in authority figures. There | have been so many examples of 'vaccines cause harm!' articles | that fundamentally misunderstand basic statistical concepts | like selection bias or simpson's paradox (see the covid- | datascience.com blog for lots more of these). | | Is your prior on 'I will not make a significant analytic error' | higher than 'the FDA analyzed the available data correctly'? | rimliu wrote: | Look where big bosses from FDA ended up. | kenjackson wrote: | And your trust in the government. If your prior on the | government is that they aren't to be trusted then it doesn't | matter how good of a job the FDB did in analyzing the data -- | you aren't going to believe what they release to the public. | | I think this is the bigger issue. Most people I know who say, | "I'll do my own research" are the same people who asked me | what kind of computer to buy. And they know a lot more about | technology than medicine. But its they don't trust the | government. | steveylang wrote: | In reality, few people have the time or want to make the | effort to comb through and analyze original sources. So most | of us rely to varying extent on who we trust and consider to | have accurate opinions or assessments. | | One huge problem with COVID has been the emergence of | essentially propaganda pieces masquerading as detailed, | rigorous analysis. These give people a false sense of | confidence- "Hey I've done my research!" when in reality you | can google for 20 minutes and come up with impressive looking | links for whatever view you are already predisposed to | believe. | | I'm sure these existed before, but COVID has taken things to | another level. | wolverine876 wrote: | > few people have the time or want to make the effort to | comb through and analyze original sources | | And they lack the expertise regardless, and they can't gain | the expertise without schooling and professional | experience. We are dependant on others, whether we like it | or not. | | > the emergence of essentially propaganda pieces | masquerading as detailed, rigorous analysis | | > I'm sure these existed before, but COVID has taken things | to another level. | | I don't know that it's another level. The long, incredibly | detailed dives into one issue or another have been around | for decades. | | This is essentially what I expected when the pandemic | started. We created a monster of misinformation and | disinformation, the 'post-truth' society; the consequences | are obviously and completely predictable. | HWR_14 wrote: | > , few people have the time or want to make the effort to | comb through and analyze original sources. | | I mean, unless it's your profession, you're not. At best, | you're reading an article (with summarized data that you | hope was aggregated correctly) in a journal. To the best of | my knowledge, the raw datasets that those are based on are | rarely shared. | BlueTemplar wrote: | Impressive looking indeed... | | https://hcqmeta.com/ | | (I really wonder at the effort spent on this...) | bradlys wrote: | > I'm sure these existed before, but COVID has taken things | to another level. | | Similar as to the other posted said - this type of fiction | writing has existed before COVID. It's just that _now_ you | 're all reading the same statistical fiction. | | Essentially - one genre of statistical fiction got popular. | Whereas before everyone was reading different genres. | EricE wrote: | sfteus wrote: | Important to note that Children's Health Defense is a highly | suspect organization. Rated "conspiracy-pseudoscience"[1], | described as "one of the main sources of misinformation on | vaccines"[2], with numerous articles describing their fake | health posts on social media[3][4] and shady | leadership[5][6]. | | Not saying everything from that site should be discarded, but | should definitely be taken with a grain of salt. | | ----- | | [1]: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/childrens-health-defense/ | | [2]: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Health_Defense | | [3]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/social-media- | hosted-lot... | | [4]: | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/11/15/majority- | an... | | [5]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-robert-f- | kenn... | | [6]: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health- | pseudoscie... | angryasian wrote: | your kids will be fine either way, but they are far more likely | to catch and spread without being vaccinated. | wth4h wrote: | woeirua wrote: | There's a nice doctoral dissertation sitting out there for | someone to demonstrate that cross-reactive T-cells mostly explain | why some people get sick with Covid and others don't. Even better | if they can point to a specific virus (most likely spread among | children) that elicits that response. | wth4h wrote: | dopylitty wrote: | This is a really good article on the immune system. | | One thing I can't help but notice though is that it only barely | skirts the fact that essentially no viral vaccine prevents | infection, with the possible exception of the HPV vaccine. | | The vast majority of the vaccines we currently use allow | infection but give the body the ability to quickly respond to and | end the infection before it leads to severe disease (eg paralysis | in Polio or B-cell destruction in Measles). For slowly developing | viruses you may see no symptoms at all because the body is able | to clear the infection but for viruses like flu and Sars-CoV-2 | that attack the respiratory system it's much more difficult to | prevent symptomatic disease. | | Somehow there's this idea that the Sars-CoV-2 vaccines need to | prevent infection or symptomatic disease but that is an | incredibly high bar that no respiratory viral vaccine has ever | met. | | The benefit of the vaccines is that they greatly reduce severe | disease, almost eliminate death, and shorten the amount of time | the virus has to reproduce so transmission and variant generation | are also reduced. | dbroockman wrote: | This is a rewriting of history. Before we ever had results from | the COVID vaccine trials, the FDA declared that the primary | goal of the trials was to prevent any symptomatic infection in | the first place. From June 2020: | https://www.fda.gov/media/139638/download. | standardUser wrote: | Sure, and Viagra was developed to treat hypertension. The | fact that efficacy data changes with the completion of new | studies or advent of new strains should be viewed as normal, | not as a surprise or some kind of bait and switch. | notahacker wrote: | I'm not sure linking to a document with phrases like "As it | is possible that a COVID-19 vaccine might be much more | effective in preventing severe versus mild COVID-19" _really_ | proves that it 's "rewriting history" to suggest that | preventing all infections or symptomats of a respiratory | diseases is an very high bar to set, or that the medical | profession hasn't been cognizant of that from the start... | lamontcg wrote: | > This is a really good article on the immune system. | | I still don't particularly like it that much. | | None of this should be all that new. | | There were plenty of knowledgeable people saying all along that | sterilizing nutralizing immunity in the mucosa was unlikely to | be achievable for a vaccine against a respiratory virus that | most commonly had no viremic phase, particularly as a shot | given in the arm. | | They were also saying that T-cells were the important thing to | prevent disease and death and we shouldn't be focusing on | preventing infection. | | Some other people who debated or disagreed with that | perspective are now suddenly learning novel new things about | the immune system. There's a good chunk of experts out there | that were saying this all along though (if you were listening | to them and not the headlines and blogs and twitter). | mrjangles wrote: | It was just common sense. Flu vaccines have never been much | more than 50% effective. The idea that you can just vaccinate | against such a hugely virulent virus like COVID, and expect | it to stop spreading with such ineffectual vaccines just made | no mathematical sense what so ever. | | If people didn't understand that it is because they didn't | want to. | spookthesunset wrote: | > If people didn't understand that it is because they | didn't want to. | | "Listen to the experts". The experts never said any of | that. Nor did the media. Critical thinking has been shunned | the last two years. I mean you can think critically but | lord help you if you say what you think online or in | person. It's the in person bullying that is the worst, by | the way. | [deleted] | xupybd wrote: | It's new to me. Sometimes it's nice to have an article rehash | old knowledge and bring it into the current context. If for | nothing other than to educate the ignorant like me. | lamontcg wrote: | But the way it is written sounds like nobody on Planet | Earth could have possibly predicted this and that the way | B-cells and T-cells work is completely novel discoveries in | 2022. | | There were people saying this is roughly would happen in | mid-2020. | | Tony Fauci was saying he'd be happy if the VE against | disease was only 50% in Fall 2020. He was trying to set | expectations to about where we are right now. | | It gives the wrong impression to people who don't know | anything about it and it undermines the vaccine messaging | strategy. There's a stronger message that virologists and | epidemiologists who were specialists in this kind of thing | were grounded mostly in reality all along and THIS WAS THE | PLAN AND THE PLAN IS WORKING. By claiming that we're | radically learning new things it sounds like the whole | thing was a clusterfuck. Getting a vaccine with around 50% | efficacy against disease and 90% efficacy against | hospitalization was always the winning strategy. We were | just supposed to hit 80%-90% vaccination rates at least and | the low vaccination rates are meaning that the Omicron wave | was more of a burden on hospitals than it ever needed to | be. | | What went wrong is that the vaccine trials were cut short. | People who complain about that usually try to argue we cut | short the "long term safety" outcome, which is nonsense | because vaccine side effects are autoimmune conditions that | either start turning up in a population 3 months after | dosing or they don't. What we actually cut short was the | _durability_ outcomes of the trials since that was the | thing that would have taken 2 years and we didn't have the | time. Turns out the headline 90% VE against infection | numbers weren't durable but the damage was done once they | made the initial headline splash and everyone entirely | forgot that Fauci was setting expectations down around 50% | beforehand. Then they felt they were lied to. Now they feel | like the vaccine program was a failure. | | We're now back on track to the original plan, and its | viewed as being a failure because the phase III results | jacked the expectations up to the mRNA vaccines being | magicsauce that would instantly end the whole pandemic. | This article is still selling it like this is sort of Plan | B in response to information that we could never have | anticipated. Instead we're back on what was Plan A all | along after the hypecycle got blown away by waning immunity | and Delta and Omicron. | raphlinus wrote: | Really well said, thank you. | | I think the lesson here is that one shouldn't listen | either to antivax grifters _or_ to greedy pharma execs | who oversell their products because of the enormous | incentive to do so, whether it be vaccines or Alzheimers | treatments. The best approach is to listen to what real | scientists who actually understand the subject say, but | that does take patience and a willingness to invest time. | spookthesunset wrote: | > By claiming that we're radically learning new things it | sounds like the whole thing was a clusterfuck | | Dr. Fauci and all the other anointed "experts" were | constantly saying "there is so much to still learn about | this virus". They still do when asked questions they | don't want to really answer. | | They've been acting like COVID was some mysterious brand | new virus that required us to abandon every single thing | we knew about epidemiology. They are somewhat responsible | for this insanity. | jerry1979 wrote: | > we shouldn't be focusing on preventing infection. | | I'm confused by what you mean. I have read headlines that say | mRNA vaccines reduce the risk of infection by 91%, but it | seems like you have more nuanced information from | knowledgeable people. So, who should I look to to get the | "real" information about what to expect from vaccines and | public health? | | [0] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0607-mrna- | reduce-ri... | Vrondi wrote: | You are quite right, but the media, the government, and many | public health agencies have been ignoring this, focusing | solely on antibody levels, and trying to keep them constantly | high through ever more panicky calls for more and more | boosters. For everyone, regardless of prior infection. | YZF wrote: | Israel was one of the first place to boost (the first?) and | I think the rationale there was _not_ just about antibody | levels. There were multiple factors. The emergence of Delta | which to some extent bypassed the previous two vaccine | doses. The decline in protection against severe disease | over time (and specifically against delta). And yes, even | temporary control of the community spread (which is maybe | the more questionable aspect) to allow the country to | remain more or less open while keeping hospital load and | deaths under control. | | In Israel I also believe there is different policy for | people that have been infected. This varies from place to | place. Determining whether someone was or wasn't previous | infected isn't that simple. You can do it if you have good | contract tracing, testing, and more centralized health | services like Israel does. Also many places didn't have a | large enough portion of the population get infected in the | first place so maybe not worth worrying too much about. | kurthr wrote: | This is for two reasons: | | One, measuring antibodies is MUCH easier than measuring T | or B cell response. This is especially true early on in the | pandemic, if you want to measure representative numbers of | people, and you don't know when/whether they will be | exposed or catch COVID (due to masking/lockdowns etc). | | Two, when your problem is that the hospitals are filling up | and you're facing a labor shortage for some essential | workers for a a few months... then boosting antibodies for | 4-6 months to reduce retransmission rates and minimizing | symptomatic cases makes a lot of sense. | nradov wrote: | That was never a valid reason. They were just making | things up without following evidence-based medicine | practices. | | https://peterattiamd.com/covid-19-current-state-omicron/ | kurthr wrote: | I don't understand who your "they" is. In my opinion | there were valid reasons for both decisions on antibodies | and boosters. Since I know one of the people in your | linked podcast, I will not comment on it. | nradov wrote: | No that's simply wrong. Antibodies are relatively | unimportant and levels decline quickly. What actually | matters far more is cellular immunity. Fortunately the | vaccines and recovery from infection have both been shown | to produce a significant level of durable cellular | immunity in the vast majority of patients. | | Who do you personally know in the linked podcast? What | are your medical qualifications? | | https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/ | EdwardDiego wrote: | Feel like that's a bit of a rude question to ask. | headsoup wrote: | Not really, when you look at where things ended up | anyway, aside the issues with pumping up antibodies | continuously. | | Another case of going for short term efficiency wins over | doing things properly, but not so easily. | eecc wrote: | So it's another case of KPI overfitting? Goodhart's law? | lamontcg wrote: | A booster has a solid immunological basis. | | The process of hypermutation and affinity maturation | takes months to finish. The initial immune response to a | pathogen is poor and takes ng/ml of antibodies to | neutralize the threat. The immune system essentially has | a "budget" for antibodies and the early antibodies are | poor and take up too much of that. Affinity maturation | produces higher affinity antibodies that are effective at | pg/ml but it takes months. But you can now "fit" many | more kinds of antibodies into the bloodstream. | | Hitting the mature immune response with a booster | releases those high potency antibodies from germinal | centers. | | This is why nearly every single vaccine we give kids | comes in a series of 2 or 3 shots spaced out over 6+ | months. | | https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child- | adolesc... | | https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/adult.html | | Very few of those are one-and-done shots. | | The initial mRNA shots were way too close together and | were done that way out of expediency since the second | shot gave a lot better protection very quickly. It also | allowed the trials to complete faster and probably saved | 100,000s of lives. It was basically a "wartime" decision | to slam shots into arms way too fast. | | The increased affinity against Omicron after a booster is | also something that shouldn't have been a surprise. | | The utility of 4th shot boosters in non-elderly non- | immunocompromised and chasing after the idea of reducing | spread through infection is on a lot less firm footing. | Even the booster-obsessed Israelis are finding in studies | that it doesn't do much good. This coronavirus also is | currently mutating too rapidly and infection too many | people in each wave to be able to logistically update the | vaccines for new variants, so it doesn't look very useful | to be thinking of it analogously to the yearly influenza | shots. | kurthr wrote: | I agree with most all of that, and that it was largely | unsurprising. When the mRNA shots were developed there | was a tradeoff to be made (and BNT/Mod chose slightly | different paths) on both amount of RNA and dosing | schedule to minimize side effects while rapidly providing | strong immunity (we're also lucky JJ and they all chose a | stabilized prefusion Spike unlike ChAdOx etc). Boosters | for T and B response in particular are common, but orders | of magnitude higher antibodies are quite likely to help | minimize Omicron effects (especially for first responders | who received early Pfizer doses) and do appear to cause | significant reductions in infection/symptomatic cases.[1] | I would not have slowed down the testing or EUA, although | manufacture was an issue early on. We didn't know when/if | a significantly immune evading variant would arrive, and | I feel fairly lucky with when Omicron arrived (after many | of the most susceptible could be vaccinated). If it had | arrived 8 months earlier, it would have been | catastrophic. | | I also feel that the WHO choices have not been very good. | From down playing human transmission early in the | pandemic to demanding that there not be boosters in order | to speed up the multi-year process of vaccinating | 4billion people by 40million doses, when Omicron was | already spreading quickly. Honestly, prioritization in | the developing world is more important. They seem more | political than other sources. | | [1] | https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2788105 | f6v wrote: | Because some times you have to make a call. Some studies | are now revealing that booster shots might be less | effective in those who recovered (watched a guy present his | unpublished data the other day). But it's not that obvious. | ssl232 wrote: | > There were plenty of knowledgeable people saying all along | that sterilizing nutralizing immunity in the mucosa was | unlikely to be achievable for a vaccine against a respiratory | virus that most commonly had no viremic phase, particularly | as a shot given in the arm. | | You are absolutely right, this has been my experience too. | Pointing out what you did about (lack of) sterilising and | (importance of) mucosal immunity usually got you downvoted | here up until recently. It doesn't matter what your political | persuasion is (I am, or at least I was, going into the | pandemic, a left liberal), the idea that the vaccines would | end the pandemic if only enough people got 1, 2, 3 or more | doses was gaslighting from the beginning, probably arising | from flippant remarks from politicians when asked for target | dates to lift lockdown restrictions - "when X% are | vaccinated!". And the idea that this was _never_ what was | being said about them this time last year is also gaslighting | that 's happening right now. | | The problem is that this is a very nuanced subject. Everyone | thinks they know what's going on, because they've been told | it's simple: get vaccinated/boosted, work from home and do as | we say and this will all be over. Much of the data being used | to justify this was one or more of badly collected, badly | analysed or badly interpreted by dishonest politicians, | journalists, scientists and members of the public pushing | their own (or their bosses') agendas. Instead of opponents' | arguments being heard and countered in public ("sunlight is | the best disinfectant"), they have been deplatformed under | the auspices of "public safety". Scientists have lost their | jobs for saying something to counter the narrative - it has | become illegal to disagree with the scientists the | politicians listen to, under punishment of losing your | livelihood. It has been a total shitshow that has exposed how | corrupt the whole system is. It has made me quite depressed | at how little we've apparently learned since the last | century. I thought we were living in the age of science, but | what we have right now is far, far from it; maybe we should | call it the age of misinformation - driven by humans' | psychological maladaptation to their own incredible | invention, the internet. | spookthesunset wrote: | Couldn't have said it better. When I had multiple smart | people I knew in real life yelling what amounts to word | salad at me about how I'm so misguided and horrible for | asking basic questions about the data... ...that is when I | knew this whole thing was gonna last a long time and | devolve into a complete shitshow. If people were allowed to | express critical opinions and the general public was made | aware of the _actual_ numbers regarding covid risk we would | have never done any of the things we did over the last two | years. | | These anointed "experts" _still_ have not told people to | chill the fuck out about covid and children. We have two | years of publicly available data saying they are at | virtually no risk. Yet the CDC and Fauci both act like | covid is some kind of grave danger to children. | | Dig deep enough into most of the pro-"what we've done"'s | arguments and they are nothing more than thinly disguised | appeals to authority. | jacquesm wrote: | The comment you think you are agreeing with is one that | you are not agreeing with or one that you don't seem to | understand. | ssl232 wrote: | I find peoples' reactions to this to not be a new | phenomenon, but I do have the pandemic to thank for | making me far better at identifying such personalities | and not letting myself judge the person having them. In | my experience it's pretty rare to find someone capable of | removing emotion from an argument. Perhaps 5% of people I | know are capable of this. The other 95%, given enough | debate, put you in their idiot or "basically Hitler" box | and cease to listen to or respect anything you say. This | makes me very sad, because we've got other huge | challenges needing faced as a species and I can see the | same crazy nonsense we've seen with COVID happening for | all of those too. Before we can begin to fix real issues | facing civilisation, we're going to have to fix our | ability to tolerate and debate arguments we disagree | with. | | One thought I had recently is how up and downvotes on | sites like HN must contribute to tunnel vision in | debates. I know I have self-censored in the past knowing | that something I would say would get downvoted into | oblivion, and I've posted stuff that hasn't been very | constructive but that I've known would be a crowd | pleaser. This surely creates echo chambres resembling the | opinions of the loudest in the community. Old vBulletin- | style forums before likes and up/downvotes were a thing, | where all you could do was quote-reply (and one-word "+1" | and "disagree" replies were brutally deleted by zealous | moderators), were perhaps in hindsight the closest to | optimal we ever reached in the realm of textual online | debates. What a sorry state of affairs. | altcognito wrote: | I've never taken the argument to be that children are at | grave risk. I think Fauci even said that the risk is | minimal in particular with vaccines. "The with vaccines" | will rub some folks the wrong way but the point remains: | it's about potential transmissions, asymptomatic | transmissions at that. They so rarely even show symptoms | that some are convinced that kids aren't infectious but | that's the same nonsense we have today where people think | they aren't infectious because they got the vaccine. Add | in tight conditions at schools and parents willing to | send their kids to school sick, and it's not ideal. | spookthesunset wrote: | So what if kids transmit? Everybody age five and up can | walk in and get a vaccine. Who are we protecting? | Transmission doesn't matter in a post vaccine world. | | Besides, asking kids to sacrifice their one and only | childhood to protect fully vaccinated adults who are | still afraid is a horrific public policy. Kids should | never be asked to sacrifice for adults. That just isn't | how things work. | qsdf38100 wrote: | I don't get it, there was some hope that vaccines could | end the pandemic. They didn't. But they still help, at | least by making people much less likely to die. Is there | something to be mad at? Hell, even if they ended up not | helping much, I wouldn't be mad at governments for | trying. I must be missing something. | peteradio wrote: | Nobodies pissed at the government for making vaccines | available, they are pissed that they are having their | livelihoods threatened based on false premises. | spookthesunset wrote: | Doesn't matter if the pandemic ended or not. Society (or | at least the politicians) _chose_ to regress. The virus | is a virus. It doesn 't tell us how to react to it. We | do. | | Many states didn't regress during delta. They kept calm | and carried on with normal. Only some states decided to | regress. And the outcomes are almost identical--in the | same ballpark at least. | altcognito wrote: | I'm always amused by mask mandates as regressing and | "doing nothing for public health" as keeping calm. | asveikau wrote: | What's more, before omicron it was a pretty reasonable | position to conclude vaccinations were ending the | pandemic. By that I mean... That is a very reasonable | position to hold only 3 months ago. | | And I still think the vaccines are substantially | accelerating the end. So I'm not even sure what the | complaint is. That it isn't the only factor? Sure, but | it's a huge one, and one of few that we can control. | ssl232 wrote: | > What's more, before omicron it was a pretty reasonable | position to conclude vaccinations were ending the | pandemic. | | I've not seen a convincing argument against simply | looking at excess deaths. This avoids all of the problems | around classifcations of deaths with/from COVID, | vaccination statuses, etc. It's much harder to disguise | deaths or lack of deaths. EuroMOMO [1; scroll 60% down to | the z-scores] shows excess deaths in Europe basically | went back to normal in most countries after the European | wave in spring 2020, long before vaccines were available. | This was the case despite widely varying levels of | lockdown stringency - with at least one country, Sweden, | not doing any significant locking down at all. And many | countries' peaks at this time were, if you scroll back in | time, comparable in magnitude to excess deaths during | previous winters. If you draw a line in your mind down | the various countries' graphs at early 2021 when | significant fractions of the populations of these | countries were starting to get vaccinated, you will | probably struggle to determine that they've had any real | positive effect at all. Once you do that, consider an | alternative hypothesis could better describe the data, | for example that the virus is highly seasonal and we have | very little control over it. Now, a bonus: change the age | group from "all ages" to younger cohorts and observe that | in many countries excess deaths did not shift from | resembling noise during the entirely of the past 2 years. | There are even some countries, not known for being | paragons of good health such as Scotland, that barely saw | any out of the ordinary excess deaths in the young during | the whole period. I think people seem to think things are | far worse than they actually are in most countries | because of the panic created by media and politicians. | This is why I am very unconvinced by the argument that | vaccines have been helping to end the pandemic, at very | least amongst most of those who have been locked down. It | seems much more reasonable to me that other factors are | at play here. | | [1] https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps | lamontcg wrote: | > they've been told it's simple: get vaccinated/boosted | | It is that simple. | | 90% of the people in the hospitals are unvaccinated still. | | Cut the unvaccinated fraction of the population down by 1/3 | and you cut the hospitalization rate for the next wave by | roughly 1/3. | | Instead people are doing T-cells/B-cells and affinity | maturation the hard slow way. | | If we had a 100% vaccination rate we'd be done. | | Don't know why everyone so desperately needs to look for | counterintuitive ways to approach the very simple problem | that when there's a global pandemic you mitigate it with | vaccination. Any other result is intellectuals thinking too | hard to try to impress themselves and probably missing | basic facts in the process. | oreilles wrote: | In France, between January 1st and 16th, vaccinated | people accounted for 60% of the new hospitalizations. We, | like most of Europe, have 90+% of adult population fully | vaccinated, and are nowhere near "being done". | xienze wrote: | > If we had a 100% vaccination rate we'd be done. | | For a vaccine that doesn't confer sterilizing immunity | and whose effectiveness wanes rather quickly? To say | nothing of variants or the fact that this virus has | animal reservoirs. Or the impossibility of vaccinating | 100% of a population in the first place, nevermind in | perpetuity. | | "Ending it" was always a pipe dream. | peteradio wrote: | > 90% of the people in the hospitals are unvaccinated | still. | | Where is this true? | jacquesm wrote: | > I am, or at least I was, going into the pandemic, a left | liberal | | What's that got to do with it? | superkuh wrote: | >an incredibly high bar that no respiratory viral vaccine has | ever met. | | An incredibly high bar that no _intramuscular_ (humoral) | respiratory viral vaccine has met. Mostly because injecting | into the muscle does not lead to tissue resident immune cells | in the upper respiratory mucosa because it 's a separate immune | compartment from the body serum. But there are options like | intranasal boosters after intramuscular vaccination that can | prevent infection and _do_ significantly reduce shedding and | spread. | | And it's been driving me crazy the entire pandemic that | intranasal spray vaccine boosters are not being heavily funded | and persued. It would save the world so many lives, time, and | incalculable money. | qzw wrote: | Any idea (or sources) why they are not being pursued? And why | are flu vaccines not commonly given as intranasal spray? | ak217 wrote: | They are being pursued, just not given the same resources | as the emergency effort to get the original vaccines | approved: | | - | https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.24.477597v1 | | - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg9857 | inglor_cz wrote: | I think there is some concern of intranasally applied | substances getting into the brain. | | Even plain water infested with certain amoebas can give you | a fatal brain disease if you use it for nasal irrigation. | It is perfectly safe for drinking, though. | | https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/N_R/Nasal- | irrigatio... | | We do not have that amoeba here, but I still boil the water | and cool it down before using it to flush my nose. (Works | great against mild common colds.) One of the worst | outbreaks in the world actually happened in Czechoslovakia | 60 years ago - 16 people died after being infected in a | public swimming pool. | maxerickson wrote: | There's an approved nasal vaccine in the United States | (FluMist). It's use was not encouraged for a while | because it didn't vaccinate against H1N1 (recent years | have included H1N1). It doesn't look to be particularly | more effective than the shot (marketing focuses on no | shot, not on it working better; the CDC says the | effectiveness is similar). | | There's multiple candidate intranasal SARS-CoV-2 | vaccines, just none that have concluded trials. | Jtype wrote: | So then no other vaccines have led to or provided herd | immunity? | gameswithgo wrote: | It is just a nuanced semantic distinction. You are immune in | the sense that you never notice the virus (in some cases) or | have no severe impacts (in others). But you are (never?) | immune in the sense that you literally never have the virus | replicate in you at all. | | I am reminded of the recent twitter thread posted here by Dan | Luu about how communicating nuance at scale is impossible. | rhino369 wrote: | I would say this distinction is often just a semantics | argument designed to calm the public. In common usage, it | means you won't have a significant infection that becomes | contagious. The vast majority of vaccines are successful at | preventing that type of infection for a long time. Though | there are exceptions. | | By defining "infection" so broadly it loses all meaning, | some officials are trying lump to the covid vaccines (which | are no longer very good at preventing contagious | infections) with vaccines that prevent contagious infection | for decades. Obviously, the effectiveness of vaccines is | nuanced and their effectiveness at preventing contagious | spread is a spectrum--not a binary. | | Public health officials should just be straight with us. | The vaccines aren't as good as some of the vaccines we all | get--like measles--but they do provide a great deal of | protection. It's still basically a miracle that we got the | protection we did in about a year after the virus appeared. | It's a huge success. | rich_sasha wrote: | I thought a big part of the tragedy of the measles vaccine | rates dropping is precisely that we're losing herd | immunity. | | At 95%+ immunised outbreaks ought not occur because herd | immunity, even for the remaining unvaccinated, whereas at | the lower levels, outbreaks will likely happen. | | Is that not right? | Retric wrote: | Herd immunity is a function of transmission not | individual infection. Faster and stronger immune | responses reduce the number of viruses produced inside | someone over an infection. That directly means they are | less likely to infect other people. | | Herd immunity is effectively a function of how infections | something is. 1 case leading to 2 cases on average means | you need to cut transmission in 50%. 1 case leading to 10 | cases and you need to block 90% of new cases. | | Critically this means vaccinated people can still be | infectious as long as they infect less than 1 person on | average you can reach herd immunity. | stonemetal12 wrote: | That is right. It is just immunity as a term in the | medical community vs average joe use of the word. Medical | community immunity means your immune system fights off | the invaders before anything medically interesting | happens, not that you have a magical force field that | prevents entry. Not sure why people are trying to twist | that into some sort of insidious plot. | | If you have the measles vaccine and you get exposed to | measles, measles will be in your body for a short time in | low quantities, but your immune system will quickly | destroy it. That means you are unlikely to pass it on or | develop symptoms. | rich_sasha wrote: | Ok makes sense. | | But is that different then to vaccines against bacterial | diseases? If some bacteria enter my body, surely they | don't magically disappear either, maybe split a few times | but eventually die off. | kaitai wrote: | Evaluate the statements above with respect to measles or | polio, as the parent poster points out. It is clear that | measles and polio vaccines can lead to "herd immunity", while | preventing severe side effects of these diseases in the | majority of cases. | | The point is there is a range of infection mechanisms for | viruses (respiratory vs other, for starters) and vaccines | thus provide benefit at different points in the infection | process. This leads to heterogeneity in "infection level" and | symptomaticity in the vaccinated population. | monocasa wrote: | If it can't replicate as well in you, you significantly | reduce the ability for it to spread via you typically. Herd | immunity fro that perspective is about reducing spread to the | point that outbreaks don't spread from local groups because | the R value is low enough, even taking into account the few | people who can't be immunized. | pibechorro wrote: | All true, but this was not what was sold to the general public. | Had people been informed that the latest vaccines against | COVID-19 behaved similarly to rhe seasonal shots people get for | regular flue season, a vast majority of the public would have | opted out, as they do with the seasonal versions. This was | further compounded by the aggressive dismissal and censorship | of natural immunity and preventive care (good diet, exercise, | vitamins, etc). We are here today because the obvious was | politicized. | tshaddox wrote: | > Had people been informed that the latest vaccines against | COVID-19 behaved similarly to rhe seasonal shots people get | for regular flue season, a vast majority of the public would | have opted out, as they do with the seasonal versions. | | We're people informed differently? I don't remember ever | being under the impression that the COVID vaccine would | provide immunity forever, or even longer than a year. | | Also, incidentally, like 40-50% of American adults get the | flu vaccine. For people aged 65+ it's like 60-70%. That's | lower than the rates of COVID vaccinations, but not massively | lower (especially considering that the choice to get the flu | vaccine is not utilized as a signal of political group | membership). | dpedu wrote: | https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-07-21/ap | -... | | > BIDEN: "You're not going to get COVID if you have these | vaccinations." -- town hall. | macd wrote: | > aggressive dismissal and censorship of natural immunity | | The 'natural immunity' argument never makes sense if you | think about it. You're comparing the chances of a SECOND | covid infection of an unvaccinated person to a vaccinated | person's first infection. If you compare vaccinated vs | unvaccinated people and their chances of their first and | second covid infections, the vaccinated person wins in both | cases. | | Also, the first infection is the riskiest one. So going | through the riskiest infection to get immunity for a second, | less risky infection doesn't really make sense. | | If it's about whether someone who had covid already should | count as being vaccinated, maybe. But that also risks | incentivizing people catching covid on purpose instead of | taking the vaccine. | nradov wrote: | I would encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves | by getting vaccinated, but there were millions of people | who got infected before there were any vaccines available. | The vast majority of those recovered patients now have | durable cellular immunity which will usually protect them | against severe symptoms in subsequent reinfections. | | https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/ | [deleted] | lamontcg wrote: | > All true, but this was not what was sold to the general | public. | | Fauci was prepping everyone for vaccines with a 50% VE | against infection back in late 2020 before the results of the | phase 3 trials were produced. | | https://nypost.com/2020/08/07/fauci-says-covid-19-vaccine- | ma... | | > "The chances of it being 98 percent effective is not | great," Fauci, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task | Force, said at a Q&A with the Brown University School of | Public Health in Rhode Island, according to CNBC. | | > Instead, Fauci said, scientists are hoping for a vaccine | that is 75 percent effective -- but even a 50 or 60 percent | success rate would be considered a win. | | At the same time though we're still at >90% VE against severe | disease and hospitalization through the persistence of T-cell | immunity, but that just doesn't protect against initial | infection since T-cells take a few days to get going in | response to an infection. The vaccines can be largely | credited with most of the "milder" Omicron wave keeping the | infection-hospitalization-rate much lower. | | So who exactly "sold" these ideas about the vaccines to the | general public? Because it wasn't the leading public health | expert not the pandemic. | | How much did the public hear what it wanted to hear from | media sources and self-appointed twitter experts? | brandonmenc wrote: | Here is Fauci claiming the vaccines would result in herd | immunity: | | > "When polls said only about half of all Americans would | take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to | 75 percent," Fauci told the Times. "Then, when newer | surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, | 'I can nudge this up a bit,' so I went to 80, 85." | | It sure sounds like he was intentionally feeding us false | hope. | | https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/531611-fauci-herd- | immu... | standardUser wrote: | That was over a year ago, just before the Delta variant | was discovered. Since Delta became prevalent, there has | been little talk of herd immunity. | brandonmenc wrote: | The quote I posted was contemporaneous with the quote | from the parent comment, which claims Fauci prepped us | for 50% VE but he later claimed herd immunity was | possible which afaik implies far greater than 50% VE. | | The parent comment asked "who sold these ideas [that | vaccines prevent transmission] to the general public?" | From the quote I posted, it certainly seems like Fauci | did. | | Is there something I'm missing here? | standardUser wrote: | From above: "Instead, Fauci said, scientists are hoping | for a vaccine that is 75 percent effective -- but even a | 50 or 60 percent success rate would be considered a win." | | The number 50 was mentioned in passing, but it doesn't | sound like he was predicting any specific efficacy | number, only that it would not be as high as the rosy | 90%+ that was shown by some data. To me, parsing these | words is a little nit-picky, since we are talking about a | 2 year period during which multiple new and unexpected | strains have become dominant, and vast amounts of new | clinical data have been published. | brandonmenc wrote: | The claim that herd immunity is possible seems to imply | some base efficacy rate, the actual value of which I | agree is not important here. (Although maybe it doesn't. | I really don't know.) | | And it's true that the quotes come from early on in the | pandemic. | | However, the claim that it was randos on Twitter and not | the experts - at any time - who were purveying the idea | that the Covid vaccines would significantly prevent | transmission - unlike flu vaccines - is contradicted by | the quote from Fauci that I posted in response to the | question: "who sold these ideas to the public?" | lamontcg wrote: | Yeah the Delta variant is the only one that has really | mattered at all. | | That was something that literally nobody expected, not | even epidemiologists or virologists. Goodbye herd | immunity argument entirely. Everyone catches SARS-CoV-2 | sooner or later. | jahnu wrote: | > the aggressive dismissal and censorship of natural immunity | | who agressively dismissed this? | twofornone wrote: | Your friendly neighborhood fact checkers who suppress | virtually anything which could justify opposition to | vaccine mandates. Including news media. | HWR_14 wrote: | I angrily dismiss it. It's a nonverifiable bullshit excuse | to avoid a needle prick. Tests have some error, it's | unclear if you got a sufficient dose, spaced exposures are | better, the vaccine has shown better variant resilience, | choose your reasons. If you haven't gotten a vaccine, I | don't care if you've had COVID or not. Either way you | should get a shot. | | It might be different if there were any cost to it. But | there isn't. So invariably the people bitching about | natural immunity are just doing it to make a point, usually | political. | spookthesunset wrote: | > So invariably the people bitching about natural | immunity are just doing it to make a point, usually | political. | | Bodily autonomy is kind of an important topic, is it not? | Why should some asshole force me to get an unnecessary | medical procedure for a common respiratory virus I | already had in order to work or enter many places of | business? Why does the government get to force this | medical procedure on me? | | You can't argue for bodily autonomy and simultaneously | support vaccination passports and things like that. I | mean you can, but it makes your argument a whole lot | weaker. | jahnu wrote: | I agree people should get the shot. It's so amazingly | clear that it's effective at helping your immune system | to fight the virus quicker. | | But the CDC did announce that since delta people who | recovered from an infection have better immune response | than those who are only vaccinated. I asked the OP to | clarify because there is false information out there that | this fact is being suppressed "aggressively" when in fact | the CDC announced it! | Vrondi wrote: | So, not only did you not RTFA (which mentions lasting | natural immunity up through 450 days so far), you refuse | to believe any science that isn't suiting your political | agenda. You should not have the power to require anyone | to get an unnecessary medical treatment, and neither | should the government. | | https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research- | matters/lasting... | Vrondi wrote: | Every single company and policy maker who is requiring | vaccination without considering prior infection. | jahnu wrote: | Rubbish. The CDC advises all policy on this matter in the | US and they publicly published that infection and | recovery from Delta and subsequent variants gives a | stronger immune response than vaccination _alone_. | | It's trivial to find this information. | | https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cdc+natural+immunity&t=brave&ia | r=n... | lamontcg wrote: | Also many people fail to seroconvert after natural infection: | | https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042-f2 | | And the virus contains immune evasion genes like ORF8 which | evade humoral immunity responses by downregulating MHC-I: | | https://www.pnas.org/content/118/23/e2024202118 | | Nobody in their right mind would produce a vaccine with ORF8 | in it since it defeats the whole purpose of stimulating | T-cell and B-cell recognition. | | There's good reasons why natural immunity has been | downplayed. | cloutchaser wrote: | I think we should thank whatever god that so far it seems we | didn't end up with a Marek's disease type situation. I don't | know how much of a guarantee there was about this with covid, | but if the vaccine would have promoted a much more aggressive | virus we could have ended up in a situation where any | unvaccinated human will basically die (this happens in | chickens, see: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek%27s_disease). | | I sincerely hope the people who devised this vaccine know what | they are doing. As far as I know (according to a Katalin Kariko | inteview), the Sars-Cov-2 spike protein can't mutate too much | without limiting it's effectiveness, so therefore this vaccine | should theoretically work in the future. | | But that Marek's disease issue is very very scary to me. | edmundsauto wrote: | > I sincerely hope the people who devised this vaccine know | what they are doing. | | I think we all hope this. I can say that I sincerely believe | the people who devised the vaccine know a hell of a lot more | than just about anyone else on the planet. | | I don't trust experts in economics or socio-politics, but I | do trust experts in virology. Not to say their information is | perfect, but they know so much more than other people in a | field where expertise is connected to outcomes. | isoprophlex wrote: | Well... that was an unsettling read. | | > The evolution of Marek's disease due to vaccination has had | a profound effect on the poultry industry. All chickens | across the globe are now vaccinated against Marek's disease | (birds hatched in private flocks for laying or exhibition are | rarely vaccinated). Highly virulent strains have been | selected to the point that any chicken that is unvaccinated | will die if infected.[14] Other leaky vaccines are commonly | used in agriculture. One vaccine in particular is the vaccine | for avian influenza. Leaky vaccine use for avian influenza | can select for virulent strains.[15] | | Wonderful. Like H5N1, which has a 60% mortality in humans. | collegeburner wrote: | I remember it was discussed months ago on HN when early on | in vaccines roll out, somebody raised this concern but the | consensus was the vaccines mostly prevented infection so | not a big worry -\\_(tsu)_/- | toolz wrote: | > Somehow there's this idea that the Sars-CoV-2 vaccines need | to prevent infection or symptomatic disease | | There's a laundry list of public health officials (including | the CDC director, to give a sense of the authority on this | list) that said it would prevent infection and transmission. So | it really shouldn't surprise anyone that there were | expectations that the vaccine would do what public health | authorities said it would do. | jmckib wrote: | I'm confused. Weren't covid mRNA vaccines very effective at | preventing infection, even asymptomatic infection, against | delta and earlier variants? Only with omicron has the | effectiveness been significantly reduce, but not to zero. And | once we come up with a variant-specific vaccine, I would expect | the effectiveness to go up again. | draw_down wrote: | nsxwolf wrote: | Chicken pox vaccine works so well that no one gets a single | sore. | rbancroft wrote: | The bar is being set high for these vaccines because they are | being pushed and mandated with very exaggerated justification, | that they will end the pandemic. Rational people will agree | that there are significant benefits to the vaccine, but I don't | believe there is any evidence to suggest that these vaccines | will get us to an end state where the virus is no longer | circulating. | | If you want people to go along with a medical intervention, | state clearly the expected outcome and don't move the goalposts | when the data changes. If the data is strong, you most likely | wouldn't need mandates to convince people. | wildpeaks wrote: | Vaccines are like seat belts: they don't prevent car crashes, | but they help you survive them. | yetanotherath wrote: | Good one! | | Here's my version for pre-Covid vaccines: | | Vaccines are like seat belts: they prevent car crashes. | cma wrote: | Flu vaccines were always described as a pretty stochastic | thing and not a guarantee, though that may have been more | for uncertainty of which strain ended up dominant. | dTal wrote: | yetanotherath wrote: | headsoup wrote: | No they're more like airbags. The don't stop the accident | but they do make it immensely more survivable. | | It's amazing how much we've forgotten about how vaccines | and immunity work over the last couple of years. | yetanotherath wrote: | vkou wrote: | > The bar is being set high for these vaccines because they | are being pushed and mandated with very exaggerated | justification, that they will end the pandemic. | | At what point does the justification become 'exaggerated'? | | Is "This vaccine would have saved the lives of at least half | a million Americans in the past two years" not a good enough | justification? | | Is "End the pandemic" the _only_ set of goal posts for | vaccination that you will accept? | | Is not, is there a number of corpses that will be an | acceptable justification? How much higher does it have to | get? A million? Five? Fifty? | ineedasername wrote: | Vaccines have mostly eradicated other viruses. It's at least | possible we could do the same here if we didn't have such a | high level of resistance to getting vaccinated. | | It was only after (in the US) vaccination rates levelled off | and Delta came along that I began hearing people talk about | COVID as endemic. | | As for evidence, the continued efficacy of some vaccines | against variants suggests that, with high levels of adoption, | it's at least possible that after a few years of periodic | boosters and targeting emerging strains that we could have | reached an extremely low level of circulation. | | Also why wouldn't you move the goal posts when the data | changes? You get new data, you reevaluate prior assumptions | and models, and adjust accordingly. Is there a particular | instance you're referring to here? | mzvkxlcvd wrote: | >It's at least possible we could do the same here if we | didn't have such a high level of resistance to getting | vaccinated. | | why hasn't the flu been eradicated then? | | >It was only after (in the US) vaccination rates levelled | off and Delta came along that I began hearing people talk | about COVID as endemic. | | that's because most people have no idea what's going on. | experts were saying this was the likely outcome from the | begining | lkbm wrote: | There are likely numerous reasons, but the flu vaccine | update was generally around 40% for adults in the US[0]. | COVID is something like 70% and the OP is saying _if we | got even higher_ it might 've worked. (I suspect the | bigger issue was getting it distributed _globally_.) | | [0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/coverage-1920estim | ates.ht... | spookthesunset wrote: | > experts were saying this was the likely outcome from | the begining | | Well only _those other_ experts... the "kooks" and | "right wing" ones who "care more about the economy than | lives". The ones that got their reputations destroyed. | | The mainstream "experts" who are the ones we are only | supposed to ever listen to have never really made any of | this clear. If they did, we wouldn't even be having this | discussion. | headsoup wrote: | Seems we've forgotten all about how viruses work over the | last couple of years. | | Without a vaccine, viruses will still evolve to be less | virulent and more transmissible, leading to endemic status. | Within this a large number of the population gain natural | immunity also reducing spread. | | Vaccines, done poorly and too frequently, cause vaccine | escape where the immune system actually does a worse job | fighting infection and you get more virus (aside other | immune system issues). Which is exactly what we're seeing | now where a lot of places have more hospitalisation and | death _per capita_ in the vaccinated...two years into the | pandemic | | The most ignorant thing to think at the moment is 'just | need more jabbing.' | vkou wrote: | Incorrect. | | Smallpox has been around for thousands of years, and it | has not evolved to be less virulent. | somewhereoutth wrote: | More transmissible (specifically _fitter_ ) but not | necessarily, or even usually, less virulent. That is just | an urban myth sadly. | | Endemic just means 'regularly found', it does _not_ mean | mostly harmless! | | Vaccine escape refers to a virus evolving to avoid | vaccine induced immunity - and can happen with infection | induced immunity too. As it happens T cell immunity | against severe disease has been holding up just fine - | and has saved countless lives. If vaccine uptake was | universal, and we took a few sensible precautions, a | virus can be completely suppressed, like measles, so | wouldn't have a chance for escape mutations. | | Your per capita statement is plain wrong. | | Now you've been taught a few things about viruses, you | can stop spreading misinformation! | toolz wrote: | > Vaccines have mostly eradicated other viruses | | No, vaccines have eliminated exactly one human virus, | smallpox. | vanattab wrote: | We have never even come close to eradicating a respiratory | virus. There is a huge difference between a disease like | smallpox and covid19 | standardUser wrote: | A nice summary of human attempts to fully eradicate | pathogens - a feat we have accomplished precisely two | (2!) times. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_d | ise... | weaksauce wrote: | we have for all intents and purposes eradicated polio in | the areas that trust vaccines. it's in basically 2 places | now because of a few factors but a large one is that the | taliban doesn't trust them and think it's a sterilizing | campaign... pakistan, and afganistan. | omegaworks wrote: | Don't get it twisted: the CIA disguised its spies as | polio vaccine administrators[1]. We could have eradicated | the virus had the medical staff not been weaponized. | | 1. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- | way/2014/05/20/314231260... | Vrondi wrote: | When the primary message to the populace is that the | vaccine will stop the spread, then the vaccines do not stop | infection, large swathes of the public begin to feel lied | to. | f6v wrote: | Where can I read that message? I don't follow many news | channels. But I visited CDC website and their primary | message is that vaccines protect from getting seriously | ill. | recursive wrote: | Part of "serious illness" is being ill for longer. The | longer you're infected, the more people you're likely to | infect. How could vaccination _not_ reduce the spread? | tinus_hn wrote: | > that they will end the pandemic. | | And that they will prevent the appearance of mutated strains. | | Or the corollary that the appearance of mutated strains is to | be blamed on people being unvaccinated, either because they | don't have vaccines or don't want them. | amanaplanacanal wrote: | Where I live, the goalposts are exactly the same as they were | two years ago: don't let the health care system get | overwhelmed. I have no idea what your politicians have been | telling you. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | >the goalposts are exactly the same as they were two years | ago | | Shouldn't the politicians have made progress on this issue | over the course of two years? At what point is it | incompetence or corruption, if the billions being spent to | fight the pandemic make zero discernable impact on the most | critical issue? | standardUser wrote: | In most of the US life has been back to normal (give or | take) for a year or more. A lot of people are still | dying, but they are primarily higher risk individuals who | have chosen not to get the vaccines that have been free | and readily available for about a year. | | So in terms of goalposts, what exactly is your goal? I'd | like to see international travel normalize - it's maybe | one of the few restrictions I still feel is constraining | me - but there is little my government can do about that. | thfuran wrote: | >Shouldn't the politicians have made progress on this | issue over the course of two years? | | What do you mean? Should they should magically cause the | number of doctors and hospitals to double inside two | years? | | >if the billions being spent to fight the pandemic make | zero discernable impact on the most critical issue? | | What leads you to believe that measures such as pushing | vaccination haven't been having tremendous impact on that | issue? | JacobThreeThree wrote: | >What leads you to believe that measures such as pushing | vaccination haven't been having tremendous impact on that | issue? | | Do you believe that health care systems are currently | overwhelmed by COVID? | sanderjd wrote: | If the definition of "overwhelmed" is "past the point of | functioning at all" then no. But if the definition is "at | the point of functioning with an appreciably lower | quality of care", then definitely yes in many areas (less | so now, but more so a month ago). | edmundsauto wrote: | In the United States, they are currently paying traveling | nurses up to $10k per week. That is a 500% increase over | normal pay. It's so bad that the Texas legislature and | Congress are trying to limit interstate commerce and | impose wage caps. These gigs are not hard to come by - | anyone qualified can easily get them. | | If that doesn't say "understaffed and overwhelmed", I'm | not sure what evidence would. | eecc wrote: | You don't seem to have an "elective surgery" planned and | then cancelled and postponed indefinitely, haven't you. | Or a biopsy you cannot have for that worrisome mass down | there... all because your local facilities are at | capacity trying to keep no-vaxxers alive. | | Good for you | ineedasername wrote: | Mainly in areas where many people haven't been | vaccinated. Where I'm at, hospitals are fine. | spookthesunset wrote: | > Should they should magically cause the number of | doctors and hospitals to double inside two years? | | It's not even magic. It just needs to be done. Find a | way. There is an emergency. You don't just get to whine | and complain that it is too hard. Your solution doesn't | need to be perfect. Far from it, in fact. It just needs | to patch the issue so we don't need to do restrictions of | any kind. | | Anybody that claims it is impossible to double or even | quadruple healthcare capacity specifically for covid just | isn't being creative about it enough. It's not magic. You | just make it happen. You have almost infinite resources | to do it even up to and including relaxing licensing laws | or removing any other political or bureaucratic hurdle. | ineedasername wrote: | There's been plenty of progress on the issue of not | overwhelming the healthcare system. In the areas with | high vaccination rates. Most hospitalizations are by the | unvaccinated. In those cases where unvaccinated overwhelm | the system, that's not the politicians' fault except for | the ones also spreading anti-vaxer misinformation. | sanderjd wrote: | They did make a lot of progress on it: they supported the | extremely fast invention and roll out of vaccines that | accomplish these goals. People have refused to take those | vaccines and have refused to support politicians | mandating that people take them. It is thus outside the | hands of the politicians at this point, and in the hands | of society at large. | spookthesunset wrote: | > don't let the health care system get overwhelmed | | So add more capacity. It's an emergency. Find a way to add | it. Why are we into this two years and still have this | problem? It's inexcusable at this point. | umvi wrote: | > So add more capacity. It's an emergency. Find a way to | add it. | | We did. The government deployed a floating hospital | called the USNS Comfort to NYC to massively increase | hospital capacity and... it basically just sat there | unused for a month and then left after Governor Cuomo | said it wasn't needed. | nsxwolf wrote: | Where I live health systems are not overwhelmed. They were | never overwhelmed even before the vaccines. They are | occasionally under some pressure here and there like in a | bad flu season. But I have to show a vax card to eat in a | restaurant. | deeg wrote: | Is it possible your area is not overwhelmed because | vaccinations are required? Here's a medical system | overwhelmed in part because vaccination rate is (was) so | low: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/coronavirus/arti | cle25438... | nsxwolf wrote: | I believe the vaccines are a big part of why they're not | overwhelmed now during the Omicron wave. But we achieved | the bulk of our vaccination rate before mandates. | basisword wrote: | So...let everyone else get vaccinated and fix it, not me? | tinus_hn wrote: | What is the burden that would make this a problem? If the | typical narrative is to be believed the unvaccinated are | in a much worse position, facing the dangers of terrible | disease and death! | basisword wrote: | If there was no burden then the person would get | vaccinated. I personally don't believe there is a burden | but they must. | aqme28 wrote: | I'm struggling to understand your point, since we agree | that vaccines are working to prevent hospital overflow. | Is the issue the method of enforcement (show a card to | eat at a restaurant)? Because I can also agree that it's | a little roundabout. | jahnu wrote: | > I don't believe there is any evidence to suggest that these | vaccines will get us to an end state where the virus is no | longer circulating. | | Who is saying there is? | JacobThreeThree wrote: | President Biden said you can't get COVID if you get the | vaccine, implying it would stop the virus from circulating. | | >One last thing that's really important is: We're not in a | position where we think that any virus -- including the | Delta virus, which is much more transmissible and more | deadly in terms of non -- unvaccinated people -- the vi- -- | the various shots that people are getting now cover that. | They're -- you're okay. You're not going to -- you're not | going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations. | | https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches- | remarks/20... | clort wrote: | So anyway as I understand it we have a pretty technical | readership here on HN. | | Technically, the virus is called SARS-CoV-2 and the | disease is called COVID-19[1]. | | That does mean, technically, that due to vaccination the | virus can indeed circulate but that people are not | affected by the disease. Is that what Biden has said? | Certainly from the excerpt you posted, that seems to be | the case. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respirator | y_syndr... | JacobThreeThree wrote: | >That does mean, technically, that due to vaccination the | virus can indeed circulate but that people are not | affected by the disease. | | Are you suggesting that breakthrough cases of COVID don't | exist? | ineedasername wrote: | That's cherry picking a slip of the tongue: he was very | clear earlier in that post that you can still get | infected: | | > _If you're vaccinated, even if you do catch the | "virus," quote, unquote -- like people talk about it in | normal terms -- you're in overwhelm- -- not many people | do. If you do, you're not likely to get sick. You're | probably going to be symptomless. You're not going to be | in a position where you -- where your life is in danger._ | | So you can cherry pick and attribute an absurd | interpretation while ignoring everything else he said, or | go for the reasonable view that he knows infection is | still possible based on multiple other points in the | conversation. The man isn't a great speaker, but | nonetheless it's inappropriate to choose the worst | possible interpretation of something when context | contradicts that interpretation. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | It's one example of many that could have been chosen, and | needs no interpretation, his words stand on their own. | The fact that there are incoherencies in his various | statements is not relevant. | ineedasername wrote: | >one example of many | | Then show me the many examples where he's said that | vaccines are perfect proof against infection. Because now | you're moving the goal posts as your point is refuted by | context, so you expand to more vague ad hominem attack | against him. The burden of evidence is on you to support | that, and to do so with more than brief out of context | soundbites. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | >out of context soundbites | | A link to the entire transcript of an event is an "out of | context sondbite"? You're clearly not discussing in good | faith. | ineedasername wrote: | Review your comment. You link to the entire transcript | yet use only a single out of context quote. You chose, | from a long transcript a single out of context sound | bite. My accusation stands. _I was the one_ who pointed | out that you ignored the rest of the context that | contradicted you. | | So there you are-- posting an article, maybe failing to | read it or more likely deciding to ignore most of it, and | then accuse _me_ of discussing in bad faith? That is | quite brazen, accusing me of the exact thing you are | doing, A poor, failed attempt at a diversionary tactic to | distract from your avoidance of the question. | zmmmmm wrote: | technically, COVID is the disease and SARS-COV-2 is the | virus. So the virus can circulate with only a very small | fraction of people getting COVID if the vaccines are | highly effective. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | I'm not sure what you're technically proving, but the | quote said nothing about "small fraction of people", it | was categorical. | zmmmmm wrote: | refuting your statement: | | > you can't get COVID if you get the vaccine, implying it | would stop the virus from circulating. | | It is entirely possibly that vaccination can leave a | virus circulating while still preventing disease. Whether | it does in this specific case is something you could | debate, but you can't draw that implication stand alone. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | >It is entirely possibly that vaccination can leave a | virus circulating while still preventing disease. Whether | it does in this specific case is something you could | debate | | But breakthrough cases of the COVID disease do occur in | this specific case. | | What is the relevance of a hypothetical alternative | scenario where breakthrough cases don't exist? | closeparen wrote: | Hopes are high because if they don't prevent spread, and | breakthrough cases or effects on the unvaccinated/ineligible | are bad enough, then there's no off-ramp for NPIs. | triceratops wrote: | > If the data is strong, you most likely wouldn't need | mandates to convince people. | | That's an awfully naive and rosy view of "people". | raz32dust wrote: | What would it take for you to accept that people should get | vaccinated by law? Or do you think it should just not be | mandated ever? | nameisname wrote: | You do not have to get your child vaccinated. If they're | going to mandate vaccines, why haven't they done it | already? What would have had to change before the pandemic | for you to want them to be mandated? | mjevans wrote: | We already have these requirements for other infectious | diseases as well as health codes that cover clothing and | sometimes protective equipment and procedure requirements | for workers and customers in public settings. | | I liken masks to the requirement to have at least minimal | clothing on. Sanitation is the same (wash your hands, | here's how to scrub for 30 seconds). | arrrg wrote: | That's not the end state anyone who knows anything about this | virus is expecting or aiming at at the moment. And it hasn't | been for months and months. | | Universal vaccination can make the transition of this virus | from pandemic to endemic much more pleasant. In terms of | deaths, serious cases (with potential long term effects), but | also in terms of smoothing out hospital and infrastructure | load. | | In that respect the vaccines are an awesomely effective tool | that can greatly reduce suffering with minimal or no real | downsides. | | Side note: an omicron infection is no replacement for the | vaccination. Omicron doesn't confer great immunity against | delta and other, "older" virus variants which are still out | there, potentially ready to come back next winter. | inglor_cz wrote: | "Omicron doesn't confer great immunity against delta" | | It is my impression that it actually does, and that is why | Delta was outcompeted so fast. If it didn't, both strains | would likely co-circulate together. | LASR wrote: | Outcompeting is an immediate association between the two | variants. Conferring x-variant immunity means that once | you've recovered from one, you will have _lasting_ | immunity to other variants. | | There is a possibility that the large majority of the | population has been infected with omicron, and recovered. | But then delta could come in at that point and produce | another wave. At this time, the body would be much more | successful at holding off omicron, but maybe not so much | with delta. | | So purely from the fractions of current infections, you | cannot draw conclusions about x-variant immunity. | andai wrote: | Does anyone know where I can find graphs that show the % | of infections that each variant represents over time? | nradov wrote: | The CDC publishes weekly data on variant percentages. | | https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant- | proportion... | inglor_cz wrote: | I used to see them all the time on Reddit in the | r/Coronavirus subreddit. | | Searching very quickly, I found this from Dec 21, 2021: | | https://www.statnews.com/wp- | content/uploads/2021/12/c7efM-om... | YZF wrote: | BC, Canada: http://www.bccdc.ca/Health-Info- | Site/Documents/VoC/VoC_Weekl... | roenxi wrote: | Why should I care what "anyone who knows anything about | this virus" is expecting? The people writing the policies | around vaccination are the ones who matter. | | There have been mass firings on the basis that this | vaccination will end the pandemic and people who don't get | vaccinated are actively harming everyone else. The truth of | that claim is far too murky to justify the agressive | policies that are being used to force people to get | vacinated. Policies which, I note, appear to be deploy what | are effectively human rights violations. These are not | policieis that should be used. The policy response is what | is important here. | aqme28 wrote: | > people who don't get vaccinated are actively harming | everyone else. | | Aren't they? Hospitals are overflowing and elective | procedures cancelled due entirely to people refusing to | get vaccinated. | thrown939181 wrote: | headsoup wrote: | No they're not. | | A) there's more vaccinated in hospital _per capita_ of | late. Why aren 't we demanding lockdowns again instead of | just blaming the "unvaxxed" still | | B) the unvaxxed still aren't allowed into many places, | yet the virus spreads readily | | C) Why, rather than just "argh unvaxxed lepers!" are we | not guiding better health and wellbeing instead? | | D) a covid case is counted when people are in hospital | for any other reason and catch it | | E) you are counted as unvaxxed during the two week window | after getting vaccinated, which is exactly when your | immune system is weaker and succeptible to catching a bad | case of covid. Interesting how hard it is to find this | data, you'd think it would be strongly monitored | lkbm wrote: | > A) there's more vaccinated in hospital per capita of | late. Why aren't we demanding lockdowns again instead of | just blaming the "unvaxxed" still | | Do you have a source for this. This directly conflicts | the data I've been seeing. e.g.: https://www1.nyc.gov/sit | e/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page#daily -- weekly | hospitalizations peaking at 92/100k for vaccinated vs. | 772/100k for unvaccinated. | arrrg wrote: | People who are not vaccinate are definitely behaving in a | deeply antisocial way and enforcing vaccines is very much | a justified policy in my eyes, even if "only" to smooth | over the transition from pandemic to endemic. | | To my eyes vaccine mandates are not, in general, human | rights violations. They just are not. | yetanotherath wrote: | thrown939181 wrote: | spookthesunset wrote: | > To my eyes vaccine mandates are not, in general, human | rights violations. They just are not. | | Are they really though? If vaccines work so damn great | why do I still need to wear a mask in a place where | everybody is vaccinated? And why did Ontario shut down | most of the places that required proof of vaccine during | this omicron wave? Shouldn't those places be exempt from | shutdowns? | | If proof of vaccine still requires masking and | shutdowns... maybe it isn't a really an effective policy? | MagnumOpus wrote: | If stop signs and traffic lights work so dann well why am | I being forced to wear a seat belt? If I require a | seatbelt even after taking a drivers licence exam, maybe | following traffic rules isn't really an effective policy? | | One would think that on this forum of all places, people | would understand the concept of defence-in-depth. | Furrfu... | spookthesunset wrote: | Vaccines are both the seat belt and the airbags. Masks? | Those aren't even close. They are more like rain dances | or amulets. | | Besides why does the government get to decide if a | vaccinated person has to wear a mask? Makes no sense. | | You can add as many layers of defense as you want. Don't | force me to. I'm boosted. I could care less about Covid. | If I still have to wear a mask post shot, why the hell | did I even bother? | nsxwolf wrote: | Tie them down and forcibly inject them then. Have some | courage. Quit pussy footing around with economic threats | and shaming. | spankalee wrote: | Why? | nsxwolf wrote: | Because morally it's the same thing, and it would get | done faster and more effectively. | jahnu wrote: | Please define what you mean by ending the pandemic. | | > human rights violations. | | Which ones? | alexandre_m wrote: | While we can argue about what are the boundaries for | human rights in 1st world countries, it's important to | know there have been some very strict and harsh policies | regarding Covid in different parts of the world. | | In Quebec where I live, the unvaccinated are now barred | from entry in large retail stores like Walmart and | Costco. If you don't have your vaccine passport with you | that shows you're vaccinated in these places, then you | can't enter, even for groceries. | | There was curfew in place that prevented everyone from | being outside during the evenings and nights for the most | part of January. | | On top of that, the prime minister said publicly in the | media that the unvaccinated would start paying an | additional tax, even though health care is supposed to be | free and accessible for everyone here. The government | just backtracked about this the last couple of days. | | A lot of these policies are extreme and have shown to be | completely incoherent and not backed by science, given | what we know about the virus since the last couple of | months. | roenxi wrote: | I have no idea what ending the pandemic means. It is a | stupid wooly phrase with multiple meanings, often | conflicting. That is why I'm unhappy about the policies | used to achieve it - whatever it is. | | > Which ones? | | Well, looking at a relevant wiki article [0] I'd say the | policies I know best (Australia) are bumping up against | the articles dealing with freedom of movement, big chunks | of articles 18-21 (underlining peaceful association a few | time), I'd argue 22-27 - I forget where 'right to earn a | living' is but I'm pretty confident it is in thge UDHR | somewhere and that is probably in 22-27. | | At some point (and 2 years is past that point) these | philosophical issues like human rights start to matter. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_o | f_Human... | jahnu wrote: | Why would you set up a straw man that you don't even know | the definition of yourself? | | For me ending the pandemic is a return to regular life | and a health care system that is no longer stretched | beyond typical capacity. This can be achieved by many | outcomes but the most likely one given the state of the | world today is getting everyone to take the safe and | effective vaccine for as long as necessary. | ceejayoz wrote: | As with every document of this nature, some of the rights | outlined may conflict with each other. You wind up having | to reconcile those conflicts. | | For example, Article 29: | | > Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the | free and full development of his personality is possible. | | > In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone | shall be subject only to such limitations as are | determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due | recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of | others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, | public order and the general welfare in a democratic | society. | | It's pretty easy to see vaccination and other public | health measures as one of these scenarios. | | "Articles 28-30 establish... the areas in which the | rights of the individual cannot be applied, the duty of | the individual to society..." | headsoup wrote: | > Minimal to no real downsides | | Yet... Guess we have up caring about full research and | monitoring a couple of years ago. | | We're even at the point where we want to vaccinate our | small children because 'it's marginally better than | nothing' ignoring that side effects are also marginally | more than nothing and we have very little good long term | data. | yetanotherath wrote: | tshaddox wrote: | Haven't the older vaccines been mandated for much longer? | JacobThreeThree wrote: | There's never been a vaccine that was mandated in order to | conduct basic commerce. | ineedasername wrote: | Many jobs require vaccinations. In my state (and many | others) college students are required to have an MMR | vaccine to attend school. Students living in residence | halls also need a hepatitis vaccine. | | Vaccines have long been required in a variety of | environments. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | Conducting basic commerce is not the same thing as some | jobs having specific job requirements. | | Many things have been done in the past. Just because | something was done in the past, that doesn't | automatically make it the right thing to do. | ineedasername wrote: | I'm not talking about the past, I'm talking about now. | Schools require vaccines, and required them pre-covid, | and that has been upheld as constitutional. (In the US) | From the perspective of law, it is not wrong. YMMV in | other countries. | | What are your goalposts here on "basic commerce"? School | and many jobs seem like they should be included in that, | which refutes your original comment on the topic of | vaccine mandates for basic commerce not having precedent. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | There's never been mandates that bar you from entering | stores to conduct commerce, until now. | danielsju6 wrote: | Smallpox no? I mean it was criminal to not be vaccinated | in many places and upheld by courts. Seems a stronger | mandate to me. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | If you're referring to Jacobson v. Massachusetts, that | case was about whether the state has a right to impose a | fine on someone who refused to be vaccinated. A fine is | very different than being barred from conducting | commerce. | danielsju6 wrote: | In several states it was a criminal charge that could see | you fined and/or imprisoned. Having a criminal record | bars you from employment and commerce opportunities no? | | I know wearing a mask and taking the bare minimum to try | to control a pandemic that has killed millions infringes | on YOUR PRECIOUS FREEDOM but it seems a reasonable trade | off for the state. | | Also what restrictions to basic commerce are you facing? | That you can't go get wasted in a bar? Give us a break. | spookthesunset wrote: | Prior to this pandemic, I've never needed to reveal private | medical history to go to a kindergartener's birthday party | at a venue. Have you? | | (and the kicker was we all still needed masks anyway... | "science"!) | [deleted] | tomp wrote: | _> Somehow there 's this idea that the Sars-CoV-2 vaccines need | to prevent infection or symptomatic disease but that is an | incredibly high bar that no respiratory viral vaccine has ever | met._ | | So what you're saying that Fauci, Pfizer etc. weren't just | wrong about the vaccine ("if you get it you won't get sick" | a.k.a. "science has changed as we've learned more facts") but | actively lied about it (after all, they of all people should | know that no other vaccine succeeded in that for respiratory | viruses). | kodah wrote: | I don't think we can use terms like "lie" with respect to the | pandemic yet, because full post-facto analysis is not done | yet. That analysis isn't just on people's words, it's on | their relationships to other people, entities, etc... You | also have to determine what they "know" during a given time. | I'm fully supportive of holding government officials | accountable, especially if they've enacted their own agenda, | but there's a time and place for such things as well as a | path to proving them. | nradov wrote: | If you look back at the actual press releases and research | studies that Pfizer and BioNTech published about their | Comirnaty vaccine, they never specifically claimed that it | would reliably prevent infection. It was the politicians like | Fauci who made false claims not backed by reliable science. | | (And to be clear, I still recommend that everyone eligible | get vaccinated as it's fairly effective at preventing severe | symptoms.) | Im_your_dada wrote: | pessimizer wrote: | Back before we discovered viruses, nobody died from them (that | we knew of.) | Karawebnetwork wrote: | Homo sapiens lived alongside an estimated eight now-extinct | species of humans. There were an unknown number of previous | species before that. | | They are all extinct. | | To answer your question, the majority did not. | JJMcJ wrote: | Some didn't make it. | | Half died before the age of 5, just as an example of what | "some" means. | Supermancho wrote: | > Interesting fact that since cancer research started the | deaths from cancer went up by 1000%. | | Same could be said of any deadly and widespread disease. | Tuberculosis, COVID, etc. This is the result of | expediency+improved testing, not some reverse causation. | steveylang wrote: | I'll take my chances with modern science and medicine, thank | you (even with some significant ambiguities and occasional | missteps (especially WRT our environment.) | | How pre historic humans survived is like how many species | survive today- have a brood or litter of 10, if 3 or 4 make it | to breeding age to continue your line you've done well! | andrewclunn wrote: | > The immune response after vaccination more or less mimics what | happens after infection, with one major difference. In a SARS- | CoV-2 infection, the immune system sees the whole virus. The most | effective vaccines, however, are using just one viral protein to | elicit a response: spike. And whether antibody levels will also | plateau after vaccination isn't yet clear. Wherry and his | colleagues analysed immune responses in 61 people for 6 months | after their first shot, finding that antibody levels peaked about | a week after the second shot and then fell quickly for a couple | of months. After that, they declined more slowly. | | Clearly this article's author is a conspiracy theorist and should | be censored for spreading misinformation. | kenjackson wrote: | What? This has been well established in the scientific | community for a while. No conspiracy at all here. | Izkata wrote: | It's called sarcasm. Any acknowledgement of natural immunity | has been deemed unscientific conspiracy theory in the | mainstream in the US for the past year, only accepting | vaccination as a solution. | kenjackson wrote: | That doesn't make sense. A major discussion in the public | since Covid caught on was about herd immunity -- and that | infection would drive some of this. Maybe the concern is | that we aren't inclusive of natural immunity in our | policies. But that is purely an issue of bureaucratic | process (for example, there should be no false positives in | administering a vaccine) and incentives (we don't want | people to try to get infected since infected people can | transmit the virus), not any statement about the science | related to natural immunity. | freebuju wrote: | To be fair, the herd immunity idea was floated around | quite early in beginning of the pandemic. But it was | quickly thrown out when governments saw the infection | rates and deaths spike up. Ever since, vaccination has | been the dominant (hammer) solution for the virus. | (Vaccination) Has been the background track for this | pandemic and still is to date. Natural immunity is only | coming back because Omicron is not as deadly as the | previous strains. It was never an option before. | kenjackson wrote: | Exactly. The incentives didn't line up for natural | immunity as a course for herd immunity. It wasn't about | the science, but policy. And it was never an argument | about the science (besides science trying to understand | the delta between different types of immunity, including | different types of vaccines and natural immunity). That's | why I'm perplexed about the "conspiracy" talk. No more | than there's a conspiracy about wine consumption in the | US. | Izkata wrote: | It doesn't make sense if you are actually following the | science and not The Science like politicians are. Over | 2021, natural immunity was dropped so hard in the US that | the vaccine passports/requirements popping up here make | no allowances for recovery from covid - it's vaccination | or nothing. | hdjjhhvvhga wrote: | I remember I read Randall Munroe's What If to my daughter a | few years ago and there was a chapter about the common | cold. The conclusion was was that eliminating it was | impractical for economic reasons - we couldn't have | survived a global lockdown, and the virus mutates too fast | to create an efficient vaccine. It felt a bit surreal | seeing testing the scenarios described by Munroe in | practice. | gnerkus wrote: | I think OP was being sarcastic. | dang wrote: | Please don't post this sort of flamewar comment to HN, | regardless of what your views are or how right you feel they | are. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | alexk307 wrote: | how so? | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-03 23:01 UTC)